One irony is that the humanities are particularly good at revealing the incommensurability of ideas like "value." Economic value (a job), affective value (love), and social value (education) can't be made commensurate, can't be calculated against each other with the same measure.

Flaubert to Colet, in 1851 (while writing Madame Bovary): “I maintain, however, that *ideas* are action. It is more difficult to hold the reader’s interest with them, I know, but this is a problem for style to solve. I now have fifty pages in a row without a single event.”

Nominations for the 2023 Vermont Book Awards are now open to all! Nominate your books of excellent literary merit published by Vermont authors in 2023 here: vermonthumanities.org/about-vermont-…

Hey dear readers and writers! Vermont Book Award nominations are open to everyone for the next week or so. Please nominate your favorite book by a Vermont author published in 2023. Message me with questions! Happy to answer. Or here's the nomination form: vthumanities.wufoo.com/forms/vermont-…

Next Tuesday evening, at Still North Books, I get to chat about books with Peter Orner. I'm so looking forward to our conversation! If you're in Hanover, NH, I'd love to see you.

Short-story writers, the Flannery O'Connor Award opens for submissions April 1! The wonderful Lori Ostlund, series editor, asked past judges: What did you learn from reading so many collections in such a short period? (Below is my reply!)

So what I had believed to be nothing to me was simply my entire life. How ignorant one is of oneself.

The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is open for submissions! By May 31, send us your collections of 40,000 to 75,000 wds. Carol Roh Spaulding Jenny Shank Ghassan Zeineddine @arugulaada @UGAPress #shortstories #submit ugapress.org/series/flanner…

Yesssss. (I say this as a fiction writer and a singer with basically a two-octave range....)

Count me among the can't-sleep-we're-so-excited crowd. Ghosts! I've joined the Conjunctions team and can't wait to read your spooky best.

Hey, it's May 1st, which means you have one more month to submit your story collections to the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction! @UGAPress #shortstory ugapress.org/series/flanner…

Every. Damn. Charge. #TrumpGuilty

So happy to have a story in the latest issue of Switchyard! Thrilling to see the beautiful design and have my fiction alongside all this great work. The writing here is from the novel I’m working on: seeing it in print is such a lift.

A cartoon by Meredith Southard. #NewYorkerCartoons See more cartoons from this week’s issue: nyer.cm/WqBEuGd

And no list could hold what I wanted, for what I wanted was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together – radiant, everlasting. - Lives of Girls and Women

March 1933 The Enabling Act becomes law in Germany, giving the chief executive power enforce his own laws without checks and balances. The passing of the Act marked the formal transition from democratic republic to totalitarian dictatorship. 6 months later, it was a 1 party state

These are text messages, exactly as they were written and sent, between a mother and her two daughters during yesterday’s shooting at Apalachee High School. The family shared the texts with The Washington Post. Both daughters were unharmed and now safe.

Cats! Dogs! Geese! Laura Loomer! Look, now he’s attacking Taylor! Like the last season before a show gets canceled for getting over-the-top and, at the same time, boring. This election is about jobs, wages, climate, health care, abortion. Not his show. Your life.

Today in the grocery store parking lot, and I've decided it's a good omen. I imagine the owner driving this car around only Election Day the last forty years, signaling longstanding political hope. Well, here's hoping!