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kesemmel.bsky.social
K.E. Semmel is a writer and translator and Dylan enthusiast. His debut novel, The Book of Losman, published in October 2024 (SFWP). kesemmel.com.
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Every day is a good day for a mind and body cleansing hike in a forest.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

This week, writer @taracampbell.bsky.social reminded me that "We shouldn't have to stop being the creative people we are because of the broligarchs' inability to ever have enough. If anything, what we're doing is what makes our country worth fighting for." She's right. Go out and make great ART.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up. And yet, I don't for a moment forget that this is not a life of mining coal, waiting tables, or answering someone's phone

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

DOGE recommended firing workers at: -FDA, which oversees Neuralink -FAA, which oversees SpaceX -USAID, which probed Starlink -CFPB, which oversees Tesla's financing arm and a potential payment platform on X. "Conflict of interest" is a severe understatement.

submitted 4 days ago • 1219 comments

Kamala was right. And it only took him less than 30 days to roll over for Putin.

submitted 4 days ago • 2188 comments

Honest question here: is anyone planning to submit their taxes this year?

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

While mainstream media, centrists, and "contrarians" have spent a decade hyperventilating when people call Trump is an authoritarian... in the future no one will think the Americans of today didn't see it coming. They'll think, correctly, it was announced with bullhorns.

submitted 4 days ago • 7 comments

I've been thinking of these lines by Jane Hirshfeld all morning, from her poem "Vinegar and Oil" from *Come, Thief* (2011, @aaknopf.bsky.social). "Wrong solitude vinegars the soul, right solitude oils it." The full poem is here @poetsorg.bsky.social: poets.org/poem/vinegar...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

It's annoying how clearly this is going to play out. They gut the FAA. Therefore, the FAA can't do its job well because it was gutted. Therefore, they say "The FAA sucks, we have to privatize it." which is what Project 2025 wants to do. They're manufacturing the crises for their end goal.

submitted 6 days ago • 1090 comments

ICYMI. Kelly Sundberg interviewed @sejalshah.bsky.social for The Rumpus about HOW TO MAKE YOUR MOTHER CRY. "I would say that I wrote this book for me and for other girls and women like me— brown girls, Gujarati girls, people who feel like outsiders."

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Just Philip Roth making a prescient observation and asking a still pertinent question in a 1961 essay (qtd in Sigrid Nunez's review of Charles Baxter's new novel, *Blood Test*, in @nybooks.com: "The American writer in the middle of the 20th century has his hands full

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

On this President's Day, it's important to point out that in less than one month the Trump/Musk coalition has sowed the kind of chaos that will be felt like an earthquake's seismic aftershocks for many, many years to come.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

The US has become, basically, Trump University, only now we’re all being swindled.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

In 2016 I wrote this essay to honor my dad. A truck driver who read A LOT, from Karl Marx to @stephenking.bsky.social, he influenced my interest in reading & writing. Today, under the influence of MAGA, I do not recognize him. The light of curiosity is gone. lithub.com/when-my-fath...

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

Don't miss out on reading John Brantinghamby's interview with @kesemmel.bsky.social about Writing Tourette’s Syndrome over in @jmwwjournal.bsky.social! https://buff.ly/4hvGeYR Get THE BOOK OF LOSMAN here: https://buff.ly/4iayGuD

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Go to Google Search "Gulf of Mexico" Click the 3 little dots next to "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" Choose "Send feedback" Click "Gulf of America" Click "Inaccurate content" Click "Incorrect" Tell Google the correct name en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of...

submitted 11 days ago • 2088 comments

Some professional news from my day job. I'm proud of the work the Western New York Land Conservancy does to protect land in #WNY. In 2024 we did a game camera study to help us better understand how wildlife navigate our region. Learn more about the WNY Wildway here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol1s...

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

I love @neorsd.org so much I want to marry it

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 16 days ago • 476 comments

Beginning next month, Martha Cooley is offering a Contemporary Danish Fiction class at the Center for Fiction that includes 4 great books, one of which is my translation of Simon Fruelund's excellent CIVIL TWILIGHT, republished in '24 by Spuyten Duyvil. shorturl.at/9pR0a

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

This week @jmwwjournal.bsky.social features John Brantingham's interview with me about my debut novel, The Book of Losman (@sfwp.bsky.social), as well as translation, the fiction of Simon Fruelund (how it inspired Losman), and my experience with #tourette. jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/03/w...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

When asked how I'm doing these days, all of my responses end with "under the circumstances."

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Always nice to see copies of your book in the wild at great independent bookstores like @tleavesbooks in Buffalo, NY. If you haven't gotten a copy of my debut novel, The Book of Losman, why not get your copy right from Talking Leaves? https://buff.ly/3WIUTr8 @sfwp.bsky.social

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Did you know my debut novel is an audiobook? Thanks to the amazing team Dreamscape Audio, it's available on Audible. One enthusiastic reader said they heard the book in a single day. Get your copy here! https://buff.ly/40LiZTt @sfwp.bsky.social

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments