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lesleykrueger.bsky.social

@lesleykrueger.bsky.social
44 followers 35 following 27 posts
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Looking at a travel book about Russia by British travel writer Sara Wheeler. In it, she shies away from mentioning her own tabloid-level personal drama. To what extent does this impoverish the book she's writing? lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/telling-se...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Telling Secrets. Or not?
How confessional should writers get?
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Living through trauma does strange things to us. In his new book, Ghosts of Ortona, anthropologist Ian Cosh looks at the way veterans remember war. What does this also say about rape victims, and people who survive violent crime? More than you'd think. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/false-memo...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
False memories that protect us
Anguish, evasion and outright fictions in a brilliant new book about war vets
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
The title of journalist Jason Gale's new book sets it out. After Covid: The Health Impacts That Will Last Generations is about the rise in diabetes, MS and cardio problems post-pandemic. A scary but valuable book. I reviewed it below. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/is-the-pan...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Is the pandemic over yet?
A new book by journalist Jason Gale says the effects of Covid will outlast us all
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
A lovely debut novella from Crystal AJ Smith raises many questions -- including how a publicist can sell a short work of literary fiction to the public. Link below for my review of the book and a Q&A with publicist Selena Mercuri. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/otters-hel...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Murder, revenge and otters (otters?) on the Highway of Tears
Crystal AJ Smith's moving novella looks at the disappearance of an Indigenous woman, while her publicist offers some smart tips on promoting literary fiction
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Jane Friedman @janefriedman.com · 30/04/2026
"It’s strange to understand why you’ve read something only after you’ve finished reading it, and to realize weeks later why you spent so much time thinking about the woman at the next table in the pastry shop..." @lesleykrueger.bsky.social on noticing what you notice.
janefriedman.com
Notice What You Notice About the World Around Us | Jane Friedman
"Noticing what you notice" helps you identify your authentic material and produce work no one can ever copy.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
“Pay attention!” My mother’s cry when I wandered into the road thinking about mermaids instead of traffic. It's still true -- and what we see when we pay attention is unique. And our material. The wonderful Jane Friedman has a piece of mine about this today. janefriedman.com/notice-what-...
janefriedman.com
Notice What You Notice About the World Around Us | Jane Friedman
"Noticing what you notice" helps you identify your authentic material and produce work no one can ever copy.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
A book about damaged war vets really moved me, not least because I saw my father in its pages. Overwork? Nightmares? PTSD? Check. Maybe you'll recognize your father or grandfather as well in part two of my review of David Nasaw's The Wounded Generation. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/wounded-wa...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Wounded Warriors
Women often write about our mothers. But what about our fathers?
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
My father was a war vet, and I always thought he suffered from PTSD. Now a new book examines the trauma of WWII vets -- The Wounded Generation by David Nasaw -- and the author shows that PTSD was massively under-reported at the time. It's a fascinating, well-researched book. Highly recommended.
lesleykrueger.substack.com
When Johnny comes marching home
As yet another war looms, David Nasaw examines the complex problems veterans face
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Beyond the Kondo, what do people really do to simplify their homes -- and their lives? I crowdsourced tips then tried them out. Some really helped. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/we-crowdso...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
We crowdsourced tips for purging our house...
...and found things that really work.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Watching the film of Hamnet and re-reading the novel, I had a left-field question. Do we really want to grapple with the effects of the Covid pandemic? Or is art revolving around the bubonic plague easier because it's Covid adjacent? lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/hamlet-the...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Hamnet: the book, the film, the Oscars
... and the plague, ancient and modern
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
It's tempting as a writer to plunge our stories forward. But maybe we should sometimes hit pause? A how-to post that I hope helps writers -- and gives readers a look behind the curtain at technique. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/please-all...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Please allow your characters moments of happiness
You'd be amazed how it improves your book
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
U.S. writer Jhumpi Lahiri wrote her latest book in Italian, then translated it into English. An overall query: How do you know if a translator has done a good job if you don't speak the original language? Translator and writer Amela Marin helps me out. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/on-the-art...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
An insider's look at the art of translation
A new story collection by Jumpha Lahiri is a fascinating experiment in the foreign voice
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
My husband's kidnapping came to mind when I read about a new novel. Paul was in Nicaragua when some ex-Contra guerrillas scooped him. Giaime Alonge's novel is set partly among the Contras so I picked it up--and regretted it. My new post says why. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/on-the-ban...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
On the banality of true stories
In which I take a look at a new novel, my husband's kidnapping, and the concept of evil
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
My life in cats, part two. This one features Susan Sontag, Vaclav Havel, Orhan Pamuk, Nadine Gordimer, Tom Stoppard... Yeah, it's my name-drop post. I met them while working in human rights, always in the background like our gentle cat Woody. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/an-autobio...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Does anyone else see their life in cat epochs?
Each new cat marks a new stage in life. Doesn't it?
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
If you're serious about doing a house purge - and I am - then who do you want to be at the end of it? It's a serious question but also not, since it's so self-centred in such a harsh world. Anyway, I wrote about it. Not entirely seriously. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/who-do-you...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Who do you want to be after a house purge?
Recycling is easy. Defining your new self, not so much
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
A note I wrote went viral--a brief piece about my husband's neurosurgery. American readers jumped on the fact the bill in Canada was precisely $0.00 So what do you do when something you write goes viral? Being a writer, I wrote about it. It’s up today on the wonderful Jane Friedman's site.
janefriedman.com
Why I Won’t Chase the Post That Went Viral | Jane Friedman
After writing a viral post—about a topic she’s disinclined to dwell on—an author reflects on the worth of chasing that virality again.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
I enjoyed writing this newsletter about trying to figure out how to pace myself these days, looking back to when I seemed to have more time, even though I was living my life at a run. Isaac Asimov comes into it. Just saying. lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/the-infini...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
The Infinite Pile of New Yorkers
Or, I need to figure out how to pace myself
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Part three, my genocide series. Omar El Akkad's book One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This centres on Gaza. What's going on there is awful. But is he right in writing that voting for Kamala Harris was worse than voting for Trump? lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Omar El Akkad's cry of anguish
His new book has a perfect title: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. He means Gaza. How right is he?
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I went searching for an old high school friend and found a wonderful documentary. My friend Derek Wilson was an artist and a hereditary chief of the Haisla nation in northwestern B.C. He helped bring a totem pole back from Europe--the first repatriation of a historic pole. Here's what I wrote.
lesleykrueger.substack.com
A old friend, a historic totem and its journey home
Artist Derek Wilson helped carve a new totem, helping to bring a stolen pole back to the Haisla people
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17/04/2025
meanwhile, prominent pundits continue to deny that there the administration adheres to a segregationist ideology
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Nanjala @nanjala.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever read.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
I recently attended a seminar that included a discussion of AI and the future of publishing. One New York editor, a guy from Penguin, predicted AI will replace ghostwriters in non-fiction. And fiction? Going to another talk by Samantha Harvey might give us some hope.
lesleykrueger.substack.com
The use of AI in writing vs. Samantha Harvey's Booker-winning approach
An editor calls AI the future of non-fiction. Then there's the question of literary novels.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I decided to write about really screwing up -- doing a terrible job when I was interviewed. Also how I thought, Maybe that's something I can harvest for my new novel. An ancient trope: learning from your mistakes. I'm not sure how well that works in real life. But maybe you have other examples?
lesleykrueger.substack.com
How to spin gold from dross
By which I mean from ourselves
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Witkoff was a fool for joining that chat from Moscow. But the entire charlatan national security team also chose to put him on that chat when they knew (or should have known) that he was in Moscow. A spy novel based on this level of cretinous behavior would be unbelievable.
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André Picard @picardonhealth @picardonhealth.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Remedy Supported by RFK Jr. Leaves Some #Measles Patients More Ill. After the health secretary promoted vitamin A as a cure, parents in West Texas began giving their children high doses, sometimes to prevent infection, by @teddyrosenbluth.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/h... via @nytimes.com
nytimes.com
For Some Measles Patients, Vitamin A Remedy Supported by RFK Jr. Leaves Them More Ill
After the health secretary promoted vitamin A as a cure, parents in West Texas began giving their children high doses, sometimes to prevent infection.
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 26/03/2025
Over 270 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since Israel resumed its attacks last week, according to Save the Children. 🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: aje.io/2sm4kp
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 24/03/2025
Dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion, our analysis shows. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, it rose in Texas by 33%.
propub.li
Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
A post about editing our ideas -- when writing, but not just writing. Look before you leap?
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Edit your ideas as rigorously as your prose
A writing tip about a subject that's usually ignored
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Rachael Sirianni, PhD @docsirianni.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH
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Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Amnesty International (@amnesty.org) urges new Syrian government to allow international investigation of sectarian violence, as death toll continues to rise... today.lorientlejour.com/article/1451...
today.lorientlejour.com
Amnesty urges Syria to allow international investigation of violence on coast
Amnesty International on Monday urged Syria's new authorities to allow independent international investigators to look into deadly violence that broke out on the country's Mediterranean coast.
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Crawford Kilian @crof.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
New Program Grants Permanent Residency to Home Care Workers via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/News/2025/03...
thetyee.ca
New Program Grants Permanent Residency to Home Care Workers | The Tyee
The longer someone waits to apply for status, the more likely they are to become undocumented, advocate says.
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Maurice J. Casey @mauricejcasey.com · 07/03/2025
Being a historian, people ask me if I think the US is living through Germany 1933. I answer no, analogies are always imperfect but to me it feels more like Russia 1999: a blatant theft of state assets and liberals in a fugue state, refusing to believe the arc of progress is bending against them.
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Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
! - "As Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job... senior Trump allies held talks with Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko... and senior members of the party of Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s immediate predecessor as president"
politico.eu
Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents
As Washington ramps up its pressure on Zelenskyy to step aside, his rivals are talking to Trump’s team.
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Samantha Harvey published her prizewinning books below the radar—until Orbital won the Booker Prize. What does this say about the way books find an audience these days? People in publishing have told me they don’t know what sells anymore. So what do we do? lesleykrueger.substack.com/p/should-wri...
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Should writers stake out their lane and stay there?
A review of Samantha Harvey's two very different novels: The Western Wind and the Booker Prize-winning Orbital
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Happy Valentine's Day! I put up a freebie e-book to celebrate. www.amazon.com/dp/B09VM7KC6...
amazon.com
The Necessary Havoc of Love
Amazon.com: The Necessary Havoc of Love eBook : Krueger, Lesley: Books
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
I just re-read Michael Ondaatje's classic novel, In the Skin of a Lion, after seeing it name-checked in a pair of recent books. It made me think about someone Ondaatje dedicates the book to, poet Sharon Stevenson, a mutual friend who died very sadly. So what's it like to read the novel now?
lesleykrueger.substack.com
Re-reading Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of the Lion
A friend asked, "Does it hold up?"
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lesleykrueger.bsky.social @lesleykrueger.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
I'm new here, but I thought I'd experiment by posting something I wrote. I've been doing long walks, seeding copies of a couple of my backlist books in Little Free Libraries. Recently, I ended up calling 911 to try to help a strange, disheveled man. Here's the story on my Substack (which is free).
lesleykrueger.substack.com
What You Get Is So Much Stranger Than What You Expect
A story about seeding Little Free Libraries with backlist books -- and making a 911 call.
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