Marcia Yudkin

Pretending: When is it Adapting and When is it Masking? www.introvertupthink.com/p/masking

What is solitude, really? Reflections about a memoir by a Canadian fire lookout. www.introvertupthink.com/p/lookout

Marcia Yudkin ​ All Hail the Conductor Spring nights ring first with the shrill cacophony of the peepers, nature’s orchestra warming up in the highest registers.  Weeks later, the bullfrogs enter, deep bass...

Five prose poems by me about wild New England: www.themackinaw.net/the-mackinaw...

Reader Stories 1: The Introverted Students’ Reward by Michael Smith

For my Substack, Introvert UpThink, I'm soliciting personal essays about being an introvert or dealing with one at home, at work or in the community. See the first reader essay and guidelines: www.introvertupthink.com/p/reader-sto...

Hi, Cousin!—Nonfiction by Marcia Yudkin—Eclectica Magazine v30n1 Nonfiction by Marcia Yudkin, Eclectica Magazine v30n1

The moral tension over being solicited for a stranger's GoFundMe campaign: www.eclectica.org/v30n1/yudkin...

Texas A&M, Under New Curriculum Limits, Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato

Where Plato is considered too controversial to teach, are students truly getting education? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...

Trump’s cultural coup is doomed to fail Artists are protesting Trump's Kennedy Center takeover — and creating art in defiance of his repression

A substantive analysis of what happens when government attempts to control the arts. www.salon.com/2026/01/01/t...

On the Spooky Road, by Marcia Yudkin One quarter of the way into my five-mile walk, a sensation prickled along my shoulders and back: Something was following me. I peered around. On the curvy pavement between leafy trees, with birds c…

What was it that was following me on that road through the woods? A true tale published in Halfway Down the Stairs: halfwaydownthestairs.net/2025/12/01/o...

What I experienced as a philosophy graduate student at Cornell in the 1970s:
philosophynow.org/issues/171/W...

The harm of AI: LitHub says AI is "stealing our stories for training data, siphoning readers towards garbled AI summaries instead of our website, and generally making everything a little worse." Ponder that when you consult ChatGPT, Claude or your favorite online answer machine.

“Words for Water” by Marcia Yudkin She glides through the Pacific, less briny than the Atlantic, smelling faintly flowery, like the Hawaiian air.  With a salty tingle in her nose and on her lips, she windmills in a slow, dreamy…

"Words for Water": a micro inspired by swimming in Maui, in response to a @smokelong.bsky.social prompt. theorangeroselitmag.com/2025/11/07/w...

"High-agency person"? I investigated the concept and wasn't thrilled with everything that I found: www.introvertupthink.com/p/high-agency

Your Town’s Local History Books Have a Very Secret and Powerful New Buyer Arcadia Publishing built its empire on small-town storytellers. Now it wants to sell their words to an A.I. company no one will name.

A discouraging roundup of deals publishers are making with AI companies, with scant rewards for the authors. slate.com/technology/2...

Slow Thinker? No need to apologize! Find out why... www.introvertupthink.com/p/slow-think...

Say What? Altitude-induced hearing loss transforms playful miscommunications into a new reality

"Say What?" New personal essay about imperfect hearing and miscommunications. www.howilearnedseries.com/p/say-what-h...

How expectations and the social meaning of gestures create dilemmas for introverts: www.introvertupthink.com/p/barbie

Poetry Clearance: The MFA Industrial Complex by Daniel Carden Nemo | Amsterdam Review Poetry Clearance: The MFA Industrial Complex, an essay by Daniel Carden Nemo

Is literary success rigged? This essay considers the evidence: www.amsterdamreview.org/poetry-clear...

Human Error Is the Point: On Teaching College During the Rise of AI - The Rumpus My syllabus is a mess of half-remembered intentions. I re-use icebreakers that I know don’t work. I forget to grade the first assignment until Week Four. I write emails that begin with “So sorry for t...

An eloquent ode to experiences AI will never have access to: therumpus.net/2025/10/02/h...

Editors, rise up.

Research on solitude: Is there a recommended daily amount of solitude that relaxes us while holding off loneliness? www.introvertupthink.com/p/solitude

Opinion | These editor’s notes are poison. I learned from every drop. Working with Starling Lawrence, who died last month, was a bracing course in a vanishing art.

Superb article on the "ouch" of being edited by a master wordcrafter. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Is It Abusive to Make Art About Your Children?

Can a child consent to be used in a parent's art? A thoughtful take on this question: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/m...

Business Insider yanked 40 essays with suspect bylines. Are they related? “Margaux Blanchard” appears to be one dubious element of a broader scheme to peddle bogus articles to a number of publications.

Fascinating article in WA Post about AI-fueled freelance writers duping publications, then being unmasked. This will ramp up measures to verify true personal essays and articles. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

New York Times columnist David Brooks' advocacy for "aggressive friendliness" disrespects introverts. www.introvertupthink.com/p/aggressive...

Not all nerds are introverts. But many, maybe even most, are. Let's see what we can all learn from their habits and challenges. www.introvertupthink.com/p/nerds

The end of the road? What The Salt Path scandal means for the nature memoir It wasn’t the first hit memoir to tell a story of redemption inspired by the great outdoors – but could it become one of the last? Authors and publishers assess the damage

Excellent article exploring the dangers of oversimplification in memoirs about the purported healing powers of nature: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

NEW: I am resuming taking on nonfiction writing clients. Details here: introvertupthink.com/p/writing-co...

Who is more emotionally intelligent, extroverts or introverts? Don't be so quick to answer. www.introvertupthink.com/p/emotional-...

‘Look how well-read I am!’ How ‘books by the metre’ add the final touch to your home – or your image It’s never been easier to build an impressive-looking library, especially if you’re mostly interested in the colour and size of your books. Is this necessarily a bad thing?

Ugh! Buy random vintage books to create a fake image of being smart and well-read: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

An Introvert as Rebel Introvert Frederick Douglass nurtured his intellect, moral understanding and ability to fire up others through his secret project of reading.

Let's contemplate introvert Frederick Douglass's impact on America and how his famous Fourth of July speech lands today. www.introvertupthink.com/p/frederick-...