Gabriel Bump

A Ramble on Liberty In the past year or so, I’ve read too much about the Revolutionary Era.

Some of my messy thoughts on America.
open.substack.com/pub/gabrielb...

There are no rules for writing, but you do have to read. —Carmen Maria Machado, on her advice for writers.

Stack of library books: -Everywhere YouDont Belong, Gabriel Bump -Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki -Evil Eye, Etaf Rum -Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath -Horse, Geraldine Brooks -The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

Friday library #BookHaul!

@gabrielbump.bsky.social
@rykaaoki.bsky.social
@erinmorgenstern.bsky.social
Etaf Rum, Sylvia Plath, Geraldine Brooks

LitFic, Sci-fi, Poetry, Historical Fiction, & Fantasy - another good reading week ahead

#BookSky #BookHaul #SFFH
#WhatAreYouReading 📚💙

Why It’s So Hard To Find Small Press Books And what you can do about it.

Great read on why the NEA termination is only the next thing in a long line of blows that have made the book ecosystem so hostile to small/nonprofit publishers.

www.persuasion.community/p/why-its-so...

Horrible team deserves* or maybe World Series Winners!

Opening Day, so good reminder to subscribe to @soxmachine.com and get better coverage and writing than this horrible deserves.

Last Friday afternoon, I got my first message from Ryan Daniels, public affairs manager of strategic response at Meta. When I declined his invitation to talk by phone, he wrote back again: “I was wondering if the Washington Post was going to write a review about a book that’s coming out this upcoming week on Meta. Do you have a couple minutes to chat?” So, I called. Daniels said, “We don’t have the book,” but the company had prepared “preliminary statements” about it. Although he didn’t share those with me, he wrote to me again on Saturday and again on Monday trying to get information about our review plans. (In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me.)

Yesterday, when I reached out to Daniels for a response from Meta, he wrote back: “Do you plan to write something about it, or are you just curious how we’re responding?” It’s always about controlling the narrative. But apparently, that’s not going so well. This morning, “Careless People” is No. 3 on Amazon. I know this is a long item, the longest I’ve ever written for the Book Club newsletter. But when one of the world’s most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book — amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this — it’s time to pull out all the stops.

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People":

"In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

HUGE NEWS from our friends at @storystudiochicago.bsky.social:

StoryBoard Conference & Festival is coming, combining an intimate writing intensive & one of the most exciting writing festivals of the year into one unforgettable week!

The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists

With the Tin House news, I’ll just share my favorite indies: Charco Press, Dalkey, NYRB, Hub City, Transit, Fitzcarraldo, Archipelago, and Blair. All consistently putting out brave and great work.

Damn. Tin House. Please keep supporting independent presses. They are continually putting out the most interesting stuff.

Zando Acquires Tin House The respected literary press, founded in 2002, will become an imprint of the expanding independent publisher Zando, which was launched by former Crown publisher Molly Stern in 2020.

Wow. Huh. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Free Mahmoud.

hey, can one of the reasonable centrist writers condescendingly explain to me again that it is overblown to call these people segregationists?

Draft done. ☃️

"Work your ass off to change the language & dont ever get famous."
– Bernadette Mayer, Experiments

Also notes: "The applicant shall maintain records of its compliance and submission for three (3) years. The applicant will compile, maintain and permit access to records as required by applicable regulations, guidelines or other directives."

The applicant will not operate any programs promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws, in accordance with Executive Order No. 14173. The applicant understands that federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology, pursuant to Executive Order No. 14168, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

Latest NEA grant update... Wonder when the "free speech absolutist" crowd will deign to chime in. www.arts.gov/grants/legal...

This dystopian NEA news is a good reminder of how much we need independent publishers, sad reminder of how few remain.

If people thought the first Trump administration led to bad self-righteous art, wait until we get state-sponsored Ayn Rand knockoffs.

Didn’t see it coming, but Trayvon turning 30 today might be my breaking point.

Finishing up Libra by DeLillo now. Think he’s one of those writers I have to read when I’m drafting a novel. It’s a short list. Hannah, Trevor, Tolstoy. Of course, others get in, but these always come back somehow. Do other people work this way?

Watching the White Sox is not so fun. But writing about the White Sox for this year’s BP was a dream come true.

Feels like I’m writing “under pressure” for the first time. I know there’s more expectations on this next book. A lot of my process, recently, has been around appreciating the pressure while totally ignoring it, thinking it’s silly, and having fun lol.

Taking free lunches away from kids isn’t teaching them, or their parents, about “accountability” or “the way things work”. Kids who need free lunches already know the world is unfair and cruel. These evil people are just making them starve.

Thinking a lot about my last book, wondering if I didn’t take the idea of utopia seriously enough. But I feel some artistic validation. Sometimes processing society’s awful sadness is the major step forward. How do we find the strength to try for a better world? That’s my fascination.

Whole room standing and applauding because they can say slurs at work again.

Pretty crazy to play “Battle Hymn of The Republic” surrounded by minor and major fascists, right before you end birthright citizenship.

Before we listen to this evil speech from a hateful man, let’s remember MLK’s final sermon, known as the “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech, delivered hours before his death. A beautiful call to collective action and mortality. How lucky we are, to live in this moment, to march, to fight.

The semester starts in six days. I can’t find my office keys. Don’t know where I last saw them. Here we go.