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Kristen Martin

@kwistent.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.4K following 984 posts

Author of THE SUN WON'T COME OUT TOMORROW, out now from Bold Type / critic with words in NYRB, NYT Mag, WaPo, The New Republic, and elsewhere / member Freelance Solidarity Project and National Book Critics Circle / Philly / kristenmartin.net

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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 6h
If you’re paying for an outside book publicist, I think you’d hope that person isn’t trying to pitch your book to an editor who died five years ago (just got a group pitch 👀)
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Mariska Hargitay on ER is giving me the major ick
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I loved talking to Rainesford about knitting, crocheting, and my grandmother for this!
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Registration closes TOMORROW for my upcoming online hybrid memoir class! There are just two spots left: www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Most recently, Candice Wuehle's ULTRANATURAL, which I reviewed for the New Republic newrepublic.com/article/2108...
newrepublic.com
Confessions of an Exploited Pop Star
Candice Wuehle’s novel Ultranatural lays bare the alienated labor behind the catchy hits and sequined costumes.
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chris bell @christopherbell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Sunday Oct 25 I will be at Roxy Cinema NYC screening some episodes of Miss Me Yet and afterwards will be discussing the Bush years with none other than Sam Seder! Come through: roxycinemanewyork.com/screenings/mis…
roxycinemanewyork.com
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Few things worse than being on an Amtrak with no quiet car AND being stuck riding backwards
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
My kingdom for a head of unsprouted garlic
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
General full scholarship applications for my upcoming hybrid memoir course with Blue Stoop are due tomorrow, 9/10! More info on the class here, with a link to the app: www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
General full scholarship applications for my upcoming hybrid memoir course with Blue Stoop are due tomorrow, 9/10! More info on the class here, with a link to the app: www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Love this episode of SVU from 2018 where it takes the unit days to figure out what Chad and Stacey refers to
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Gift link to the WSJ Fetterman feature that every Pennsylvanian ought to read: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Behind Closed Doors, John Fetterman Shows Little Interest in the Work of a Senator
The first-term senator, poised to be a possible swing vote, churns through staff as he alienates fellow Democrats and defends Israel.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The new dialect quiz thing going around has a serious Long Island erasure problem—it keeps telling me I'm from New Jersey even with "on line" and "hero," two things that gave me away as NOT being from NJ when I moved there at 14
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Registration is open now through 9/24, with scholarship applications due by 9/10: www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Big fan of how the Gmail spam filter doesn't bat at eye at the sticky caps cArShIELD missives I have been getting multiple times a day
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Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I love writing for @thebaffler.com and it kills me to see the workers there being put through the wringer like this. Fair contract NOW!
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
No one talks about how chia pudding is upsetting for those of us with trypophobia (nevertheless I am persisting for fiber)
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I loathe the movie ANNIE (for reasons amply expounded upon in my book) but even I can admit that Tim Curry is genius in it
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
We really did lose one of the best advocates for books that there ever was.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Co-signing as a freelance critic!
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Registration is open now! www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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chris bell @christopherbell.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I am proud to present my latest feature film, FAILED STATE. Now on @means.tv Please watch! Sign up for a free trial and stay awhile, or sign up with the code CHRISBELL for 10% off! means.tv/programs/fai...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Registration is open now! www.bluestoop.org/classes/p/ba...
bluestoop.org
Through the Back Door — Blue Stoop
Need financial aid? Apply here first. Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir 9 Mondays, 9/28 – 11/23 | 6:30–8:30 pm ET | Virtual When we break away from wha...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Join me this fall for a redux of my popular hybrid memoir class with Blue Stoop, expanded and refreshed! We’ll meet via Zoom on Monday nights from late September through late November, and scholarships available to folks in the greater Philly area. Hit up bluestoop.org/classes for more!
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Join me this fall for a redux of my popular hybrid memoir class with Blue Stoop, expanded and refreshed! We’ll meet via Zoom on Monday nights from late September through late November, and scholarships available to folks in the greater Philly area. Hit up bluestoop.org/classes for more!
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october "pre-order The Struggle Is Always Worth It now!" krausch @octoberk.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Which one of you was looking for book recs about adoption the other day?
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
It’s my birthday! Perhaps you’d like to buy my book THE SUN WON’T COME OUT TOMORROW, or check it out from your library, or add/rate/review it on Goodreads or Storygraph! bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
bookshop.org
The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion. Step two: Orphan acquires caretakers who...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
For ur weekend reading:
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Brittney McKenna @brittneymckenna.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This happened to me with Vulture last year. I was hired to cover a day-long TV event (on a Sunday, no less) here in Nashville. I spent 8 hours at the event, then went home and wrote a 1500-word piece overnight because they wanted to post it the next day. Then the editor kept putting me off. (cont.)
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Alexis Gunderson @alexiskg.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
This should NOT be the experience of freelancers anywhere, nevertheless at a publication as respected as Vulture! But this sort of thing is also what collective action is made for — freelancers, come join @fspnwu.bsky.social where culture critics are building power for better conditions!
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Please get in touch if you’d like to join the cultural critics group at the Freelance Solidarity Project. We have to look out for one another. open.substack.com/pub/freelanc...
open.substack.com
A Statement on Industry-Wide Cuts to Cultural Criticism
2025 has been a year of devastating disinvestment across arts and culture criticism.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
In my first for @bloomberg.com, I wrote about Kimon de Greef's THE EGO TRIP and the perils of plunging too quickly into the deep end of psychedelics. Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
The Toad Medicine Boom Was Built on a Myth
Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip reveals how a fabricated origin story, a self-styled guru and a powerful psychedelic combined to launch a global phenomenon.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
In my first for @bloomberg.com, I wrote about Kimon de Greef's THE EGO TRIP and the perils of plunging too quickly into the deep end of psychedelics. Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
The Toad Medicine Boom Was Built on a Myth
Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip reveals how a fabricated origin story, a self-styled guru and a powerful psychedelic combined to launch a global phenomenon.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
New substack about this stack: americanorphan.substack.com/p/what-im-ya...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
New substack about this stack: americanorphan.substack.com/p/what-im-ya...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I’m back at @npr.org today with a review of Pamela Colloff’s masterful CATCH THE DEVIL, a damning look at our criminal legal system through the lens of one murder case and the trail of harm carved by one jailhouse witness—with the collusion of the state: www.npr.org/2026/07/21/n...
npr.org
A teen was murdered in 1985. A new book tracks the case through a broken legal system
Catch the Devil by journalist Pamela Colloff highlights the potentially fatal consequences of a system more concerned with securing convictions than determining the truth and delivering justice.
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NPR @npr.org · 21/07/2026
Journalist Pamela Colloff has written an engrossing and damning book on how the case of the 1985 killing of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio played out. n.pr/4vRrvOo
n.pr
'Catch the Devil' is a work of true crime that indicts the justice system
Journalist Pamela Colloff has written an engrossing and damning book on how the case of the 1985 killing of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio played out.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I’m back at @npr.org today with a review of Pamela Colloff’s masterful CATCH THE DEVIL, a damning look at our criminal legal system through the lens of one murder case and the trail of harm carved by one jailhouse witness—with the collusion of the state: www.npr.org/2026/07/21/n...
npr.org
A teen was murdered in 1985. A new book tracks the case through a broken legal system
Catch the Devil by journalist Pamela Colloff highlights the potentially fatal consequences of a system more concerned with securing convictions than determining the truth and delivering justice.
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BOMB Magazine @bombmag.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
@samanthapaigerosen.bsky.social discusses her anthology “Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection” ( @beaconpress.bsky.social, 2026) featuring essays and interviews on the many possibilities for communal living with writer @kwistent.bsky.social. bit.ly/4bMgXbP
bit.ly
BOMB Magazine | Samantha Paige Rosen by Kristen Martin
Essays and interviews on the many possibilities for communal living.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Thanks so much to @alexsteed.bsky.social for having me on to talk ANNIE, my least favorite orphan character whom I have nevertheless written many, many words on. Podcast link here: www.podpage.com/you-are-good/
podpage.com
You Are Good
You Are Good is a feelings podcast about movies hosted by Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Damning shit for this absolute fool share.inquirer.com/UROPEe
share.inquirer.com
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman has more support among Pa. Republicans than GOP Sen. Dave McCormick, new poll shows
Just under half of Pennsylvania's registered voters approve of how Fetterman is handling his job, but a vast majority of his support came from Republicans, according to a new poll.
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Thanks so much to @alexsteed.bsky.social for having me on to talk ANNIE, my least favorite orphan character whom I have nevertheless written many, many words on. Podcast link here: www.podpage.com/you-are-good/
podpage.com
You Are Good
You Are Good is a feelings podcast about movies hosted by Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed.
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You Are Good @youaregood.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
NEW EPISODE! Leapin' Lizards! In which we unpack all of the aspirational feelings of Annie with @danijanae.bsky.social and attempt to wrap our heads around the one-hundred year history of America's favorite "little orphan" with @kwistent.bsky.social!
YOU ARE GOOD 

Annie (1982)

Special Guests:
Dani Janae 
Kristen Martin
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Rainesford Stauffer @rainesford.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
For a story: Did you participate in Pizza Hut's BOOK-IT! program? I'd love to talk to you about it for a story on the program being back this summer. If your child is participating in BOOK IT! this year, I'd love to speak with you, too. DMs open, rainesford.alexandra@gmail.com, Signal rstauff.20
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Beacon Press @beaconpress.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Happy #PublicationDay, @samanthapaigerosen.bsky.social! 🏘️ LIVING, TOGETHER, an anthology on found family, hacking adulthood, and other lessons communal living teaches us about the future of US housing, is “rigorous, funny, authentic, and informative.” — @emmaceisenberg.bsky.social
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Main diff so far is that on ER they are obsessed with letting loved ones and sometimes random children watch traumatic procedures through open windows, curtains, etc
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
We’ve been watching season one of ER and they really just recycled a lot of storylines for the Pitt
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
In print in the July/August issue of @newrepublic.com, and now online: my review of Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s brilliant book Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young newrepublic.com/article/2117...
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Kristen Martin @kwistent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
In print in the July/August issue of @newrepublic.com, and now online: my review of Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s brilliant book Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young newrepublic.com/article/2117...
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chris bell @christopherbell.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
This will be the final time you can ever see my second feature INCORRECTIONAL. By the way, if you have some sort of platform and are down for an interview, I'm open. Would love to get this out there and give the movie one last chance to be heard.
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