Elise Blackwell
@eliseblackwell.bsky.social
Novelist interested in arts, sciences, curiosities.
Looking forward to reading this.
My essay "Aftermath" is up at The Rumpus. It's about the Eaton Fire, and the Aurora Borealis, and what we do with loss. This one means a great deal to me. I'd be honored if you read it.
therumpus.net/2025/11/12/a...
therumpus.net/2025/11/12/a...
Aftermath - The Rumpus
Time-lapsed satellite video shows the Palisades Fire at 10:45 a.m., a hot red ball with an orange center sitting right on the coast. A wedge of smoke shoots out over the Pacific Ocean. At around 7:00 ...
therumpus.net
November 13, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Looking forward to reading this.
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
winstonsdad.blog/2025/11/12/w... on blog this German book about the Ukraine war from Alexander Kluge #translationthurs
War Primer by Alexander Kluge - Winstonsdad's Blog
War Primer by Alexander Kluge German fiction Original title - Kreigsfibel Translator - Alexander Booth Source - Personal copy I am moving slowly this German lit month, and here is another gem of a boo...
winstonsdad.blog
November 13, 2025 at 1:59 PM
winstonsdad.blog/2025/11/12/w... on blog this German book about the Ukraine war from Alexander Kluge #translationthurs
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Is your publisher reluctant to hype your novel? Shoot them a copy of Kathleen Norris's Motionless Shadows!
November 12, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Is your publisher reluctant to hype your novel? Shoot them a copy of Kathleen Norris's Motionless Shadows!
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Fonseca is on two(!) Kirkus best of 2025 lists: Best Fiction and Best Historical Fiction! #penelopefitzgerald www.kirkusreviews.com/best-of/2025...
November 12, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Fonseca is on two(!) Kirkus best of 2025 lists: Best Fiction and Best Historical Fiction! #penelopefitzgerald www.kirkusreviews.com/best-of/2025...
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Somehow, I missed this pub day FB post by my editor at Algonquin, Kathy Pories, who is both a superb wordsmith and a very kind person. I'm so grateful to have worked with her on She's Under Here.
September 23, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Somehow, I missed this pub day FB post by my editor at Algonquin, Kathy Pories, who is both a superb wordsmith and a very kind person. I'm so grateful to have worked with her on She's Under Here.
I'm trying to be all right with *alright,* but I'm really not.
November 12, 2025 at 6:14 PM
I'm trying to be all right with *alright,* but I'm really not.
He didn't just "know."
November 12, 2025 at 3:32 PM
He didn't just "know."
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Reports of the death of the bachelor’s degree have been greatly exaggerated. Enrollment is near pre-pandemic levels, real tuition is flat or down, and the college wage premium remains high.
I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...
I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...
Is college enrollment really plummeting?
Reports of the death of the bachelor’s degree have been greatly exaggerated.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org
November 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reports of the death of the bachelor’s degree have been greatly exaggerated. Enrollment is near pre-pandemic levels, real tuition is flat or down, and the college wage premium remains high.
I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...
I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...
Not getting the full show that some of y’all are seeing, but we do have Northern Lights in South Carolina tonight.
November 12, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Not getting the full show that some of y’all are seeing, but we do have Northern Lights in South Carolina tonight.
Saw Bugonia last night, and I'm still not sure whether I think it's much good. (It's definitely *some* good, particularly the two central performances.) Glad I saw it in a theater, though. Not pausing the discomfort feels essential.
November 9, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Saw Bugonia last night, and I'm still not sure whether I think it's much good. (It's definitely *some* good, particularly the two central performances.) Glad I saw it in a theater, though. Not pausing the discomfort feels essential.
I reached the point in the first draft of a new novel where the world has become real and I long to dwell in it, to turn a street corner and find out what's there.
November 8, 2025 at 3:16 PM
I reached the point in the first draft of a new novel where the world has become real and I long to dwell in it, to turn a street corner and find out what's there.
"He built a life for himself and runs a barber shop in Atlanta. He recently became engaged to be married. He is a job creator in his community and is well loved by friends and neighbours." What can we do? I don't know, but (especially if you live in Georgia) you can at least make a phone call.
Or Rodney Taylor, a disabled double amputee who’s been in America since he was two years old.
He was days away from receiving new prosthetic legs when ICE grabbed him
His health is declining, they won’t let him get his legs and they’ve placed him in solitary
www.disabledginger.com/p/help-rodne...
He was days away from receiving new prosthetic legs when ICE grabbed him
His health is declining, they won’t let him get his legs and they’ve placed him in solitary
www.disabledginger.com/p/help-rodne...
Help Rodney Taylor, a Disabled Double Amputee Being Held by ICE
Rodney has been in the country more than 40 years. He's in solitary confinement in Georgia, being denied disability accommodations and having his medical needs ignored. He must be released.
www.disabledginger.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
"He built a life for himself and runs a barber shop in Atlanta. He recently became engaged to be married. He is a job creator in his community and is well loved by friends and neighbours." What can we do? I don't know, but (especially if you live in Georgia) you can at least make a phone call.
Workshopping a short story that was probably (but not definitely) written with genAI is easy but demoralizing.
November 6, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Workshopping a short story that was probably (but not definitely) written with genAI is easy but demoralizing.
"The AI boom not only normalizes plagiarism, but it also entirely ignores the work it takes to produce great writing. The championing of generative AI devalues our ability to read and to think and to comprehend, to be moved by art, and to interact with and criticize it." lithub.com/when-we-deva...
When We Devalue Art (Books!) We Devalue the Future
When you’ve spent your whole adult life working in and around book publishing you get used to hearing that people don’t read anymore and that the industry is on its last legs. There is always a cri…
lithub.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:07 PM
"The AI boom not only normalizes plagiarism, but it also entirely ignores the work it takes to produce great writing. The championing of generative AI devalues our ability to read and to think and to comprehend, to be moved by art, and to interact with and criticize it." lithub.com/when-we-deva...
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
It's pronounced "Doubt That."
November 6, 2025 at 2:34 PM
It's pronounced "Doubt That."
I've fallen in love with the work of Cape Dorset printmaker Kenojuak Ashevak. One of her prints is out my reach, but I lucked into some affordable signed art cards from the late 1990s-early 2000s, via a northern Canadian Etsy shop. Here's more about the artist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenojua...
Kenojuak Ashevak - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM
I've fallen in love with the work of Cape Dorset printmaker Kenojuak Ashevak. One of her prints is out my reach, but I lucked into some affordable signed art cards from the late 1990s-early 2000s, via a northern Canadian Etsy shop. Here's more about the artist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenojua...
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."
In his novel "Tomás Nevinson," Javier Marías describes the expressions on the faces of people in a photograph shown on the next page. The idea of reading faces like this gets its public scientific stamp of approval from Charles Darwin in 1872. sebald.wordpress.com/2025/11/03/t...
November 3, 2025 at 4:45 PM
"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Imagine having a kid in this daycare who watches as their teacher is bodily dragged away by masked goons.
Federal agents pulling a woman out of Rayito Del Sol, a daycare by Lane Tech high school
November 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Imagine having a kid in this daycare who watches as their teacher is bodily dragged away by masked goons.
For instance:
Democrats flipped the Mayor's office in Lyman, SC in conservative Upstate Spartanburg County. In 2024, the county went for Trump by 66%-33%.
Congrats, Mayor-Elect David Petty. On Tuesday, Lyman, SC, voters chose a new direction. We can't wait to see how the next chapter for Lyman unfolds.
November 5, 2025 at 1:45 PM
For instance:
Some really interesting flips in the South, some very local but nevertheless quite remarkable.
November 5, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Some really interesting flips in the South, some very local but nevertheless quite remarkable.
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight
November 5, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight
Reposted by Elise Blackwell
If you are going to American Literary Translators Association conference in Tucson, I'll be reading from Flores raras, 55 Uruguayan women poets at the off-site reading below and a panel on translating the work, New Visions, New Versions: Uruguayan Women Poets, Friday at 3:45 in Copper C.
November 4, 2025 at 3:01 PM
If you are going to American Literary Translators Association conference in Tucson, I'll be reading from Flores raras, 55 Uruguayan women poets at the off-site reading below and a panel on translating the work, New Visions, New Versions: Uruguayan Women Poets, Friday at 3:45 in Copper C.
Unhappy with my choices for mayor (I am most decidedly not in NYC, where I would be excited to be voting today), but I have a preference for an at-large City Council seat. So, yep, I'm going make time to vote today.
November 4, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Unhappy with my choices for mayor (I am most decidedly not in NYC, where I would be excited to be voting today), but I have a preference for an at-large City Council seat. So, yep, I'm going make time to vote today.
"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."
In his novel "Tomás Nevinson," Javier Marías describes the expressions on the faces of people in a photograph shown on the next page. The idea of reading faces like this gets its public scientific stamp of approval from Charles Darwin in 1872. sebald.wordpress.com/2025/11/03/t...
November 3, 2025 at 4:45 PM
"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."
Spent the morning lost in New Orleans newspapers from 1899. (The Harlequin is not what I expected; the Mascot, more so. Both contain ads for "gonorrhea and gleet" cures "guaranteed not to cause stricture" and an "anti-fat belt" that cost $1.50.) Thanks to the phenomenal Louisiana Digital Library.
November 3, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Spent the morning lost in New Orleans newspapers from 1899. (The Harlequin is not what I expected; the Mascot, more so. Both contain ads for "gonorrhea and gleet" cures "guaranteed not to cause stricture" and an "anti-fat belt" that cost $1.50.) Thanks to the phenomenal Louisiana Digital Library.