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Kelsey Francis

@kelseyfrancis.bsky.social
755 followers 745 following 109 posts

Writer & Teacher. Essays in NYT, WaPo, HAD, Longleaf Review, Adirondack Life Magazine & elsewhere www.kelseyfranciswrites.com

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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Fixed it.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
I’m saying this with great love and care as a parent of 3 and 25 year veteran high school English teacher: Please let your high school kids read banned books. Those books are *preparing* them for life, not harming them for life.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Shopping for dorm stuff for my firstborn going to college in 2 weeks is wildly similar to how I felt shopping for baby stuff at 38 weeks pregnant. Like, how are we going to do this?!?
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
So much is shitty right now, but one thing that isn’t is how my town has made believing in miracles, like snow in July, their whole identity. I love this about where I live. ❄️
Pile of snow in front of sign for Lake Placid that reads, “It’s no miracle—it’s real snow!”
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
If you’re a teacher in New York, this first sunset of summer with no Sunday Scaries is for you. ❤️
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Today was my last day of year 25 of teaching high school seniors and tonight my first born graduates from high school. What a week. 🥹🫠🤯😢😊🥳😵‍💫🤪🤩
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Vic Nogay @vicnogaywrites.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
editing AI "drafts" and calling it your own makes all your work inauthentic. read books. go places. think. feel. talk to other humans. write. then edit. the process IS the art. if AI is the process, your product cannot be art.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
In case anyone wants to know, in NY we still have one week left of school before summer break AND the days start getting shorter tomorrow. 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
If this incessant rain ever ends, no one better lock me in a closet like Margot in Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day.”
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
I am so proud of this kid. Every step, every mile, is a miracle. ❤️ www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-n...
adirondackdailyenterprise.com
Lake Placid senior is going the distance and giving back
LAKE PLACID — Colin Francis is one of the fastest high school distance runners in the Tri-Lakes region. He picked up the sport at just 5-years-old, when he ran his first 5K, and hasn’t looked back. He...
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Best Teacher Appreciation week thank you note of my 25 year career from a kid who has been homeschooled until his senior year: “Thank you for being the best English teacher I’ve ever had. And that’s saying a lot because my only other English teacher was my grandma.” 😊
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
More snow on April 16th is just offensive.
F*cking snow on deck and grass and chairs
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Oh, don’t mind me over here giving into the maternal urge to scroll through my firstborn’s baby photos at 4 am on the day he turns 18. How did we both get this old? 🥺
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Reminder for high school teachers in the throes of March: Got an email from a former student saying they referenced something from my class in one of their college classes & their professor said, “You must’ve had a great teacher in high school.” Sometimes they’ll remember what you taught them. 😊
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Lesson Plan: What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Tim Walz surrounded by school children as he signs legislation making school lunches free for kids. Donald Trump surrounded by school children as he signed an EO dismantling the Department of Education.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
In David Attenborough voice: As the Adirondack yard glacier begins to recede, a small mammal explores what the newly exposed strata reveals.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 18/03/2025
"Right now, every public school student in America awaits our instructions for a coordinated leftist insurrection, which we’ll deliver just as soon as we get this beef jerky out of the pencil sharpener."
mcsweeneys.net
Nothing Stands Between Us Teachers and the Brainwashing of America’s Children, Except This Beef Jerky in the Pencil Sharpener
I know many Americans are fearful about the state of democracy, but let me be the first educator to say: Don’t worry. We teachers are almost finish...
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
After 25 years, my opinion has not changed: Being a teacher is incredibly hard & infinitely complicated work.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
I don’t know how any parent survives this college app/college wait/college $OMFG$ “aid”/scholarship app/scholarship wait year/season 🫠🫠🫠
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Spotted on a wall of compliments at school.
Yellow note that reads: You smell very niche.
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
What’s a lovely random thing you observed this week while you were out and about?
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Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
POEM
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Kate Doyle @katedoyle.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
A small piece of a longer work in progress — a little story from what I hope will be a larger whole. Thanks to Gina Nutt and Terrazzo Editions 🩵 www.terrazzoeditions.com/terrazzomag/...
terrazzoeditions.com
Try Hard by Kate Doyle — Terrazzo Editions
Kate Doyle is the author of the short story collection I Meant It Once, published by Algonquin Books in the US and Corsair in the UK and longlisted for The Story Prize in 2024. Her work appears in No ...
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Friends over 40, I say this with love and fresh experience: never forget that you’re just one sneeze away from a pulled back muscle.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
My 13 yo: Can you imagine if there was a TV channel where you could watch the best music videos all day? Me: I’m going to tell you something that will blow your mind. . .
media.tenor.com
a man in a space suit is standing on the moon in front of a mtv logo .
ALT: a man in a space suit is standing on the moon in front of a mtv logo .
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
There is no work more chronically humbling than teaching. All the planning in the world, & all the years of experience & training will not protect you from the absolute destruction when you think you say something funny & a teenager responds with “skip” like you’re a bad song on a playlist.
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Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
A poem about Prince (and others things too) for #BlackHistoryMonth: Title: "Summer After" Author: Julian Randall Found in: Refuse #BHM
SUMMER AFTER

After Gregory Pardlo

The summer after 4th grade is the same summer I stumble in on my father watching Purple Rain for the first time and I didn't know who was on the TV as I knew his voice half as well and I didn't know any of the words and I didn't know my father could cry and I didn't know then that my father had lost his job and would not know for a year But here my father eager to hide his salt beneath his massive hands hands that are so much like a ship that has been loved through a storm or battle leather or anything shamed by its own softness until he is the man I had always known while I ask him

What are you watching?

he looks at me and I am small when he responds

This boy lost his daddy too, but his daddy taught him the music, now he's playing to show his daddy how much he loves the music And I didn't have the teeth then to say I was sorry I was defined by many openings and still am but I knew how to run up the stairs and grab a stringless guitar by its throat and run down the stairs to strum air as I sat in his lap and turned my face from him so he could mouth all the words perfectly
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Maureen Langloss @maureenlangloss.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
If you're wondering whether you should promote your book or your latest publication now with all the chaos, the answer is yes. We need your words. We need to flood the channels with art and literature. So go for it, friends.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
It took me years to write about this. Anger, shame, and regret prevented me from sharing it. I’m tired of the silence. Thank you for reading. 💜 www.huffpost.com/entry/baby-r...
huffpost.com
I Was Willing To Do Anything To Save My Baby. A Nurse Made A Suggestion That Almost Cost Me My Life.
"I didn’t ask questions and I didn’t do Google research. I was too busy keeping my baby alive."
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
I have a big scary essay being published tomorrow, so I’m anxiety house cleaning today 🫣
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
PSA for teachers: Know that one day you might have a medical procedure & the person who checks you in will be a former student, & the person who collects your blood will be a former student, & the person who helps perform the procedure will be a former student, & you will feel very, very old.
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Dena Moes RN CNM @midwifedena.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
This is my new book, published this fall. While META is shadow banning abortion info and provider pages, this little book has all the links and resources listed and explained. Who can help me get this book passed around, to the people who need it the most? Www.itsyourbody.net
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Being a parent of a high school senior while being a teacher of high school seniors is A LOT.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
‘Tis the season for summer camp registration emails
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
After a two week break, I’m back on my ungodly WTAF 4 am writing schedule. 😵‍💫
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Last night I applied for a big writing thing like some wacky hopeful person and now I get to obsessively refresh my inbox until early spring like some unhinged hopeful person.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Hanging out with just my 13 yo on NYE and I told her to pick out any movie she hasn’t seen and we’ll watch it together so she picked Titanic
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Stephanie Austin @stephanieaustin.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
So I got insanely busy for awhile but am going to revive Mugshot Writers on IG for a bit and am interested in posting writer mugs + new year's writing goals/plans/pep talks. If you are interested in being on, please DM me and/or follow me on IG: mushot_writers2 Applies to past contributors as well!
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Chanea Bond @heymrsbond.com · 31/12/2024
Brag about something you did in 2024. (Surviving counts!!)
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
“You’ll be visited by three spirits. . . “
Cast of tv sitcom, “Three’s Company”
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
Trust me. This is the way to make chocolate chip cookies.
Individual ruffle potato  chips on cookie sheet. Spoonful of cookie dough on each ruffled chip.Plate of freshly baked chocolate chip Chip cookies!
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
Keep waiting for someone to write a holiday song called “How Many Times Can I Run to the Grocery Store?” It would be an instant classic.
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Grant Clauser @grantclauser.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
“They live the way horses run.” Enjoying a beautiful @toddedillard.bsky.social poem this morning.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
The way my dog is never worried about what other people think of her is so inspiring
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 21/12/2024
"I can adapt when necessary. I have skills to fall back on, even if my school is shut down and turned into a scrapyard for discarded Cybertrucks."
buff.ly
Positive Affirmations for Terrified Public School Teachers
I choose optimism. Yes, they want to dismantle the DOE, increase censorship, and take money from already underfunded public schools to give to priv...
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Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Call this number. For real. You will feel better.
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
The absolute irony that AI is this big “time saver” and yet it creates so much unnecessary work for teachers and their students who try to use it but don’t know enough to know how bad it is so the students have just wasted their time using it. I wasted so much time today dealing with AI BS.
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Fred Guttenberg @fredguttenberg.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
"Stop asking why schools don’t have bullet proof glass & metal detectors at all the doors. Ask why schools HAVE to. That’s the question that needs to be asked”
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Kelsey Francis @kelseyfrancis.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Waking up to another Day After as a teacher in a country that protects guns more than it kids.
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Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Since we’re talking about how much billionaires suck again, here’s a reminder that your local indie bookstore deserves your business this holiday season. They have gift cards and are happy to mail stuff out. Same goes for @bookshop-org.bsky.social. Buy books. Give books. Support bookstores.
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