Amitha Jagannath Knight

The elephant whisperer: one Thai woman’s lifelong quest to protect a rescued herd Lek Chailert devoted her life to rescuing abused elephants. Now caring for 120 of them, she fears for their future in Asia

The elephant whisperer: one Thai woman’s lifelong quest to protect a rescued herd

No really. going to take a social media break 🤦🏽‍♀️

Something I noted a couple of times here today at GenCon is that I think it's important for publishers to invest in "midlist" and/or newer authors because the cash cows at the top can die, stop producing, or blow up in scandals, and if you don't have a stable of writers to step up, you're screwed.

Being an author in traditional publishing is such a constant brain somersault. Exciting things happen that you can't yet enjoy publicly, while you're elbow-deep in the late stages of previously contracted work, while mired in the equally exciting & hair-pulling creative quicksand of a fresh project.

All the waiting makes you feel so confused when things are announced, and you're actually allowed to celebrate. Like months to years after you found out about something people are like "congratulations!!!👏🏽" But you're brain is like..."oh that? who cares? old news. i'm working on something else now"

Someone on here said that videogames offer a fantasy of predictable rewards for one's work, which in real life might not be rewarded at all. I think about it a lot!

Which kids tv show team are you joining to help take down fascism? I'm joining the Mane 6 from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic.

Everyone gets pulled to the right when the right is dominating politically and socially and it requires active conscious effort to resist going with that (and some people just willingly go with the flow)

In wake of defunding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's shutting down The Corporation for Public Broadcasting said today it will start winding down its operations after it lost federal funding.

Sigh

"In wake of defunding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's shutting down" www.npr.org/2025/08/01/n...

I read the "Biden was old" book and the most heart breaking, infuriating revelation was that, in her refusal to appear disloyal (in large part bc the Biden team never trusted her) Harris swallowed her greatest differentiation from him:

That she vehemently opposed the handling of the Gazan siege.

I handwrite early brainstorming and beginnings of scenes that aren't fully formed in my head. I revise in Scrivener, until I am ready for line edit level revising with my agent, who uses Word. (I have an editorial agent and do multiple rounds of revision with her before subbing to publishers)

Doodle Mail

I finally deleted my entire substack account. I was lingering to support a few artists, but it was past time. My newsletter has been over on Beehiiv for a bit, see you there (and here!) ginaperry.beehiiv.com #kidlit

Going to try to take a social media break for August! We'll see what happens but I'm going to try!

You all know this. Just venting I guess.

"why do you writers insist on putting politics into everything"

Meanwhile they are banning books, dismantling access to vaccines and healthcare, and abolishing the department of education

Palestinians like the Nashwan family are being starved to death in Israel's genocide. Please help by sharing & donating if you can:

😆

It feels like we should be making a bigger deal of “we actually did in fact find a cure for AIDS”

i'm not ready for august

Last word on the “does social media sell books” discourse: I’m not on social media primarily to sell books. I’m on here bc I’m an extrovert in a very insular profession, and this gives me a way to be around people. If you become part of “my audience,” great. But the most important part is community

A couple months back, Alex & I spoke w/the author of an astonishing manuscript in our sub pile. This book is 100% Tenebrous material, but it's SO polished, so remarkably written, w/plotting to die for, that we couldn't in good faith accept it w/o first advising the author to chase every agent & big⬇️

So interesting how different the parent and the chick look! The chick looks speckled like sand but the parent has dark feathers and a bright orange beak.

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped? I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry. Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto. It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

i'm not on tiktok anymore either. creating videos just isn't my thing and I didn't care enough about other peoples' videos to be on there.

Same! Although as a picture book author I haven't really expected much traction! I got more traction on tiktok with my random videos of me putting together legos rather than videos about books.

Thinking once again about the pro-Modi Indian immigrants who voted for this. 😖 Indians are not immune from islamophobia or anti-immigrant sentiments.

"But just days ahead of a visit for Mr. Trump’s inauguration for a second term in January, the United States deported planeloads of Indian immigrants in shackles."

The People Being Arrested By ICE That No One’s Talking About The Trump administration’s deportation machine is detaining immigrant women at record numbers — and they've become invisible targets.

"They called the police for help, but local law enforcement turned them over to ICE."

www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-de...

However I am on here purely because I seem to need to spew random opinions on the Internet and I like to see what people are talking about, not because I think random adults will want to read my picture book for preschoolers.

I would say it contributes to slow build word of mouth kind of sales but not viral sales like booktok. I have purchased or requested books from the library from people whose feeds are interesting to me.