Max Watman

Headshot of writer Max Watman smiling and looking to the left in front of a blue sky. He is wearing circular glasses and a plaid shirt. Above his head, in red bubble letters is "PUB DAY!" The cover of his new book, TOMORROW, THE WAR, is in the bottom right corner. The cover has a gray background with a small bird in the center of red text.

Happy publication day to TOMORROW, THE WAR by COURAGE to WRITE Grantee @maxwatman.bsky.social, published by Heresy Press!

"At once a frontier odyssey & liberation narrative, TOMORROW, THE WAR stands as a portrait of resilience in the face of history’s cruelty." degrootfoundation.org/tomorrow-the...

I’m so excited to send it out into the world!

Graphic of author Max Watman's headshot, where he is in front of a blue sky smiling and looking to the left in a plaid shirt with glasses and a beard. The cover of his upcoming novel, "Tomorrow, the War" is to the left. The cover has a grey background with large red text and a perched bird.

Coming 1/6/26! COURAGE to WRITE grantee Max Watman's novel, TOMORROW, THE WAR will be published by Heresy Press. @maxwatman.bsky.social

Perfect for fans of historical fiction, this novel is a gripping tale of survival, rebellion, chutzpah, and redemption.

degrootfoundation.org/tomorrow-the...

We are in an age of big kitsch (which goes hand in hand with fascism): received wisdom, worn out tropes, no ambiguity. Since AI isn’t generative on its own, it’s the ultimate kitsch production machine. I guess there’s a few ways to look at that? Maybe Art is safe, but we aren’t?

Damn. One of mine is in there.

We call it synchrotracking! It’s the best!

At which point you gotta ask yourself: “Prohibited by whom?”

At which point I would say that legality has been, historically, a poor judge of what’s right. One should be just, not obedient. (And I certainly don’t mean to belabor this. It’s interesting to me, too.)

Wouldn’t it be entirely situational? Doesn’t matter if it’s illicit. Definitely matters if you’re on parole, or if you are, concurrently, breaking another law: your van is full of moonshine, don’t speed. But that’s self preservation—maybe different than what you’re after.

Not a law professor either, but I would say—with backup from Thoreau and Arendt—that one has a duty to break an immoral law. As George Stranahan said to me: “if it’s a dumb law, you gotta break it.”

A mistake I see everywhere! (Downside to the popularization/education of psych, I guess?) I teach that you can remember it if you remember that you can diss, or distance yourself from a shitty associate—disassociate.

Patricia Lockwood wrote wonderfully on “Bear” in the LRB. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Whenever I meet someone who has that fresh enthusiasm for cocktails, it takes me a breath to back off from remembering the citrus driven indigestion of Tales, and remember, instead, how good drinks like that one are.

Repost with a cool B&W image of you.

Here’s me, unhinged late-night in the writing shed, probably 10 years ago.

Eventually it will!

Thank you.

I’m sorry, but can someone explain to me what started the copyright dust up? Maybe what the salient point is?

At the top of the page, the logo of The Daily Tar Heel. The rest of the page is a stream of block letters, getting smaller as it goes down the page, that reads: ARE YOU SAFE?WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU ALONE? GUYS I'M SO FUCKING SCARED. HEY- COME ON SWEETHEART- I NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ANY GUNSHOTS? PLEASE STAY SAFE. BARRICADE THE DOOR OR IF YOU THINK YOU CAN RUN AND GET TO A PLACE THAT CAN LOCK DO SO. MY TEACHER IS ACTING LIKE NOTHING IS HAPPENING AND I'M LOWKEY FREAKING OUT. I WISH THESE NEVER HAPPENED. STAY CALM AND SAFE -WE LOVEYOU. IAM SO SORRY THIS IS HAPPENING. 1 LOVE YOU. WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING? MULTIPLE VOICES AND LOUD BANGING. I'M IN CLASS EVERYONE IS LOSING IT PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY SHAKING. STILL GOING ON AND COMING CLOSER, HOPING IT'S COPS. I'M GONNA FUCKING THROW UP. KINDA WISH I HAD SOMEONE ELSE HERE THOUGH. PLEASE PRAY FOR US. PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND KEEP YOUR DOORS LOCKED OR FORTIFIED. LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH. ARE YOU HOME? SOMEONE IS ALREADY SHOT.

Powerful front page of tomorrow's edition of The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper. From text messages sent and received by UNC students yesterday.

Yuck

Okay not to be an idiot or
whatever, but his stage name is Alice? He wears tons of makeup? He made a whole career out of scaring the normies? WTF?

Exactly

Today, for the first time in ~25 years of freelancing, I spiked my own piece—elusive, resistant sources, no fun, no traction. I love reporting, but I did not love this bullshit. It would be wrong of me to recommend this path, but it felt good to hit the bricks.

By section (philosophy, outdoors, the low life, horse racing, cooking, etc) and then the big sections (fiction, cooking) are organized by levels of affection with eye level being the highest honor.

And, speaking as a former short-order griddle cook, if you say “fried” in certain old school settings there’s a very good chance you’ll get an egg griddled on both sides, broken yolk, cooked firm.

Over easy is often pulled off by flipping sunny eggs onto the plate.