That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, talking to ChatGPT: “People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies,” Miles Klee reports in Rolling Stone this month. …[A] Reddit thread on r/ChatGPT…made waves across the internet this week. Titled “Chatgpt induced psychosis,” the original post came from a 27-year-old teacher who explained
May Links Roundup: Alexa, Am I a God? Read More »
Happy National Poetry Month! The same absurd positivity that puts reclusive Emily Dickinson’s face on tote bags across America has designated April for celebrating poetry, based on T.S. Eliot’s decidedly un-celebratory opening to The Waste Land, “April is the cruelest month…” Old Tom was onto something, because the reawakening to life is painful when each
April Links Roundup: A Cruel, Poetic Month Read More »
Two months into the regime described by the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog as “Triumph of the Shill,” we hear the word “fiction” thrown around a lot as an insult, the devil on the shoulder whose nemesis is the angelic “fact”. At the same time, this administration seems grotesquely afraid of the ethical and historical
March Links Roundup: Fictional Truths, Factual Lies Read More »
The National Park Service has removed all references to “queer” and “transgender” on the Stonewall National Monument, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City where trans women kicked off the modern LGBTQ rights movement by fighting back against a police raid. Journalist Ari Drennen reported on X that the picture of legendary trans activist Sylvia
Cultural Erasure and Resistance Read More »
February already? When the passage of time surprised me, I used to think “Have I done enough work on my novel?” but now I think “One fewer month of the Trump presidency.” Close friends of mine recently became first-time parents. When I check in with the mom about her sleepless little angel, I remember the
February Links Roundup: Monkey Mind Mother Read More »
The author of this poem is a fierce mom in Florida protecting her queer kids from legalized bigotry. She shared this poem in an email to me on the weekend of the inauguration, and has kindly permitted me to publish it here, without attribution to protect her kids’ privacy. Why I Want to Resist Why
Poetry by a Mom of Queer Kids: “Why I Want to Resist” Read More »
As we approach the second inauguration of Tan Dumplord, I feel rather like the heroine tied to the tracks in an old melodrama, watching the slow inexorable approach of the train. I’m not alone in having a lot of PTSD reactions to the narcissist-in-chief. Trauma therapist and singer-songwriter Rythea Lee wrote this poem in her
Poem by Rythea Lee: “I Blamed Myself for the Election” Read More »
My estranged mother, Irene, died shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve/Day. She was 84 years old. I last had contact with her in January 2011. My husband, our son, and my mom-of-choice Roberta (her ex) attended her graveside funeral in New Jersey yesterday, along with her late brother’s widow and a good contingent of
In Memory of My Mother Read More »
Happy (?) 2025, readers. We will resume our regularly scheduled signs of the apocalypse next month, unless I get arrested for peeing in a red state. Let’s start the year off with some reading for pleasure, rather than the news. First, I was really moved by Stan Duncan’s story “Hodgens” in Gemini Magazine. The narrator,
I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse: buy Origin Story Elation, exhaustion, fear, creativity, fury, and perseverance are the competing flavors in the boiling stew that is 2024 in retrospect. I had some tremendous breakthroughs and brought some years-long dreams to fruition. At the same time, I’m anxious and grieving about what lies
Reiter’s Block Year in Review: 2024 Read More »