When Wiley Cash and Ron Rash recorded this podcast episode, we had no idea what was to come. Now more than ever, their conversation serves as a love letter to western North Carolina. Watch the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Youtube. (Filmed by PBS North Carolina.)

What he said. As I wrote in this essay, Ron and Robert Morgan were both writers who showed me what was possible ourstate.com/literary-lands…

Seriously folks, this could happen. There’s a chance you could go outside and see nothing. But there’s also a chance this could be one of the coolest nights of your life. Take a risk and sit outside for an hour or so this evening.

You couldn’t create a more insufferable person in a lab in a hundred years

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Going to threads I guess…hmu

Future generations won’t believe how easily people fell for this grift—and how obvious it was all along nytimes.com/interactive/20…

North Carolina, today is the day! In-person early voting has officially begun 🗳️ As Kamala Harris says, your vote is your voice. Make a plan to vote early at iwillvote.com/nc 🇺🇸

Getting clothes out of our flooded house so that I can be a professor again tomorrow, and the calendar on my kid’s desk really got me:

For a while I thought that many Trump voters weren’t paying close enough attention to understand the real ramifications but lately I think many of them actually want this kind of authoritarianism and I wish we could just be honest about that npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-…

Went to the polls. Got the sticker. Saved democracy. Etc

Universities: Why do our kids use AI to write their assignments 😭 😭 😭 don’t they know writing is important? Also Universities: What if we made writing instructors into a permanent underclass of peasants that we work to the bone for as little money as possible?

John Kelly, Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, said Trump met the definition of a fascist and would try to govern like a dictator if elected. nyti.ms/40fAZGH

This should be the only headline anywhere for days

We're trying to stand up to a fascist who's in cahoots with the world's richest man, and our only weapon is: knocking on doors and having conversations. Of course it feels scary. Right now our job is to be brave and keep knocking.

You, too, could be getting emails like this jobs.wcu.edu/postings/28950

I've mostly left the X-sphere, but I'm dropping in quickly to say that if you'd like to consider reviewing a nonfiction book about coded sex diaries from the 19th century, send me an email, and I'll get you an ARC: [email protected] blairpub.com/shop/p/cipher