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Elissa Altman

@elissaaltman.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1K following 461 posts

Author of Permission (3/25), Motherland, Poor Man’s Feast, Treyf, many essays. Author, teacher, editor, musician. Ever hopeful. 🕊️🏳️‍🌈🇺🇸🇨🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇪🇺 Poormansfeast.substack.com

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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Thank you @therumpus.net 🙏🏻
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Midterms.
nytimes.com
Trump Officials Withhold $1 Billion in Medicaid Funds From California and Minnesota Over Suspected Fraud
The administration accused California and Minnesota of fraudulent activity in their public health insurance programs.
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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 16/05/2026
TODAY: We’re joining Black-led civil and voting rights organizations for a national day of action, including a rally at the state capitol in Montgomery. We must use our organizing power to defend and reclaim the sacred rights those before us bled and died for: blackpowerwarroom.com/dayofaction/
(below a 1965 photo of the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama) SAME STEPS.
DIFFERENT GENERATION.

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR VOTING RIGHTS
THE SOUTH
MAY 16, 2026

BLACKPOWERWARROOM.COM/DAYOFACTION
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
The saga of the immolated pork shoulder, a very good toasted garbanzo bean recipe, and a few words on how what goes on in the kitchen reflects the news.
open.substack.com
A Time for Quieter Cooking
Dinner As Metaphor for the News [RECIPE]
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Loving this podcast with Jeremy Lee who describes his parents as “wonderfully bonkers.” Mine were just bonkers. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
podcasts.apple.com
Jeremy Lee: the much-loved chef who grew up in a wedge of cheddar
Podcast Episode · Homing · March 1, 2024 · 55m
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Join me for an Online conversation celebrating the publication of Anne Lamott and Neal Allen’s new book, Good Writing, this Saturday 3/14 4 pm EST/1 pm PST. Attendees must register by going to ByrdsBooks.com. Hope to see you!
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Willkommen!
nytimes.com
New Trump Banner Hung on Justice Department Headquarters
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
She may be very quiet but she carved a love note to me out of a block of Velveeta. So I married her. ❤️
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
This is what happens when you decimate the USDA: apple.news/AUKrCy8_tSZW...
apple.news
USDA Announces Ground Beef Recall in 3 States—Nearly 23,000 Pounds of Meat May Contain E. Coli — Health
Almost 23,000 pounds of ground beef were recalled in three states. The products may contain E. coli, a pathogen that can cause severe foodborne illness. The recall has been given the highest risk leve...
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
I am so thrilled about @annelamott.bsky.social and @nealallen.bsky.social 's new book, which is coming on 3/17. A complete pleasure and joy to read! I’ve also included their tour schedule — please make sure you get to one of their events!
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Friends: Join me for a permission/story ownership workshop this March at beautiful Kripalu in the Berkshires. All levels are welcome and celebrated. Extras: you get all the yoga you can manage, beautiful hiking and walking trails, great food, and a compassionate teacher! Join me!
kripalu.org
Permission
Who Are We to Tell Our Stories?How can we grant ourselves permission to write the stories we're compelled to tell when we've been told we shouldn't? The act of crafting engaging stories elevates them ...
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Enough already. Enough.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Thank you @printmag.bsky.social for publishing my essay on this insane moment in time, and the roots of cruelty.
printmag.com
Is Cruelty Addictive? – PRINT Magazine
In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Minneapolis, questions of motive and meaning once again dominate the public conversation. This essay by Elissa Altman looks beyond the headlines to examine...
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I am thrilled to announce my next book, WHERE YOU USED TO BE: Meditations on Grief, Love, and Living a Creative Life, which is coming from Godine. How is it that the making of art enables us to move through grief, and the living with and carrying it? How does it enable us to metabolize it?
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Delighted to share—coming soon from @empresseditions.bsky.social Available for preorder now.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
My mother, Rita Hammer, passed away peacefully on Wednesday evening, October 29th, at Regional Hospice in Danbury, Connecticut, after a short illness. Susan and I have no words. www.legacy.com/legacy/rita-...
legacy.com
Rita Hammer Obituary October 29, 2025 - Legacy.com
View Rita Hammer's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Christians, my ass.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Time has suspended as we sit with my mother in hospice, and wait.
open.substack.com
In the Bardo with My Mother
On grief both personal and public
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Amidst all the strife surrounding my mom being in hospice, I hadn’t seen this. Thank you @longreads.com for choosing my @bittersouth.bsky.social essay, My 24 Guitars, as a Longreads Pick 💕
longreads.com
My 24 Guitars - Longreads
"Music was hazardous in my family, yet I couldn't help playing—even in my sleep."
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jenn m. jackson @jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
I want more people to care that SNAP benefits are being cut off on November 1. 40% of SNAP beneficiaries are children. This is callous and vile.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
She is 90 years old today.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
From the website of the in-facility doctor where my mother was in skilled nursing care until yesterday. I would have scratched out his name but then I thought: why bother? I’m looking at you @bcdreyer.social
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Brilliance. open.substack.com/pub/thecorne...
open.substack.com
We admitted we were powerless over our algorithms
and our lives had become unmanagable
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Let the great world spin, to quote Colum McCann. There is grief all around us all the time now, from Manchester to Gaza, from Chicago and Danbury to the facility where my mother sits, waiting.
open.substack.com
the distraction of grief.
On Sustenance and Safety in a Time of Horror
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
My home. 🙏🏻
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Sleep well, everyone.
alphahistory.com
The Hossbach memorandum (1937)
The Hossbach memorandum - a summary of a 1937 meeting between Hitler, ministers and military commanders, where war plans were discussed.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Children, google “Pinochet.”
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Flu shot done. Yay science.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
"Memoirists bear a creative responsibility to the story they are trying to tell, to the characters who appear in it (including themselves, as narrator), and to the craft it takes to get there." Writing about the dead, with a few craft words on Elizabeth Gibert’s All the Way to the River.
open.substack.com
The Permission Workbook: Writing About the Dead
Is it ever okay? Also, some craft thoughts on Elizabeth Gilbert's All the Way to the River
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Bay Area friends: Join me tonight at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 6 pm for a conversation about Permission, and the stories we are and aren’t “allowed” to tell—now more then ever. Rumor is that there will be a Lamott sighting….
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
A brief note on how tariffs are going to impact authors: a large majority of illustrated books (cookbooks, children’s books, text books, etc) are produced overseas. If you’re a cookbook author and your gorgeous book about Italian food is coming off press in China…..good luck.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
The Diary of Anne Frank? Removed from public library shelves in Florida? And these morons simultaneously use anti-semitism against universities?
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
With grateful thanks to @longreads.com ❤️
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
My essay in @bittersouth.bsky.social about the 24 guitars I’ve owned since I was 4, and the cross-hatching of lust, sorrow, and music.
bittersoutherner.com
My 24 Guitars — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
Music was hazardous in my family, yet I couldn’t help playing — even in my sleep.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
I am physically ill.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
45 minutes to get to an elderly person’s apt in NYC? Really???? @nyfd.bsky.social
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Fergus is helping me write my next book.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
To you nice folks who told me I was crazy when I said that voter registration lists were next, FU. Also: take one afternoon and read William Shirlee’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, volume 1.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Dinner last night: Hetty McKinnon’s pad Thai salad—so good.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I tried to cook healthy the other night but manicotti showed up.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Monsters. Absolutely every one of them. It’s like the last scene in Body Snatchers, with Donald Sutherland.
nytimes.com
Justice Dept. Asks for 1-Day Sentence for Ex-Officer Convicted in Breonna Taylor Raid
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Day 2 out of 3 racing to NY from CT to try and reverse Village Care Max’s negligent and abusive decision to cut my 89 year old mother’s aide service despite the fact that she is 100% housebound, can’t walk unassisted, can’t transfer, etc. This is legalized elder abuse. @elderlawadvocate.bsky.social
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
It’s never a good day until @verizonofficial.bsky.social accidentally locks you out of your account and then disconnects your chat. Three times. Morons.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I have a profound need to sit on a beach in Truro and stare out at the water. For maybe a month or so.
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jlm617.bsky.social @jlm617.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
This is emotional warfare. Not policy failure, not debate. It’s about showing that compassion is weakness and dominance is glory. They want a world where no one is safe from their resentment, not even the most defenseless.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I so enjoyed talking with @bookcougars.bsky.social about Permission -Have a listen, below.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Current situation. Also, we have two Subarus.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Officially not-quite-summer.
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Elissa Altman @elissaaltman.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Imagine, if you will, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future. Introduce the process of cloning. As an experiment, create an entire village of Biff Tannens. Put all of them in public office. Give them the keys to the kingdom: exec office, HHS, SS, Medicare, etc etc etc. What do you think will happen?
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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 22/04/2025
If you watch it on mute, it's like he's auditioning to play Vincent Gardenia's role in the Ogunquit Playhouse production of Moonstruck! The Musical.
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