Alyssa Ann
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Alyssa Ann
@thatalyssaann.bsky.social
education | writing | "as you start to walk on the way, the way appears." - Rumi
Reposted by Alyssa Ann
Books we Love by NPR: apps.npr.org/best-books/
Books We Love
Here are 380+ great reads from 2025 handpicked just for you by NPR staffers and trusted critics.
apps.npr.org
November 24, 2025 at 8:44 PM
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The Velveteen Rabbit (which is one of the world's great works of philosophy) reimagined in almost unbearably tender illustrations by Japanese artist Komako Sakai www.themarginalian.org/2015/02/23/t...
The Velveteen Rabbit, Reimagined with Uncommon Tenderness by Beloved Japanese Illustrator Komako Sakai
A sweet, timeless story of how the soft bonds of love confer realness upon our existence.
www.themarginalian.org
November 24, 2025 at 1:02 PM
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“What neither man could have known was that they had been standing at the edge of the typewriter’s unlikely resurrection…Then came 2020. Everyone stuck at home, screens everywhere, Zoom fatigue setting in. People craved something tangible. Typewriter sales exploded.”

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life (Gift Article)
This is the story of how a man traded steady, grinding corporate security for a dying craft and, in the process, found his soul.
www.nytimes.com
November 23, 2025 at 6:24 PM
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Cranberries. The band, the sauce, the season
November 23, 2025 at 7:54 PM
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"exemplars of public value offer an effective way of making the case for arts and humanities fields. By this, I mean a public staging of arts and humanities-based research to express its tangible value." bit.ly/4rcg2Yn
How to demonstrate the worth of arts and humanities-based research
Express the tangible benefits of your creative work and practices, by showcasing public value
bit.ly
November 21, 2025 at 1:36 PM
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Yes, Listening to a Book Counts as Reading www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o... gift link
Opinion | Yes, Listening to a Book Counts as Reading
www.nytimes.com
November 23, 2025 at 7:11 AM
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Excited to share my enthusiasm for Rosa Castellano's new book of poems, ALL IS THE TELLING, in @southrevbooks.bsky.social:

southernreviewofbooks.com/2025/06/05/a...
The Poems in “All Is The Telling” Ask: “What’s burned into my DNA?”
Rosa Castellano’s All in the Telling provides one of the most thought-provoking explorations of biracial life in recent memory.
southernreviewofbooks.com
June 5, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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From 2015: Why being an early bird doesn’t make you superior.
No, Mornings Don’t Make You Moral
We are different people at different hours of the day, but an early bird isn’t superior to a night owl.
www.newyorker.com
June 19, 2025 at 3:29 PM
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The art of the sacred pause and despair as a catalyst for regeneration mailchi.mp/themarginali...
June 18, 2025 at 2:24 AM
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Very exciting news: The Onion has started a creative agency.

We've been doing this quietly for months, so if you've seen a funny ad somewhere, it may be us. But now it is a whole-ass company.

Anyway, we have killed Don Draper for a second time and revived his drunk ghost. Contact me to access him.
Exclusive: The Onion has opened a creative agency
America’s Finest Creative Agency is “like a writer’s room and like a strategic and conceptual laser in your pocket,” The Onion’s CMO Leila Brillson said.
www.marketingbrew.com
May 19, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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Tessa Hulls after winning a Pulitzer for her graphic memoir FEEDING GHOSTS: “I always said, one and done.…I am very much at peace with the fact that I’m never going to do something in this exact format again.” www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
Seattle author who won a Pulitzer for her first book says she’s ‘one and done’
After spending 10 years working on her first book, “Feeding Ghosts” — and winning, to her astonishment, a Pulitzer Prize — Tessa Hulls says she’s never writing another book.
www.seattletimes.com
May 18, 2025 at 12:11 AM
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Catch the complete episode this Sunday at 11 am on @kalwradio.bsky.social 91.7 FM in San Francisco & online at www.kalw.org/show/philoso....

#PhilSky #philosophy #neuroscience
The Power of Prediction
Is your brain a camera that records the world, or a projector that imposes pictures on it?
www.kalw.org
May 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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Joy Harjo:
May 9, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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I loved this episode of the modern love podcast @nytimes.com with Ada Limon
Listen below.

open.spotify.com/episode/2PHt...
Let Yourself Rage With Poet Laureate Ada Limón
Modern Love · Episode
open.spotify.com
April 16, 2025 at 1:24 AM
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Inspired by a TikTok trend, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego developed the largest citizen science study in animal communication @uofcalifornia.bsky.social @ucsandiego.bsky.social
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language? | Aeon Videos
Inspired by a TikTok trend, a cognitive scientist developed the largest citizen science study in animal communication
buff.ly
May 10, 2025 at 12:28 PM
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In an age where certainty is currency, doubt has become a radical act. What if doubt isn’t weakness but wisdom? buff.ly/JJz6j51
May 10, 2025 at 12:42 PM
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It was an absolute joy talking Greek mythology with the cast of #Hadestown at the National Hellenic Museum this past Thursday! 🏺🎶 With thanks to @broadwayinchicago.bsky.social for partnering with us and @emilymcclanathan.bsky.social for this great @chicagotribune.com story.
Talking about mythology in the musical ‘Hadestown’: ‘It’s a sad song / But we sing it anyway’
In a panel discussion at Chicago’s National Hellenic Museum, cast members share what’s on their minds as they tell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
www.chicagotribune.com
May 10, 2025 at 1:33 PM
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I'm so happy that this article is now online. I wrote about Javier and Kristin of Chicago's Exile in Bookville -- with help from @gillianflynn.bsky.social, Nathan Hill, and TJ Newman. Amazing people, amazing store.
"There was no grand opening this time, no publicity, no GoFundMe, no employees, just heaps of accrued trust and friendship from nearly every author in Chicago and a lot of book buyers."

@rebeccamakkai.bsky.social on the literati's favorite bookselling couple.
Love and the Literati
How a couple’s passion for books spurred not only a romance but a business embraced by local authors.
buff.ly
May 8, 2025 at 7:56 PM
"It’s a tribute to the past, but also a celebration of the present" ❤️ Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan in 2003 being my first ever concert, a perfect full circle
www.nme.com/news/music/l...
Listen to Avril Lavigne team up with Simple Plan for "full-circle moment" on nostalgic new single 'Young & Dumb'
Avril Lavigne has teamed up with Simple Plan for a collaborative new single called 'Young & Dumb' – listen here.
www.nme.com
May 9, 2025 at 9:59 AM
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Loved this essay on Renata Adler, comma master: "Her punctuation jars, and turns abruptly, like a skater’s blade stopping and sending up shards of ice."
In the Matter of the Commas - The American Scholar
For the true literary stylist, this seemingly humble punctuation mark is a matter of precision, logic, individuality, and music
theamericanscholar.org
April 23, 2025 at 12:47 PM
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"A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind." ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
May 5, 2025 at 11:18 AM
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Reposted by Alyssa Ann
It’s a mistake to outsource most writing to AI.

Even if the output is accurate and engaging, something valuable is lost in the process. Jotting down intuitions and spelling out hunches is how we develop and refine our ideas.

Writing is where we do our best thinking.
May 4, 2025 at 2:15 PM
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“What I really believe is that there are no minor characters in life or in art.”

We’ve unlocked our Art of Fiction interview with Jane Gardam. buff.ly/ewq3RBA
May 4, 2025 at 4:03 PM