Kristen Martin
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kwistent.bsky.social
Kristen Martin
@kwistent.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.3K following 780 posts
Author of THE SUN WON'T COME OUT TOMORROW, out now from Bold Type / critic with words in NYRB, NYT Mag, WaPo, The New Republic, and elsewhere / member Freelance Solidarity Project and National Book Critics Circle / Philly / kristenmartin.net
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kwistent.bsky.social
Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hi new pals! I am a cultural critic based in Philadelphia, and my first book, THE SUN WON'T COME OUT TOMORROW: THE DARK HISTORY OF AMERICAN ORPHANHOOD, comes out the day after the inauguration (gulp). bookshop.org/p/books/the-... (1/2)
The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood a book by Kristen Martin
The real history of being an orphan in America is nothing like the myth, and nothing like the American dream. The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to fo...
bookshop.org
Reposted by Kristen Martin
maris.bsky.social
I wrote about Pluribus and the dangers of writing exclusively for the fans. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...
The Importance of Critical Thinking in a Zombiefied World
Why romantasy is crucial to understanding Apple TV’s hit show “Pluribus”
www.theatlantic.com
December 23, 2025 at 2:11 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
Hugely thrilled to see that Gov Hochul has signed the Anti-Harassment in Reporting Act into law in NYS. PA next!
December 20, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
the word “orphan” is maybe the most politically weaponized word you never think about. 🥚
The claim to predestination is an unwitting description of one of the most significant problems with both domestic and international adoption: the enthusiasm of would-be parents for adoptable children has become a demand in search of a supply, a demand met by an industry that sometimes separates willing biological parents from their offspring, artificially creating "orphans" for adoptive parents to take in. That magical thinking has become so routine that an infant daughter requested by American parents can be labeled an "orphan" even as she kicks in her mother's womb. Most often these days this supply is found in the world's developing nations, but the story of the modern Christian adoption movement starts much closer to home.
December 20, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
a reminder from @kwistent.bsky.social that there do exist alternative forms of permanency beyond the dichotomy of the full legal severance and identity erasure of plenary adoption versus full family reunification 🥚
But despite the logic of plenary adoption, which eliminates the relationship with a child's family of origin and wholly replaces it with a new family, down to amending the child's birth certificate to state they were born to their adoptive parents, there are other options for permanency, even for children who can't reunify with their parents in extreme cases. After my parents died, I was not only a literal orphan but a legal orphan. When executing my father's will and his plans for my brother and me, Nassau County's Surrogate's Court set up not an adoption but a legal guardianship. I did not have to have my birth certificate amended to pretend that I was born to my aunts. I did not have to have my parents erased.
December 19, 2025 at 12:19 AM
kwistent.bsky.social
This New Found Glory Christmas song has been stuck in my head for a week-plus, without me ever even listening to it, having been etched in my brain from some burned CD 20-something years ago: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqH...
Ex-Miss
YouTube video by New Found Glory - Topic
www.youtube.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:36 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
I feel that the people need a picture of Penny Loafer in her little booties
A tricolor cavalier King Charles wearing red booties
December 15, 2025 at 10:28 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
Something notable to me here is how there is a cycle of a country becoming a hotspot for surrogacy, only to legally ban the practice after scandal, causing the market to move to a new country with less regulation—similar to the history of international adoption: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/m...
They Answered an Ad for Surrogates, and Found Themselves in a Nightmare
www.nytimes.com
December 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
anyway, shout out again to @kwistent.bsky.social for writing such a good book about orphanhood which, as i reread it, is setting off bombs in my brain (complimentary).

There’s a 25% discount running right now 🎁

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/krist...
The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow
The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashio...
www.hachettebookgroup.com
December 14, 2025 at 5:37 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
Just saw that Hachette is running a 25% off sale! Use code BEST25
December 14, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
🥚
notalegalrecord.net Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 12d
one 2025 book i really admire, and haven’t discussed enough, is @kwistent.bsky.social ‘s critical history of modern American orphanhood, THE SUN WON’T COME OUT TOMORROW. This book limns the ideologies of “child rescue” that shaped the development of US foster care and adoption. it pulls no punches.
We prefer these inventions to the truth of the orphan train movement, which was, in the end, a social engineering experiment that preyed on some of our most vulnerable, populating stolen land with stolen lives. To acknowledge that reality requires grappling with the fact that we allowed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children to be determined by the classist, racist philosophies of a Protestant minister who was not an elected official. This is the real legacy of our past, one that still colors our child welfare system today, where conditions of poverty are commonly cast as grounds for removal. Many poor children-and especially poor brown and Black children—are still not believed to be able to make something of themselves without losing their families.
December 14, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
i don’t think people understand the interconnection of the #adoption industry, child welfare systems, and the manufacturing of orphanhood. the overwhelmingly predominant cause children’s loss of family is not death but the state. most adoptees are people whose parents are dead *in law only.*
December 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
notalegalrecord.net
one 2025 book i really admire, and haven’t discussed enough, is @kwistent.bsky.social ‘s critical history of modern American orphanhood, THE SUN WON’T COME OUT TOMORROW. This book limns the ideologies of “child rescue” that shaped the development of US foster care and adoption. it pulls no punches.
We prefer these inventions to the truth of the orphan train movement, which was, in the end, a social engineering experiment that preyed on some of our most vulnerable, populating stolen land with stolen lives. To acknowledge that reality requires grappling with the fact that we allowed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children to be determined by the classist, racist philosophies of a Protestant minister who was not an elected official. This is the real legacy of our past, one that still colors our child welfare system today, where conditions of poverty are commonly cast as grounds for removal. Many poor children-and especially poor brown and Black children—are still not believed to be able to make something of themselves without losing their families.
December 14, 2025 at 3:46 AM
kwistent.bsky.social
The bots think I’m Andrew Ross Sorkin
December 14, 2025 at 3:14 AM
kwistent.bsky.social
In case you need gift ideas, primarily for fans of nonfiction!
December 13, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
jaimealyse.bsky.social
you could also post about my book and say you liked it and tag me-- i mean, any author, tag THEM in it, because we are bottomless pits desiring praise :)
thoughtsstained.bsky.social Nicole Evans | Editor and Author @thoughtsstained.bsky.social · 16d
"I can't afford to support my favorite author right now, I—"

Reviews.

Reviews are free AND they are a gift to authors that can keep on giving (i.e., exposure, marketing, algo boosts, etc.)

Please, give the gift of reviews to your authors this holiday season. It really can make a difference!
December 11, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
lizgreenspan.bsky.social
If you have a book project you'd like to place with an agent, come see me! Or if you want to get a more amorphous idea ready to send around, come see me! You'll be supporting Blue Stoop, too, helping us raise funds for our financial aid program.
December 11, 2025 at 4:43 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
As an Italian American, I cannot stop thinking about Lisa Taddeo doubling down on her defense of Olivia Nuzzi in an Instagram comment: “We have a lot of connections. We are both Italian americans and both have written books.”
December 9, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
christopherbell.bsky.social
The Winds That Scatter. Ten years since it has been released!
Watch at @means.tv
December 4, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
kwistent.bsky.social
Also! I've launched a @bookshop.org page, with proceeds to be donated to orgs helping Philadelphians caught in the web of family policing: bookshop.org/shop/kristen...
Kristen Martin Bookshop
I am a journalist and cultural critic who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. I am the author o...
bookshop.org
December 2, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
kwistent.bsky.social
My personal favorite books of 2025, gift guide-style: open.substack.com/pub/american...
Books Make Great Gifts
My favorite books of 2025
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:55 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
I am grasping from the excerpt of American Canto and from the reviews that no one gave this book a line edit
December 3, 2025 at 12:31 AM
kwistent.bsky.social
My personal favorite books of 2025, gift guide-style: open.substack.com/pub/american...
Books Make Great Gifts
My favorite books of 2025
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
kwistent.bsky.social
Support indie bookstores with @bookshop.org and get FREE SHIPPING! Might I recommend my book for all the revisionist history/cultural crit lovers on your list? bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The Dark History of American Orphanhood
bookshop.org
November 29, 2025 at 3:25 PM
kwistent.bsky.social
Support indie bookstores with @bookshop.org and get FREE SHIPPING! Might I recommend my book for all the revisionist history/cultural crit lovers on your list? bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The Dark History of American Orphanhood
bookshop.org
November 29, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Kristen Martin
karenho.bsky.social
If you like a writer's work, tell them! Email, LinkedIn message, DM, even in person at an event. It can make a huge difference in their lives, especially right now with declining freelance budgets, layoffs, stagnant salaries, the threat of AI, and dwindling book advances.
November 26, 2025 at 6:12 PM