iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

what!!!!!! thank you @longreads.com longreads.com/2026/10/01/i...

text from the Longreads editor's pick recommendation for The Work by Katherine Cusumano

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

the Grasshopper Fire on Mt. Hood seen from my flight from New York to Portland yesterday

smoke plumes and a layer of smoke from the Grasshopper Fire blanketing the east side of Mt. Hood, Oregon

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

the revision's not an honest-to-god revision until

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

a section of a project that has sort of become the mantra for said project

screen shot of a paragraph with "If you don't believe your own bullshit, the fans aren't going to believe your bullshit" highlighted

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

this list of "approved witnesses" on the application for my irish passport says a lot about the types of jobs the irish people value... "speech therapist" and "engineer" alongside the usual suspects "cop" and "lawyer"

APPROVED WITNESSES (MUST BE PRACTICING): School Principal/Vice Principal, Teacher/Lecturer, School Secretary, Pre-School Manager/Montessori Teacher, Medical Doctor, Dentist, Vet, Nurse, Physiotherapist, Speech Therapist, Pharmacist, Manager/Assistant Manager of Bank/Credit Union, Member of An Garda Siochána/Police Officer, Elected Public Representative, Commissioner for Oaths/Notary Public, Peace Commissioner, Engineer, Lawyer, Accountant, Member of the Clergy.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

if u are in the mood to read about how we are extincting the night sky (and also about insomnia, the surveillance state, and Birds) ........ may I recommend this @elvia-wilk.bsky.social essay nyra.nyc/articles/the...

screen shot of a paragraph from an essay about light pollution. a highlighted sentence reads: "And most of us don't even know what we're missing. According to light pollution lore, after the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused mass power outages in the Los Angeles area, 911 received several calls from alarmed residents asking about the strange flickers in the sky—they'd never seen the Milky Way. Today, one-third of humanity can't see it.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

last one ... I can't imagine a better end to the year than having this essay in @orionmagazine.bsky.social, a dream byline for as long as I've been Doing Essay: about the bizarre creatures, imaginary and otherwise, of the Gowanus Canal — my favorite toxic waste site. in print for now.

an image of a hand holding open a magazine page with a headline reading "Troubled Water." the page background is a diaphanous shred of algae in a glass tank.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

but I also started working with @trailsmag.net , examining the implications of transferring the responsibilities of forest service rangers to volunteers and nonprofits (also print-only, print is forever)

a magazine spread with a wide image of a mountain rising up behind a turquoise lake. beside the photo, the headline reads "Who's In Charge, Here?"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

my beloved New York Times for Kids came to an end in August, and I got to send it off with the "saddest [page] ever" (- my editor) AND a lovely tribute to the kid opinions we published over the years (print-only, alas)

newspaper page with a one-eyed monster crying a single tear. the headline reads: "How to Say Goodbye"

a newspaper page with a headline reading "Speak Your Mind, Then ... Change It!" — below, teenagers revisit and reflect on opinions they wrote for the New York Times for Kids as fourth graders, six and seven years earlier.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

for @trailsmag.net I wrote about what happens when the work of Forest Service rangers becomes the work of volunteers on public lands. thanks to @sidehilling.bsky.social for the PHOTOS and @ryan.trailsmag.net for shepherding this one into print 🌄

a stack of magazines on a wood table, with Issue 13 of Trails on top

the title page of a feature for Issue 13 of Trails. the text reads “Who’s in Charge, Here?” alongside an image of a lake with jagged mountains in the background

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

!!!!!! nymag.com/intelligence...

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

PBF!! attending this festival was one of the first things I did in portland after moving to oregon and it was an absolute dream to moderate this panel with aashna avachat and alex castellanos. already dreaming about next year 🧁📖

authors alex castellanos and aashna avachat sit on stage at the portland book festival during a panel moderated by ... me

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

what a move to drop this on the second-to-last page of your doorstop book about 20th-century whale science (compliment) (from D. Graham Burnett, The Sounding of the Whale)

photo of a page from “The Sounding of the Whale” by D. Graham Burnett. a sentence is underlined: “it is very hard to say anything that is actually right about anything at all.”

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

me trying to figure out why kids are filling up half the block outside my parents' apartment

screen shot of a text conversation: "i talked to some teens lol" "'i talk to some teens' could be a line in your reporting bio lol"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

we spent a week in the enchantments in washington — a truly perfect place. we hiked 37 miles w/ about 13,000 ft of elevation gain and swam in every lake we could. at the beginning of the year, there were 14 federal forest service employees tending to this area; now, there is one.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

write (revise) with me this summer! I'm teaching a monthlong workshop on taking your essays apart and putting them back together again. come hang 📝 literary-arts.org/event/the-ar...

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

in the scheme of news this essay is now ancient, but I just got around to it and it still hits -- especially as far as its discussion of art as an accretion of individual decisions www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

excerpt from Ted Chiang's New Yorker essay on generative AI: "It reduces the amount of intention in the world"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

I am once again thinking about this line from @thecreativeindependent.com interview with perfume genius thecreativeindependent.com/people/music...

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

roman reigns's PR freaking out right now

VF headline, from a story dated 4/17, declaring Roman Reigns "WWE's Next Great Crossover Star"

NYT headline, from a story dated 4/18, declaring John Cena "the Last Great Crossover Wrestling Star"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

reporting this piece involved some unexpected, and very satisfying, sleuthing

email text from a source who seemed surprised that I had tracked him down...

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

today in "I love interviewing kids"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

i think about this headline at least once a week … a combination of words so confounding it plays on a loop in my mind. i didn’t know the english language could be like this.

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

“and did not apologize” i’m sorry but apologize for what

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

www.havehashad.com/hadposts/pro...

November 9, 2024 Prose Poem by Tom Snarsky:
Another day in the ruinous world, eating
peanut butter off a knife

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

revisiting twin peaks itself — some of which I hadn't watched since high school — and curating the quote interstitials for this essay was one of the great joys of the writing, too

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I think cage is, in a certain way, the ideal david lynch actor; dreaming of the alternate reality in which they had worked together again after reading this sweet @zachschonfeld.bsky.social interview www.vulture.com/article/a-lo...

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

i spent the day yesterday in north bend & snoqualmie talking to people about twin peaks and david lynch for a story, and then the evening at a bar that was playing inland empire on a tv in the corner. 10/10 day.

david lynch shrine outside twede’s diner in north bend, washington

plaque reading “where pies go when they die” at twede’s diner in north bend, washington

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

in 1980, while in edits on elephant man, lynch bought a mackerel at a london fish counter, cut it up, labeled the pieces, and photographed it. a guy who was always making something — even when making was actually taking apart. my guy forever.

david lynch's "fish kit" — an annotated dissected fish

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

finally home, finally get to see some recent print projects *in print*

a story on the back page of the new york times for kids december issue describing how to create your own card game using a traditional 52-card deck

the cover of the Oregon Stater winter 2025 issue, featuring a photo of salmon with the coverline "REWILDING THE KLAMATH"

a two-page infographic from the Oregon Stater showing the architectural features of an academic building designed to withstand the "Big One" — the Cascadia fault line rupture

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

(the haul, for my book-inclined followers. uncharacteristically, i didn’t bring enough reading materials on vacation.)

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

comrade atwood 😭 www.oregonlive.com/books/2024/1...

excerpt from Margaret Atwood's statement about her 11/19 reading at Oregon State University: "It seems that there is a graduate student strike going on, for higher wages and a shorter contract that won't lock people in for 5 years. I am told that many items have been agreed upon and that a settlement is close.

I wouldn't cross a picket line uninvited. The University gave me the option of cancelling. The strikers, on the other hand, said they didn’t want to cancel or disrupt the event – thereby p*ssing off 1200 people, which would not have helped their position. They only want to gain attention for their cause. As you can see, I am helping them do that. They have a website for donations of food etc. at; vp_solidarity@cge6069.org"

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katie cusumano @k-e-c.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

the droves of salmon fighting upstream in washington 🐟

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