katie cusumano

I interviewed Alysa Liu in 2021 for NYT Kids and have been fascinated by her career arc ever since — loved this appraisal of how she got here

Le Grand K in Saint-Cloud The former global standard for the exact mass of one kilogram sits under lock and key outside Paris.

learned today that the kilogram was, until 2019, a cylinder of metal housed under two bell jars in a locked vault outside of paris. the kg was an actual object called le grand k. other countries had to borrow it to figure out how much a kilogram weighed. www.atlasobscura.com/places/le-gr...

Announcing the 2026 Oregon Literary Fellowships Announcing the 2025 Oregon Literary Fellowships

a banner year for oregon literary fellowships: brilliant friends @jeremyklemin.bsky.social @devonfredericksen.bsky.social @jasonsepac.bsky.social all fellows in the same class?? literary-arts.org/2026/02/olf-...

I love the olympics, the two weeks during which I become the world's leading expert in every Sport that exists, I love Sport

right now, snowpack in the northwest is the lowest it's been since 1981. we're about a week out from a new record. we need rain badly — what snow there is on the ground isn't saturated — but we need snow even more.

yes 100%

omg can’t wait for this issue to come in 😍

I'll follow Byard down any rabbit hole, but ESPECIALLY this one. a must-read!

who is trustworthy? a dentist, naturally

APPROVED WITNESSES (MUST BE PRACTICING): School Principal/Vice Principal, Teacher/Lecturer, School Secretary, Pre-School Manager/Montessori Teacher, Medical Doctor, Dentist, Vet, Nurse, Physiotherapist, Speech Therapist, Pharmacist, Manager/Assistant Manager of Bank/Credit Union, Member of An Garda Siochána/Police Officer, Elected Public Representative, Commissioner for Oaths/Notary Public, Peace Commissioner, Engineer, Lawyer, Accountant, Member of the Clergy.

this list of "approved witnesses" on the application for my irish passport says a lot about the types of jobs the irish people value... "speech therapist" and "engineer" alongside the usual suspects "cop" and "lawyer"

pitching another one of these stay tuned

Lit Hub Daily: January 12, 2026 Get your literary film and TV fix for 2026 with these upcoming adaptations, documentaries, and more! | Lit Hub Film Elizabeth Chamblee Burch exposes the scumbags behind shady doctors and telemarket…

@ninaperrotta.bsky.social alerted me that gowanus canal essay made the lit hub daily newsletter yesterday 😭 lithub.com/lit-hub-dail...

one thing about me is I will always find a way to make changes that an editor did not ask for and just hope they make the thing better

huge thanks to @cherilucasrowlands.com for citing my essay in this week's Longreads Top 5: "Like the fish, it seems to emerge from nothing."

Troubled Water - Orion Magazine Diving into the myths of the Gowanus Canal

"Its reputation as a poisonous place eventually gave way to a surreal, dream-like quality of legend, as though if you fell in, you’d emerge with some dark superpower."

@k-e-c.bsky.social for @orionmagazine.bsky.social: orionmagazine.org/article/trou...

it's so embarrassing that the websites of actual federal agencies have to refer to the "one, big, beautiful bill." also who copy edited that. have some questions about the commas.

Troubled Water - Orion Magazine Diving into the myths of the Gowanus Canal

(& now online!! orionmagazine.org/article/trou...)

re-reading a draft two weeks later to find it is merely bad, as opposed to Mythically Bad… great feeling

screen shot of a paragraph from an essay about light pollution. a highlighted sentence reads: "And most of us don't even know what we're missing. According to light pollution lore, after the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused mass power outages in the Los Angeles area, 911 received several calls from alarmed residents asking about the strange flickers in the sky—they'd never seen the Milky Way. Today, one-third of humanity can't see it.

if u are in the mood to read about how we are extincting the night sky (and also about insomnia, the surveillance state, and Birds) ........ may I recommend this @elvia-wilk.bsky.social essay nyra.nyc/articles/the...

an image of a hand holding open a magazine page with a headline reading "Troubled Water." the page background is a diaphanous shred of algae in a glass tank.

last one ... I can't imagine a better end to the year than having this essay in @orionmagazine.bsky.social, a dream byline for as long as I've been Doing Essay: about the bizarre creatures, imaginary and otherwise, of the Gowanus Canal — my favorite toxic waste site. in print for now.

OSU Below - Oregon Stater Explore the mysterious steam tunnels beneath Oregon State’s campus, where history, myth and student adventures converge in a rarely seen underworld.

my story about the steam tunnels beneath @oregonstate.edu was the alumni magazine's most-read story of the year; infinitely thankful to have an editor in my life like Scholle McFarland oregonstater.org/osu-below/

a magazine spread with a wide image of a mountain rising up behind a turquoise lake. beside the photo, the headline reads "Who's In Charge, Here?"

but I also started working with @trailsmag.net , examining the implications of transferring the responsibilities of forest service rangers to volunteers and nonprofits (also print-only, print is forever)

newspaper page with a one-eyed monster crying a single tear. the headline reads: "How to Say Goodbye"

a newspaper page with a headline reading "Speak Your Mind, Then ... Change It!" — below, teenagers revisit and reflect on opinions they wrote for the New York Times for Kids as fourth graders, six and seven years earlier.

my beloved New York Times for Kids came to an end in August, and I got to send it off with the "saddest [page] ever" (- my editor) AND a lovely tribute to the kid opinions we published over the years (print-only, alas)

Visual artist Wendy Red Star on collaborating with your ancestors – The Creative Independent Visual artist Wendy Red Star discusses how she approaches an archive, her MFA experience, and betting on herself.

& talked to artist Wendy Red Star for @thecreativeindependent.com thecreativeindependent.com/people/visua...

The “Garlic Nerds” Building a Better Allium - Offrange Garlic ranks high on our list of beloved ingredients — meet the die-hard enthusiasts who are obsessed with improving it.

I dove into the weird and hyperspecific world of garlic breeding for Offrange ... ambrook.com/offrange/cro...

Remembering ‘Twin Peaks’ and the legacy David Lynch left on the Pacific Northwest After the news of David Lynch's death broke, fans of Twin Peaks gathered at Twede's Cafe in North Bend. We'll hear from a local journalist to hear what it was like and the impact the show has had.

(then, in February, I was on @opb.org — my radio debut, and a dream to talk about Lynch and this essay some more. www.opb.org/article/2025...)

David Lynch Was Here: A Visit to the Real Twin Peaks - Longreads Notes from the Northwest on mourning, remembrance, and black coffee.

in January, I went to North Bend, WA, to talk about David Lynch. reporting this story was a trust fall — I went before I had an assignment — and I am ever so grateful to @longreads.com and @cherilucasrowlands.com for seeing the promise in this pitch longreads.com/2025/01/30/r...

I don't really believe in *the new year,* my least favorite holiday, but I do believe in assessing where you've been and where you're going ... so in that spirit, a belated 2025 recap

Sentences on [The Essay] By Cooper Dart (with thanks to Sol Lewitt) Cooper Dart This past winter, during the final year of my MFA program, I took a class on poetics, and the only thing we as a course could agree upon at th…

brilliant pal @cooperdart.bsky.social on [conceptual art] for @dintywmoore.bsky.social !!! brevity.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/s...

meanwhile i DO believe in the sentient slime in the gowanus canal … everyone gets the cryptid they need to see in the world.