Daniel Felsenthal

@allsoils.bsky.social @somethingwithwords.bsky.social #awpoffsite

I’ll be at AWP in Baltimore next week, tabling with my friends in the Freelance Solidarity Project, moderating a panel about unionization Friday ✊ and also reading some poems or maybe a bit of prose with these excellent folks at the Station North Tool Library. Come through Sat 5-7

This guy gets it.

To incoming University President Mnookin: Please don’t let artificial intelligence devalue the liberal arts Last month, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin <a href="https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2025/12/uw-receives-approval-to-move-l-ss-largest-majors-to-new-ai-focused-school...

Pearls of wisdom from within the corporate university www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2026...

New Report Reveals Alarming and Widespread Shortage of Local Journalists Across the U.S. Groundbreaking Data from Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News Reveals One-Third of U.S. Counties Lack the Equivalent of a Full-time Local Journalist; Shortages as Significant in Suburban and Urban Areas a...

Underlying everything that's happening, even if the public isn't super aware of it, is that there aren't many journalists left. 75 percent fewer journalists now than 25 years ago, and newspapers, the bastion of American journalism, are in even worse shape. share.google/2KL2PkERkgnQ...

The Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to bankroll his security detail. trib.al/TSV3cmb

Also love the presumptions of this NYT tweet—what about tea bags that are not dusty and decaf that is fresh and not reheated?

Home - Freelance Solidarity Project We are a union of digital media workers raising labor standards across our industry.

A small plug today to consider joining the Freelance Solidarity Project. We're all in this media shitscape together, and it's going to take organizing to rescue its remains from the dumpster fire.
freelancesolidarity.org

The state of american politics is that one major party wants to kill you while the other simply wants you to die

"Queer trickster” Kevin Killian was mentor, novelist, memoirist, playwright and and supreme poet, as this astounding essay by #dfelsenthal.bsky.social makes clear: "In these poems, culture is the lens through which survivors understand their own desolation…"
www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/176...

“We need to reform concentration camps for children”

I wrote about the baudy, beautiful Kevin Killian—and his collected poems, out now on Nightboat—for The Poetry Foundation.This was a blast to write and I'd be thrilled if you read my essay on this snowy eve! See below for lovely original art by Stella Murphy poetryfoundation.org/articles/176...

❤️❤️❤️

I wrote about the baudy, beautiful Kevin Killian—and his collected poems, out now on Nightboat—for The Poetry Foundation.This was a blast to write and I'd be thrilled if you read my essay on this snowy eve! See below for lovely original art by Stella Murphy poetryfoundation.org/articles/176...

National Nurses United (@nationalnurses.bsky.social) The largest RN union in U.S. history, with more than 225,000 nurses nationwide.

NEWS: @nationalnurses.bsky.social “demands Congress abolish ICE entirely. We will be doing everything in our power to vote out any elected official who supports funding for this all-out assault on the health, safety, and civil rights of our people.”

Quote on the graphic reads "One could think of writing a book and writing literary criticism as a kind of call and response, and how lonely it would be to call to no response! As a writer of books, I'm thankful for the critics; as a reader and occasional writer of criticism, I know how very much work and thought can go into a review. Books and readers need critics, and critics need to be paid well for the considerable work involved" by R.O. Kwon. Illustration is by Colleen Tighe, showing a cartoon of a person driving a boat holding a bag of money while water is splashed on a second person in a lifebuoy with three piles of books perched on it. FSP-NWU Book Critics Working Group is noted at the bottom left

The assault on criticism echoes the subversion of free speech, embrace of generative A.I., and hostility toward the press. FSP-NWU is fighting for better rates. nwu.org/join

Illustration by @colleentie.bsky.social

Wegmania! | Jeff Weinstein Wegmans fancies itself “local.” But while it’s drawn near-rabid excitement from brand loyalists, it doesn’t truly serve the place it calls home.

My husband @jiweinste.bsky.social , a legend of food writing, is back in @thebaffler.com with this skeptical, humane, hilarious and exuberantly written exploration of a certain class of upper crust east coaster’s favorite supermarket. A critical piece like no other thebaffler.com/latest/wegma...

Let's be clear (and I'm not being cute): this is DHS trying to get ahead of the inevitable moment when they shoot a baby.

Only a few hours after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Good on January 7, federal immigration enforcement agents descended onto Roosevelt High School property during school dismissal as students were exiting the building. MFE members say that ICE agents tackled and detained a school staff member and union member who was working at the time. The MFE member was since released, according to a union spokesperson. The agents also deployed a chemical irritant against students and staff on school grounds, MFE says. A school official, speaking to MPR News on condition of anonymity, said many students sheltered in a nearby library.

Kind of wild there has been almost no coverage of the fact that the federal government unleashed chemical weapons against literal kids *at school*.

workdaymagazine.org/minneapolis-...

Vibe right now m.youtube.com/watch?v=fMTi...

This is one insane way for federal agents to double down on being absolute disreputable shitheads

NYC Wegmans is storing biometric data on shoppers' eyes, voices and faces The supermarket chain says it’s a move to ensure shopper safety. Surveillance experts warn of privacy risks.

1. Why does going to the grocery store have to be so fucking stupid? 2. Not shopping at Wegman’s again gothamist.com/news/nyc-weg...

Quote on the graphic reads "Critics and reviewers dedicate themselves to the art of writing, to the cultural and social meanings of books. They create a necessary and important dialogue between writers and readers. We writers usually work in solitude, though writing is never a singular pursuit. What we write comes from the world, not only from the world inside us, but also from the one outside us, and from other lives. Critics help writers understand what our writing might mean to others" by Lynne Tillman. Illustration is by Colleen Tighe, showing a cartoon person seated in front of a laptop surrounded by a toppling pile of books. FSP-NWU Book Critics Working Group is noted at the bottom left

Criticism is a crucial and democratic counterforce in the face of marketing budgets and recommendation algorithms. Help FSP-NWU fight for better rates! nwu.org/join

Illustration by @colleentie.bsky.social

This is a fantastic piece

Quote on the graphic reads "Criticism is an essential part of a functioning literary ecosystem, and it takes an enormous amount of time, effort, and care. We get the quality of criticism we pay for, and we should pay more for it" by Ed Yong. Illustration is by Colleen Tighe, showing a cartoon person in a green shirt that reads "The Prestige Mag" swiping a card; the card reader shows a big red X and a loaf of bread and two apples are nearby, implying that the person's card was declined while buying groceries. FSP-NWU Book Critics Working Group is noted at the bottom left

The muffling of critical voices compromises consumer choice. A dollar a word would help critics make a living wage. nwu.org/join

Illustration by @colleentie.bsky.social

Best new books I read in 2025, it's been fun, y'all

One of the best of his generation, so glad you’re writing this

Best films of 2025. (Including movies that showed at festivals in '24 but didn't screen theatrically until this year.) Listed by date when I saw them!

Saw a whole bunch of concerts in 2025. These were the most amazing ones.