Margaret Dunlap

Text from a message I received after cancelling my subscription: We hope you'll reconsider the value of the necessary and important work our journalists do to keep citizens informed. Absolutely nothing has changed about that. In fact, it's more important than ever.

Actually, @washingtonpost.com, I'm hoping you'll reconsider the value of the necessary and import work your journalists did before you fired 300 of them.

Job offer!!
I’m helping a PBS series look for a social media manager/content creator for an upcoming promotional campaign. The start date is ASAP, and a project timeline that currently goes to July.

This is for a series on American Muslim history, so candidates with cultural familiarity preferred!

Perspective is very useful in our business 😆

:) The version I got was:

Why does scripted television exist? So there's something to put on between the Lexus commerials.

As a resident of Los Angeles: NOPE

Happy "national take a photo of your odometer if you track mileage for tax purposes day" to all who observe it

We're #4! We're #4! 🎉 😆
www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-r...

Jesse Hamm had the take to end all takes on children's media. "People who disdain writing ‘just for children’ fail to realize that those children will remember what they read, maybe for the rest of their lives. You’re not writing for permanent children; you’re getting an early start on adults.”

Thank you!

I found out eventually! 😂

Happy birthday!

Well, I thought I knew, but now that I'm listening to myself say it, I have no idea, so I guess I Schrodinger a recipe when I cut it in half

Three Jeopardy contestants: Ron, Youssef and Margaret (me), behind their podiums. All appear to be approximately the same height. This is a result of trickery and stagecraft

If anyone is wondering why there were no on-camera handshakes at the end of Friday's Jeopardy game, look at this picture and realize that Youssef is a *full head taller* than I am. The crew would not let us move until I was back on terra firma. 😆 Plenty of hugs and handshakes as we left the stage

Even better, it's a dress!

Thank you! ☺️

Thank you!!! (I suspected that might be it, but sources were ambiguous)

And géocoucou is almost as fun to say

A woman on the Jeopardy stage with purple hair and a space themed dress standing behind a podium with "Margaret" written on it. (It's me. The answer is me.)

Hey, who's that on Jeopardy! tomorrow?

WRITING TIP, something simple but it catches many of us out: if you have a great/fun idea for your story, *use it now*.

Don’t save your ideas for some nebulous other story you might write tomorrow. I promise you’ll have more.

Break your story’s status quo. Go a step further. Use the big idea.

This is true. It is the best email I got this year.

Yes, I put things I've already done on my to do list for the satisfaction of crossing them off

Furthermore, I don't even give such items serious task names like "get groceries."

No, I just checked off "buy cheap flour and fruit snacks" and have zero regrets about my life choices

If you have ever thought that my journalism or my first book were net positives for the world, understand that they probably would not exist if I did not have a spouse who paid the mortgage. If I'd been a solo earner/parent, I likely would have left criticism, journalism or book writing long ago.

Awesome! Congrats!

Okay, I need a French speaker to confirm this for me:

Is the French word for "road-runner" actually "Bip Bip" or is Google translate having me on?

Keep Books with Pictures Alive: Donate Now, organized by Katie Pryde Dear friends: I need your help. I’m proud of everything Books with Pictures… Katie Pryde needs your support for Keep Books with Pictures Alive: Donate Now

Go get 'em @omgkatiep.bsky.social! gofund.me/fdade21fe

They also have an online shop:

shop.bookswithpictures.com

I just ordered some holiday presents.

@spyscribe.bsky.social’s “Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit” in @apexmag.bsky.social spotlights the impact of toxic dogmatism on the families of political elites. Humane and unadorned - a space-faring Hemingway, a child-sized Orwell.

#sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction

Ideally in a positive and supportive context, even!

Everyone should get to experience an arena full of people chanting your name... even if they're not talking about you 🤷🏻‍♀️

There's not a time in my life that I've regretted my humanities degrees. I use them every day, not just professionally (though they've helped me there, too), but to envision and work toward a better future.

The lady at the charity shop today told me that she wishes people would clear out their children's old toys in the lead up to Christmas rather than after because she always sees a number of parents in the days before Christmas looking for toys for their little ones who might be strapped for cash. She said there's very rarely anything in just before, but that they get inundated with toys in the days after. And it really made me think about it in a way I never would have before. If you know your child is going to get lots of presents from father Christmas this year, by clearing out your cupboards a few days early you could make another child's Christmas a lot more special too. Saw this & thought I'd repost

Reposting with Alt-text: