iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

and here's my story from earlier this year about a funeral in DC: www.vqronline.org/spring-2026/...

Ilustration (by Fernando Cobelo) of people standing around a casket in the shape of a tie for the story Keeping Watch by Stephen Kearse

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This passage, from a reported story that features a half-dozen sources, only highlights the race of the black one. I find this habit, which I also see in a lot of fiction and politics coverage, annoying af. if race matters for one person, it matters for everyone bc that's how it literally works

In Clearwater, I went to lunch with two former Hooters Girls: Becky Moore, the company’s director of learning, development, and training; and Andrea Hill, the executive vice-president in charge of all Texas locations. At a high-top table, Hill, a sleekly dressed Black woman in her forties, took charge of ordering a spread of her favorite dishes—honey Thai shrimp, sweet-and-spicy Daytona Beach wings, deep-fried pickles, and snow-crab legs—and made sure that everyone had plenty of paper towels to wipe their hands. Hill was a college student when she was first hired at Hooters, in Chicago, where she’d be flying later that afternoon: her best friend, her “literal Day One” from her time as a server, was expecting a grandchild, and she was going to the baby shower.

This sense of continuity turned out to be a prominent feature of the Hooters universe: Moore, a bubbly eastern-Florida native in her late thirties who started at the chain out of high school, told me about her “honorary nephew,” Chase—a teen-ager whose parents had brought him in regularly as a toddler.

1237

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Fun news. I've got a new book on the way: POST. It's a crime caper about the Post Office

Journalist and author of LIQUID SNAKES Stephen Kearse's POST, about an underground "mailman mafia" conspiring to save the US Postal Service from privatization through a coordinated blackmail campaign aimed at corrupt politicians, while evading hawkeyed feds, to Ben Brooks at FSG Originals, for publication in winter 2028, by Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic (world). Rights:
devon.mazzone@fsgbooks.com

1213718

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

a million years ago, I wrote about that aspect of his rapping for the believer in an essay on american pimp. still a little miffed it never got put online

For rapper and producer Roc Marciano, American Pimp reflects the American dream. In dense and woozy compositions that invoke pimps like Gorgeous Dre and Rosebudd as if they were patron saints, the documentary takes on the air of scripture. Marciano's twin albums Rosebudd's Revenge (2017) and RR2: The Bitter Dose (2018) lionize pimps as uncompromising go-getters and sophisticates. Over jazz and funk samples slowed to the drip of molasses, he relishes every image and paints his world in, well, gorgeous detail. "Me and my lady slow kiss, low in the hot tub soakin'/Michael Bolton, soft word spoken," he raps on "Burkina Faso." He enunciates words with palpable satisfaction; as they roll off his tongue, you can hear him considering their mouthfeel. Watching his idols has taught him to discover and savor the power of his own voice.

120

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

like look at this detail. the guy is turning these in week after week

Panel from the manga Dandadan depicting characters entering a large opera house filled with singing people

Panel from the manga Dandadan depicting a band and floating symphonists with big air heads having a music battle

Panel from the mangaD depicting a table being flipped and the people around it all tumbling outward, food debris and plates and utensils moving betwixt them

Panels from the manga Dandadan. One panel features a set of intricately shaded and textured concrete steps that’s also a movie reference

120

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I 100% thought bone thugs just made this word up

Ruggish, adjective, defined by Oxford English Dictionary as "difficult, stubborn"

1143

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

their singles from that era had some super dope artwork

Front sleeve for Public Enemy vinyl "You're Gonna Get Yours." Features a bunch of dudes looking cool as hell posing by cars in a parking garage

141

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I wrote a bookmark story in this neighborhood last year, weirdly

Bookmark-length short story Chainsaw Man, by Stephen Kearse

When the unsubtle governor announced a conference at a shuttered scissor factory, reporters predicted he'd talk cuts. To taxes, STI clinic funding, bridge inspections—standard depressing capitol news. The press pool placed bets on the size of the ceremonial shears he'd bring. He showed up with a golden chainsaw, stroking it as he mounted the lectern. The planned cut was extraordinary: to “protect our precious sovereignty,” he buzzed, his administration would excise Pennsylvania from the continent and relocate it to the North Pacific. He assured the journalists any lost jobs would be replaced, then introduced Cut Coordinator Tom Klipputz, former music executive. Klipputz got straight to business: “The Ring of Fire will be an adjustment for some, but the ring of freedom is priceless.” He slid on safety muffs then ordered the work crews along the state borders to begin sawing. The governor’s gilded tool roared over the reporters’ questions.

A golden chainsaw looms over a map of Pennsylvania

040

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

this is stupid, not a real critical thought, and ahistorical, in rap especially and music broadly. like c'mon, we just had a brat summer, and are in the midst of a bad bunny winter.

Screenshot of Hollywood Reporter review of the Drake and PartyNextDoor album Some Sexy Songs 4 U. Quote reads: "There isn’t much rapping to speak of on the new album. It’s mostly R&B crooning and warbling, set to very low BPMs, with little variety. Moreover, every single track is dripping with AutoTune. It’s 2025; are we still pretending this is a stylistic choice and not merely a means of covering up an aesthetically flawed voice? Even the beats, sometimes the strongest aspect of Drake’s oeuvre, feel like they were programmed by AI here. "

130

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

this is not the tone to use when reporting on a rape allegation. wtf

Screenshot os 12/20 Deadline article

Reads: "In what is starting to sound a lot like the MCU of lawsuits where each side is perpetually teasing or declaring what is coming next, Tony Buzbee’s letter Friday to Judge Analisa Torrie caps the latest phase of an action where Combs has become almost a sideshow to the main action of the Houston-based plaintiff’s lawyer, the rapper born Shawn Carter and Jay-Z’s long time legal sideman Alex Spiro throwing down on each other daily with pledges to be very street and very much a Marine."

1141

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

*rolling, Cannes-length standing ovation*

NYT headlines reading "Brian Thompson, Not Luigi Mangione, Is the Real Working- Class Hero"

282

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

link preview didn't show up for some reason, but here's the deets

This Spring 2025, GWU's English Department is pleased to offer a Jenny McKean Moore Creative Nonfiction Community Workshop with Kat Chow, a journalist and the author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir, named a Notable Book by The New York Times. Every other year, the Jenny McKean Moore Community Workshops offer students in the D.C. area an opportunity to participate in a free, semester-long writing workshop taught by the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington.

010

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

was absolutely wrecked by a fever yesterday, so I'm thankful for health and this eternally funny meme

2018 meme in which Pusha-T is depicted as T'Challa, asking, "why didn't you bring the boy home?" in reference to Drake's child

000

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

This is my short story Neighborhood Bakery. It's a comedy about a DC bakery named after a young thug album joylandmagazine.com/fiction/neig...

020

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

I think about MIA's aziz impression all the time

020

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 29/08/2024

the passive voice is doing some wild shit in these headlines

"DC police officer what while recovering gun from storm drain"

"DC police officer fatally shot on DC-295 in Northeast Washington, officials say"

"DC officer while trying to retrieve gun from storm drain, dies from injuries"

152

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 24/07/2024

Rachel Connolly recommends Liquid Snakes! thecreativeindependent.com/people/write...

Reading recommendations from author Rachel Connolly: Liquid Snakes by Stephen Kearse, At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich, Bolt from the Blue by Jeremy Cooper, Tabitha Lasley’s non-fiction writing, and Lucie Elven’s fiction and criticism

010

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 25/05/2024

I appreciate that! and yeah, I'd love to see its uses of language more widely considered—tho without it being reduced to language/lit/poetry alone. I see that with kendrick a lot, and pushed against it a few years back

Text from Stereogum essay on the 10th anniversary of good kid maad city.

As literary critics and English teachers have praised Kendrick’s storytelling, they’ve tended to ignore his style and musicality, which are as much of the story as his raw dispatches about hood life. None of the autobiography works without the freeform buoyancy of his rapping. Realism informs Kendrick’s writing, but like the many movies that influence it — Boyz N The Hood, Pulp Fiction, Training Day, Children Of The Corn, Poetic Justice — good kid, m.A.A.d. city is never strictly about reality. Kendrick is a dreamer and a parabolist sifting through the fog of trauma and nostalgia in search of clarity and purpose. Although he uses real names and details from his life, and the album artwork comprises creased polaroids from his childhood, the goal is emotional rather than journalistic truth.

110

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 08/05/2024

Also this pitchfork.com/thepitch/dra...

Screenshot of pitchfork essay on Drake and Kendrick beef

0110

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 01/05/2024

thinking about this as "outside agitators" becomes a fixture in university encampment discourse

Screenshot of a brief political history of the term outside agitators, from Vicky Osterweil's "In Defense of Looting."

1459

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 13/03/2024

so this category has been explained now and it's even weirder lol. easily could have been called "Best Social Justice Novel" or "Best Sociopolitical Novel" etc etc. the SFF element wasn't clear at all pretty minor deal compared to say, the hugo's, but very strange

Screenshot of Best Diverse Author category for inaugural Libby Book Awards

010

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 28/02/2024

Also, I zoomed out a tad to put in conversation with the respectability of American Fiction

Screenshot of an article in The Nation reviewing the Vince Staples show

010

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 20/02/2024

Forgot to mention this doubles as a contribution to the growing field of Black Forces studies

000

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 29/01/2024

I wrote about Nicki becoming a professional shitposter twice in 2018. these arguments are aging pretty damn well pitchfork.com/thepitch/pop... pitchfork.com/thepitch/how...

Screenshot of 2018 essay on pop stars becoming platforms

Screenshot of 2018 essay on trolling in rap

140

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Wouldn't be a stretch to say Liquid Snakes doesn't happen if I don't write there. half the people thanked here are p4k editors or alum who told me 'hey you have this habit' or 'that doesn't mean what you think it means' or (crucially) 'let's tone that down'

Image of paragraph from Liquid Snakes acknowledgements.

010

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 15/12/2023

in the prophetic words of billy woods, "it's a triumvirate" www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/o...

Screenshot of 12/15 CNN piece on film American Fiction.

182

Stephen Kearse @kearse.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

this man has moses looking like Catcher Freeman and Morpheus

100