Rebecca Makkai

All super rich guys sound the same now. It’s all “I sleep four hours a night and spend the other twenty hours a day developing a product that’s going to bring us the best widespread poverty anyone’s ever seen.”

Rockwell freedom of speech meme

"We're all standing. I'm just very tall."

Looking back I think the prof was just frozen in one of those moments where you can’t think of anything on the spot. And the rest of us were 19 😂

Writing While Parenting a story, and an online talk

Yesterday I posted about my Five Things Class happening on 12/7 at 8pm EST, but if you were like, “Hmm, that sounds interesting, but I could really use 10% off,” today I have a discount code! Read till the end to get it, and I hope to see you on Zoom on Sunday!
open.substack.com/pub/rebeccam...

In a world awash with negative science/health news this is unashamedly great news. connectsci.au/news/news-pa...

Writing While Parenting - Five Things I've Learned Join me in this live two-hour class and discover the Five Things I’ve Learned about how to navigate the joys and demands that come with creating art while at the same time keeping the people you love ...

I’ll offer practical advice, too… Please join, and please also hit me in the comments with any questions you want me to cover (or, if you have grown kids, what you wish someone would have told you years ago).
myfivethings.com/class/rebecc...

With the understanding that every family is different—someone might live in a commune where 23 adults are around to offer support, someone else might be a single parent w/ a special-needs child—we’ll break down all the difficulties and joys of creating art while keeping small people safe & happy.

The concerns are practical, emotional, and moral. Some of them hit mothers harder than other parents (thanks, society!) but at the same time, we rarely talk about that balance and struggle for fathers (thanks again, society!).

I’m so excited for my two-hour online class for writers (and other artists), Five Things I’ve Learned about Writing While Parenting 🧵
myfivethings.com/class/rebecc...

Okay THANK YOU all, I feel vindicated, having long believed Frosty just ACABed out of there.

I’ll be in conversation TONIGHT for World AIDS Day with @tracybaim.bsky.social, @victorianoe.bsky.social, and & Rosa E. Martínez Colón. Join us at the Women & Children First Bookstore in Andersonville (Chicago) tonight at 7pm!
www.eventbrite.com/e/world-aids...

Right but I guess in this version, he pauses for as long of a moment as required, thus complying with the cop…

The song predates the movie, so the movie's take (which none of us can remember) is irrelevant.

Basically, some of us have lived our whole lives assuming Frosty laughs in the face of the law, and others have not.

Please help with a family dispute.

In "Frosty the Snowman" (song, not movie), does "He only paused a moment when he heard him holler 'Stop!'" mean:
a) He paused ONLY for a moment, then plowed right through
b) He paused for a moment ONLY when the traffic cop told him to, and not before

Damnit damnit damnit. Tom Stoppard deserved to win the Nobel Prize, and I held out hope that it would still happen.

Arcadia in particular had a huge influence on my work. And Leopoldstadt was a glorious last act.

Thankful I learned Cyberstalking in Illinois is a Class 4 felony, up to 3 years in prison w/ a $25K fine, if a person says things online w/ intent to cause a person who lives in IL emotional distress. The perpetrator can live anywhere.

It can be classified a hate crime if the victim is diverse.

If they ask where you're taking it, feel free to use my name. You're my private mentee, and yes, I gave you homework due this Saturday. I'll vouch for you.

If you want time alone to write, tell them you have "homework for this writing class" you're taking.

Good diversionary tactic: "You know, Uncle Cliff, there's actually a podiatrist character in my novel. Would you mind telling me what a day in your life is like?"

Also never tell them you've "finished a draft" or are "almost done," because then you'll never stop hearing "Where's that book of yours?" Tell the truth, which is that debut novels usually take about 5-8 years, and you're doing it the right way.

HEY, if you're working on your first novel and you're home for Thanksgiving, do NOT tell people what it's about. Make up a decoy novel (Psychic nun who fights crime with martial arts!) and let them be condescending about that one instead.

I've had too many students' novels "ruined" over holidays.

They say nothing good comes from hate, but when I see artists hating on AI, it makes me immediately like them and want to check out their work.

Very curious what will happen here. Goebbels did not intervene when his own wife’s Jewish stepfather was thrown in a concentration camp. Richard Friedländer died in 1939 at Buchenwald.

Welcome!!!

🤞🏻

I'm afraid that isn't accurate; I wish it were. They were ordered to release 400 of the 614 people currently detained, but (unless I missed something) it's now stuck in appeals court. The numbers are super unclear, which doesn't help anything.

Yes, that is why.

It's different, but for several years (I was young and stupid) I thought Richard Ford had written the novel that the movie Independence Day was based on and was like Wow, that's some range.

Charlotte activists met the immigration crackdown with ‘bless your heart’ resistance ICE and CBP’s North Carolina operation faced an early-warning system run by thousands of volunteers

I love this. The little manbabies could not handle a mild Chicago November and felt threatened by our whistles. Whatever Charlotte dishes out, they won't be ready for either.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

For sure