iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Author scam? I've gotten several emails fr people claiming to be v. popular writers of romance/historical fiction who admire Automating Inequality. The emails feels like AI, tho, & the addresses are suspect. But if it's a con, I can't figure out the angle. Anyone else experienced this? What gives?

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I'm teaching my Political Storytelling class this semester. Thank you Bad Bunny for dropping this performance right between the classes on political identity and the one on stories of personhood - we'll be talking about it for weeks. #PoliticalStorytelling

The final shot of Bad Bunny's Halftime show. He holds a football reading "Together, We Are America" up to the camera while musicians holding the flags of the Americas celebrate behind him. Red white and blue fireworks explode in the background.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

✨ AGTOWL receives a Kirkus Star! ✨ A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving received a starred review from Kirkus! Out August 11, the memoir is the hardest & best thing I’ve ever made, so the honor touches me deeply. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

My university media office really should have counted the letters on this newsletter headline...

Email headline from a university that reads "UAlbany scientist proposes meth"

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Read this morning while exploring feedforward & predictive interneural connections: "The NMDA is a glutamate receptor cation channel that is also widely referred to as a 'coincidence detector'." Down the rabbit hole for sure. But "coincidence detectors"?! What wonderful worlds brains are.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Reading on PTSD and neural plasticity this month. Looks like there is some interesting preliminary research. Anyone have recommendations for me?

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Thinking about universities' promotion of AI from a resource- and labor-extraction angle -- something I'm not hearing come up a lot in conversations about AI and education. But I'm part of the Anthropic class action, and data centers themselves are concerned about their water and energy use... e.g.:

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Here's my latest, a review of Schneier and Sanders' new boo, Rewiring Democracy (with some big thoughts of my own), in Nature. AI has a democracy problem — here’s why www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

AI has a democracy problem — here’s why

A thorough examination of artificial intelligence’s promise in politics rests on a thorny premise: democracy is an information system.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The lesson: Nobody survives the wilderness alone. In love with hazard orange and tranquil blue, the humor and danger all caught up together. Thanks @corraldesign.bsky.social (design) and Giacomo Girardi (art), and everyone at @fsgbooks.bsky.social, for promoting beautiful, true caregiver stories.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I’m excited to share that I have a reported memoir, *A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love and Survival,* arriving in the world on August 11, 2026. Tomorrow, Oct 30, @fsgbooks.bsky.social will reveal the book’s extraordinary cover. Follow FSG (or me) to get the first glimpse.

A mysterious image, in tones of hazard orange and blue. The letters "al" appear on the left. A puzzling image that might be a rock of a turtle, appears in the center.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Excited to be digging into this fascinating new series on worldwide population shifts. www.npr.org/series/g-s1-... Even, meticulous, ambitious reporting has me rethinking so many things that I thought I knew. Kudos to @brianmannadk.bsky.social @sarahmccammon.bsky.social & everyone at @npr.org

npr.org

Population Shift

Examining what happens when families have fewer kids

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

"The Trump administration’s tax and domestic policy bill... is projected to cost the country’s 1,512 community health centers roughly $7.3 billion annually in increased uncompensated care costs as they take on the treatment of new, and newly uninsured, patients." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/h...

nytimes.com

‘Medicaid Cut Me Off’: A Rural Health Center Faces New Pressures

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Shteyngart brilliant as always. "Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern-father archetype to their followers. Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Author photo options by the extraordinary William C. Gill. What do you all think? Favorites? For context, the cover copy for the book is below. So as you vote, think vibez. 😉

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

1/4: I got my start in public media. I still remember when the Rodney King verdict came down my first year at KZSC. We had a remarkably good public affairs department.

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Laura Mauldin @lauramauldin.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

I feel both joyful & terrified: My book is actually on the @eccobooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social website now! IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Caregiving Crisis will be out Feb 2026 ✨ eeeeek! www.harpercollins.com/products/in-...

harpercollins.com

In Sickness and in Health

An urgent and deeply affecting account of America's failure to provide meaningful support to its chronically ill and disabled citizens and our resulting...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

I think I just coined the phrase "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance," and I'm very proud.

On a white background, black text reports no results for a DuckDuckGo search of "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance."

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Kat McGowan @mcgowankat.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Also, Medicaid isn't just poor-people health insurance. It's the main payer for long-term care. Middle-class people can't afford nursing homes either at ~125k/yr. The typical outcome is that they "pay down" (go broke paying for care) to become eligible for Medicaid.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Made up a little song for myself today: "You are feeling insecure... Because that's a natural part... Of the process!" #AmWriting #EditingKillsEgo #GuideToOpenWaterLifesaving

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Why is caregiving so hard in America? Excited to see this new film... "Caregivers are on their own--and...spend an average of $7,242 out of pocket ea yr. According to a recent DoL report, they also miss out on an av of $43,500 in income due to the demands of adult care." www.npr.org/2025/06/20/n...

npr.org

Why is caregiving so hard in America? The answers emerge in a new film

A new documentary on PBS shows what it's like to care for adult family members and recounts the history of caregiving policy in the U.S., revealing why those caring for family are often on their own.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

There are going to be Andrew Solomon-level endnotes on this book. Which is crazy, because it's a freaking #memoir.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

A quote that's resonating with me today from the manuscript of A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: "Care is both the hardest and the best thing we do as human beings. We should find better ways to share and support it, because it is difficult and because it is beautiful."

On a background of snow-covered steep mountains, artfully designed test in warm shades of orange and yellow reads: "Care is both the hardest and the best thing we do as human beings. We should find better ways to share and support it, both because it is difficult and because it is beautiful."

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Was hitting the point of diminishing returns enforcing desk discipline for these edits, so grabbed a camp site, took a paddle, swam in the river, slept under the stars. Then a hike and breakfast this morning and I'm back to the desk. Gas $30, campsite $18, food $20. 24 hours and $70 for the win.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I love the two weeks of voluptuous abundance when the roses and peonies first bloom. I can't keep up with the deadheading, and I'm always having to clean up the petals from the five or six arrangements I've got going in the house. And then, like smoke, they are gone 'til next year.

A white plastic basket filled with the withered petals of blush and shocking pick roses and peonies sits above a metal sink, also filled with the withered petals of blush and shocking pick roses and peonies.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Read this OpEd from two of the finest people I know, @kevindeliban.bsky.social and Trevor Hawkins, who remind us that Arkansas was living today's national politics ten years ago, with deadly impacts. Also that the people of Arkansas fought back, and won.

nytimes.com

Opinion | We Saw Medicaid Work Requirements Up Close. You Don’t Want This Chaos.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Edit a chapter, plant some seeds. Repeat. Trying to remember that after all this quiet, patient work of cultivation comes harvest.

A cardboard box of seedling packets sits in a dirty planter.

Seedling trays -- one filled with several week-old baby plants, the other full of labeled soil -- sit in a patch of sun inside a greenhouse.

A large stack of drafts sits on a paint-spattered hardwood floor.

Two dozen or so small stacks of paper are arrayed on a hardwood floor.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Have been hiding, working on healing, finishing TWO manuscripts (both out in 2026!), and loving up my platform camper. Slowly emerging from the cave.

A middle-aged white woman in winter clothes sits inside an orange tent, grasping a cup of tea and smiling into the camera.

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