Rebecca van Laer
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rebeccavl.bsky.social
Rebecca van Laer
@rebeccavl.bsky.social
380 followers 350 following 130 posts
Novella: How to Adjust to the Dark, Long Day Press | Next book: Cat, Object Lessons/Bloomsbury | Work in Joyland, The New England Review, The Florida Review, etc. | 🐱🌿🐔
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rebeccavl.bsky.social
Thrilled to be in @fullstopmag.bsky.social today talking about CAT, my bee venom allergy, writing as immunization to past and future pain, and the long process of finding a project's heart.

www.full-stop.net/2025/11/11/i...
Rebecca van Laer
Writing to make sense of things feels both prophylactic (I will process an event, a thought in a safe space) and at times a little dangerous (Is it safe? what will happen as I bore further and further...
www.full-stop.net
November 11, 2025 at 3:34 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
So lovely to be interviewed by Miranda @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social — and for CAT (from @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social) to be selected as Book of the Day 🐱
Rebecca van Laer, "Cat" (Bloomsbury, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
November 3, 2025 at 1:44 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Would love to tell my 17-y-o self that my 37-y-o self is the author of two books, one about cats, who spent Halloween weekend at a Battle of the Cover Bands ft. The Dead Boys and DNA
November 1, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
hippocampusmag.bsky.social
NEW BOOK REVIEW: Rae Pagliarulo reviews Cat by Rebecca van Laer, part of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series. Read it here: https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2025/10/review-cat-by-rebecca-van-laer/
REVIEW: Cat by Rebecca van Laer | Hippocampus Magazine
"...if you are... a cat lover to a mere cat appreciator, you will find what I did in this book: pure delight." -- from our review of Cat by Rebecca van Laer.
hippocampusmagazine.com
October 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
bloomsburyacad.bsky.social
In this @readlux.bsky.social interview, Rebecca van Laer explored people’s relationships with their pets.

Read the full story: https://bit.ly/47hHhre

#BookSky #LiteraryStudies @bloomsburylit.bsky.social
Everything is Unnatural These Days
In an interview with author Rebecca van Laer below, editor Cheryl Rivera asks what you’ve all been wondering: are pets slaves?
lux-magazine.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:00 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
It's national cat day! I know the perfect way to celebrate....

www.bloomsbury.com/us/cat-97987...
Author Rebecca van Laer, seated in a leather chair, wearing a black dress covered with printed drawings of kittens, holding her book CAT (a black book with a white cat on the cover)
October 29, 2025 at 12:24 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Telling our new veterinarian "just so you know you're treating a celebrity"
October 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
orionmagazine.bsky.social
What would motivate you more to change your behaviors to save wildlife: a book about elephants, a book about the wild fauna in your own backyard, or a book about your pet? Would any? Rebecca van Laer sifts through the noise.
Animal Memoirs Gone Wild - Orion Magazine
What we can learn from more domestic forms of intimacy with nature
orionmagazine.org
October 11, 2025 at 3:20 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Today I'm interviewed in Lux Magazine newsletter, wherein Cheryl Rivera and I discuss whether pets are slaves, animal consciousness, and whether unconditional love exists. (These are all topics of CAT btw!!!!)

lux-magazine.com/lux-for-life...
Everything is Unnatural These Days
In an interview with author Rebecca van Laer below, editor Cheryl Rivera asks what you’ve all been wondering: are pets slaves?
lux-magazine.com
October 22, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
suzyeynon.bsky.social
Been looking forward to this one! by @rebeccavl.bsky.social whose writing I fell in love with in her Long Day Press book How to Adjust to the Dark
CAT book by Rebecca van Laer
October 16, 2025 at 1:22 AM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Another little excerpt of CAT, out now from Bloomsbury 🐱
pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social Pittsburgh Review of Books @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social · Oct 6
"Our first winter upstate, we hear a shifting and settling inside the wall. We know it is real—an animal—because our cat Toby goes and stands by that stretch of baseboard."

Rebecca van Laer with Object Lessons Impressions on the Cat. pghrev.com/cat/
Cat - Pittsburgh Review of Books
Our first winter upstate, we hear a shifting and settling inside the wall. We know it is real—an animal—because our cat Toby goes and stands by that stretch
pghrev.com
October 15, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
kleopatraolympiou.bsky.social
Can't possibly recommend Rebecca van Laer's CAT enough, and so thrilled to reread now I've grabbed myself a hard copy from the Gower St Waterstones. Cat people unite -- this is such a smart, sensitive, and thoughtful book. Read it!!

@bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social
Hand holding up a copy of Rebecca van Laer's book 'Cat' in front of foliage seen through a window. Shelf containing the Bloomsbury Object Lessons series, all with black spines and colourful titles. Rebecca van Laer's CAT is facing out to the camera. Rebecca van Laer's CAT held in front of a triple window facing trees from above. The book cover shoes a pensive green eyed white cat.
October 7, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
literaryhub.bsky.social
“I do not think love comes easily to me—love for people, that is. For cats, who have been accused of loving back too little or not at all, it is a different story.” Rebecca van Laer on what humans can learn from our relationships with cats.
What Our Relationship With Cats Reveals About Ourselves
One fantasy that comes up again and again: I wish cats ruled the world.  When we imagine this alternate reality, all our favorite projections blur together in a vague impression of what might be—a …
buff.ly
September 30, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
orionmagazine.bsky.social
Can memoirs about native and common wildlife spark more action and awe than the stories of the “charismatic megafauna” that so often act as poster children for the conservation movement? Rebecca van Laer investigates the new trend in publishing.
Animal Memoirs Gone Wild
What we can learn from more domestic forms of intimacy with nature
orionmagazine.org
October 4, 2025 at 3:20 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
I've become the thing I hate most...someone bad at replying to email
September 8, 2025 at 6:31 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
How do you get your dad to stop sending you AI art
August 30, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
dawnofthediscsnews.bsky.social
A24 launching an AI division

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

#FilmSky #AISlop #a24
August 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Why does it feel like fall!!!
A white cat and a black cat sitting on a quilt looking out a half-open window
August 29, 2025 at 11:49 AM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Found out my publisher hired my preferred audiobook narrator by Googling myself and finding a pre-order link at an Italian bookstore. This is how it's supposed to work, right?
August 28, 2025 at 9:06 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
So how often does PT make everyone ELSE cry
August 28, 2025 at 5:13 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Hand-sold my book to my gynecologist. That is commitment 🐱
August 26, 2025 at 8:24 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
👀👀👀👀
August 26, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
stevebenen.com
In case this isn’t obvious: In a healthy political system, if officials released a hyped report on health policy, and the document relied on scientific sources that didn’t exist, those officials would be expected to resign — quickly. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
The Trump administration’s ‘MAHA Report’ cites nonexistent scientific studies
There's new evidence that the White House's “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” relied in part on scientific research that doesn't exist.
www.msnbc.com
May 29, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Rebecca van Laer
joolia.bsky.social
welp I sent an email
Hi Tripp, I'm a reporter with the Guardian US, based in New York. I hope this finds you well. I'm reaching out about your most recent article and its inclusion of the claim, "Young Chinese women have small fingers." What is the source of this information? The full sentence attributes the claim that such small fingers make them "nimble" and therefore "valuable" to iPhone manufacturing to unnamed "supply chain experts", but it's unclear whether those same experts are the source of the claim that young Chinese women have small fingers in the first place. Are they? How do they know? Is there a study you can cite? And are we talking length? Circumference? Is it question of muscle strength? Or bone density? What is the normative range for finger size, to what extent do young Chinese women fall outside of it, and how do you - or your sources - know this? Incidentally, how are you defining "Chinese" in this sentence? As I'm sure you and your supply chain experts know, China is a large country with dozens of ethnic minorities. It is hard to imagine that hand size is a trait linked to national identity, but the lack of specificity leaves the question open. Did hand size among Han Chinese living in Taiwan vs the PRC diverge after the civil war? Could this be a function of political economy rather than a genetic trait? So many questions. Relatedly, how are you defining "young"? Do Chinese women's fingers grow as they age? Or is size not actually the meaningful characteristic? It's hard to tell from the information you provided! I ask all these questions because unless you have answers to them, I am afraid that you may have portrayed racist pseudoscience as if it were fact in an article for the New York Times. If that wasn't your intent, I hope you will reflect upon the long history of certain forces using race science claims to attribute suitability for certain types of labor to certain types of people, and amend your article. Best, Julia Wong
May 24, 2025 at 3:35 PM
rebeccavl.bsky.social
Tried to reduce my em-dash usage; realized colons and semicolons are just as frequent 😅
April 9, 2025 at 2:54 PM