Tom McAllister

@tmcallister.bsky.social

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Author of novels HOW TO BE SAFE and THE YOUNG WIDOWER'S HANDBOOK. New book of essays coming from Rose Metal Press in Spring 2025. Co-host of Book Fight! podcast. Barrelhouse NF Editor. Basically an ok guy, according to some

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In general, not an especially confident person, but I feel strongly I would win 100 consecutive games of Family Feud, given the opportunity

saw a youngish couple get into an intense argument about tea towels (how many do we have? how many do we need? Do these ones fit our aesthetic) in a local shop today. Too hot out. Don't go out there

found a perfect gift for the absolute worst child you know

I love that the only way to get people to talk about a new book is to have competing takedowns to drive "discourse" between thousands of bozos who read a maximum of 1 book a year

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This podcast was a really fun conversation for me to record. I talked with my colleague Nataša Ďurovičová, who recently retired after 22 years at the International Writing Program, about her life and career, as well as some fascinating history in the realms of cinema, translation, and writing.

Say the World: Manufacturing Cinema, Teaching Translation, and Aspiring to Freedom from Languagesites.libsyn.com We continue our series of conversations with IWP staff and collaborators by interviewing Nataša Ďurovičová, who recently retired after serving as the program's editor for twenty-two years. We discuss ...

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In today's newsletter, I talk about artworks everyone assumes mean the opposite of the thing they do, why you can't roll up the sleeves of your unstructured jacket anymore, why we all Just Said Drugs, and how to make a viral hit for grindset bros. Subscribe, it's free!

That isn't what I meant at all!open.substack.com When the medium mangles (or makes) the message

about 80% of my personality is pointing at stuff and going "look at this weird thing." I assume people love it

this newspaper headline is the 1930 version of encountering an incomprehensible trending story about some Twitch streamer with 4 million followers

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Fuck all your doomposting. No one who has ever accomplished anything did it by giving up and whining that there was nothing to do, the bad guys won and we are all doomed. Defeatism is death.

If I were Donald Trump’s heart, I would simply give myself a well deserved break

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Wanted to find a way to cover Israel’s War in Gaza that felt appropriate as a sports journalist. Here’s my angle on Israel’s war on Palestinian Athletes. open.substack.com/pub/wideleft...

Ben Natan: Israel's War on Palestinian Athletesopen.substack.com As we approach the Olympic games and the World Cup, Israel's demolition of Palestinian sporting culture deserves its own scrutiny.

Getting solar installed soon. The sales rep is walking me through the process. "The only problem," he says, "Is sometimes you get an inspector who's a real butthole. You know, like when someone's just a huge butthole? If the guy's a butthole, then it might take twice as long."

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Brought the Book Fight season on the Marriage Plot to a fun close, with @housleydave.bsky.social talking Bridget Jones Diary (the novel), changing attitudes toward diet culture, and why he says the key to a happy marriage is having "no expectations" open.spotify.com/episode/6l73...

Dave Housley on Bridget Jones's Diaryopen.spotify.com Listen to this episode from Book Fight on Spotify. In the final episode of our "marriage plot" season, we welcome fan favorite Dave Housley (author, most recently, of The Other Ones, and founding edit...

got an 18 year old dork driving up and down the main street in town with two giant "TAKE AMERICA BACK" Trump flags attached to the back of the behemoth $80,000 truck his parents have either bought him or let him borrow, and I'm just thinking about how sad it would be to be a parent to such a person

Prepping for a new (to me) MFA course in personal essay, have been reading 100s of essays the past few months; remarkable to see how up until 2012 or so, 90% of essays just pursued long, complex thoughts in contiguous paragraphs. Since then, it's all braiding & white space & suggestions of meaning

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At @barrelhouse.bsky.social I talked w @iamragesparkle.bsky.social about his book POP CULTURE POEMS, balancing editing/writing/publicity jobs with his real job and family life, saying No to things, and of course Michael had a good answer to The Swayze Question. www.barrelhousemag.com/blog/barrelh...

To Meet People and Create Some Shit: Barrelhousing with Michael Tager — Barrelhousewww.barrelhousemag.com Michael Tager's Pop Culture Poetry: The Definitive Collection, out now from akinoga press, is a wonderful collection of contradictions: fun, accessible, smart poems that examine our cultural and per...

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I seem to have won the Colorado Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. I am genuinely surprised by this. From my publisher's insta:

Watching people you've known for years grow and change and embrace whole new worlds within themselves? Hate it, do not recommend. Everyone should stay the same

hate to say it but if people weren't rushing the stage and cramming this shithead inside a garbage can immediately, Philly has gone soft

does Steve Carlton still live in an insane bunker in the mountains, or was that just a 70s thing

with a friend, also a teacher, at a big gathering, end up in a conversation with a stranger who's pretty drunk. Eventually the guy starts going on about how noble the teaching profession is, which whatever. "Teachers," he says, "Are the real fucking heroes." Sips his beer. "Except for my parents."

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On this week's Book Fight, @lucaswmann.bsky.social joins us to discuss THE MARRIAGE PLOT, the novel's thinly veiled DFW stand-in, Rhode Island literature, cash bars at weddings, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Spotify link below, but available everywhere open.spotify.com/episode/5rIW...

Lucas Mann on The Marriage Plotopen.spotify.com Listen to this episode from Book Fight on Spotify. We couldn't do a season on "the marriage plot" in literature without reading the Jeffrey Eugenides novel that's literally titled The Marriage Plot. G...

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She was so real for this

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Writer types the @barrelhouse.bsky.social conference is coming back to Philly on 10/5 and registration is $85 and open! Our first featured book is CITY OF DANCING GARGOYLES by @taracampbell.bsky.social from @sfwp.bsky.social! Lots more info coming soon! www.barrelhousemag.com/conference-1

Barrelhouse Conference Conversations and Connections — Barrelhousewww.barrelhousemag.com Conversations and Connections is a one-day conference organized by Barrelhouse in person at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA on September 23, 2023.

Wrong answers only

always thought Willie Mays should have just turned around and caught that ball regular style

This is good and complicated and clearly articulates some very weird things about women trying to make it in conservative world

This is very good and also a reminder of why Democrats are so bullish on Whitmer going forward - she's a female candidate who seems truly comfortable in her own skin, which is hard for all the many reasons that Traister has written about before nymag.com/intelligence...

Are Republican Women Okay?nymag.com The baffling, contradictory demands of being female in the party of Donald Trump.

a high school acquaintance who I follow on Instagram for some reason has posted multiple videos today making inscrutable jokes about how Europeans don't know how to act in the Hamptons, and I guess you could say I hate this