Hello! I'm briefly resurfacing from a glorious Twitter hiatus (to accompany an equally glorious book leave) to plug a few things.
First, I'm really proud to announce that I am guest-editing the next edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology, out in Oct. The choices are done, and it was hard to narrow them down, but I'm very happy with the selection. hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the…
The Atlantic launched a wonderful new podcast called The Experiment. Huge congrats to @hooliwho, @katlwells, @AMelathe, & the rest of the team. The first ep features a cameo by me, throwing shade at amendments. theatlantic.com/podcasts/exper…
The Atlantic also launched a new project called Inheritance, on American history, Black life, and the resilience of memory, featuring many of our best writers. Check out the first wave of pieces here: theatlantic.com/inheritance/
Our amazing new staff writer @KatherineJWu made her debut with a full superhero landing. Here's her first Atlantic piece on what happens when people get the second COVID-19 vaccine shot.
Please go full O Captain, My Captain for @kissane, @alexismadrigal, and the many other volunteers of the Covid Tracking Project as they enter the final month of their incredible, heroic work. They've been invaluable, and I hope they all get some rest. covidtracking.com/analysis-updat…
A lot of great books are coming out next month, and you should pre-order them! @roseveleth has turned her incredible podcast Flash Forward, into a book-slash-graphic-novel-anthology. It's creative, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. indiebound.org/book/978141974…
.@carlzimmer, a phenomenal writer and a genuine mensch, is publishing his 918th book--LIFE'S EDGE--about the concept of life itself. It's profound, lyrical, and very Carl. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/639396/l…
BELOVED BEASTS, by @nijhuism, is about the history of the modern conservation movement, and Michelle is exactly the person whom I would trust to tell this particular story. wwnorton.com/books/beloved-…
That's it for now. Diving back into book leave. I've written 28,000 words since the start of the year, and wonderfully, 0 of them have been "pandemic". Take care of yourselves.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I’m stepping away from pandemic reporting for a few months to finish the book I paused in March. This year has been the most professionally meaningful of my life, but it has also shredded me. It’s been months of continually staring straight into the sun, and I need to blink. 1/
It says something about this year that the prospect of finishing a book now feels like a radical act of self-care. Book-writing: a famously relaxing and restorative activity! A “break”! 😬😬2/
A necessary decision, but not an easy one: Obviously the pandemic is still going on, and will be for some time. I’ll be back in the spring to cover it.
In the meantime, here’s my look at 2021, what it will likely bring & the lessons we need to learn. 3/
I always knew I wanted to end the pandemic year with a deep look ahead to the next one. But this ended up being about more than vaccines and viruses, and as much about memory, forgetting, and how we make sense of and learn from disasters.
A running theme of my work this year has been the devastating consequences of underfunding and neglecting public health. Which turns out to be a problem when you want to, y’know, vaccinate a country.
Other countries have done MUCH better at this with a fraction of the resources that the US has. This should prompt a wholesale reevaluation of what preparedness and exceptionalism actually mean. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
🚨In my final piece of 2020, I look ahead to Pandemic Year 2--the vaccination rollout, how the virus will react, the lingering societal scars, and the larger lessons we must learn (but risk forgetting) from this horrendous year. 1/
Things are dark now. Hope is on the horizon but so are obstacles.
As one expert said: “Think about next summer as a marker for when we might be able to breathe again. But there’s almost a year’s worth of work that needs to happen in those 6 months.” 2/
🚨I wrote the Atlantic’s next cover story on the COVIDization of science. No other disease has been scrutinized so intensely, by so much combined intellect, in so brief a time. This piece is about both the victories achieved & the weaknesses exposed. 1/
A year ago, zero scientists were studying COVID‑19. Since then, the COVID-19 papers submitted to 1 journal (NEJM) outnumber all Ebola papers ever published. Researchers worked wonders at a time when research was harder than ever to do. 2/
We have effective vaccines against a virus that, a year ago, was still unknown. That is an *astonishing* feat, not least because it validates technologies that will make it easier to build vaccines against future pandemics, too. 3/
Well, rewatching Lord of the Rings this year was... different.
Consider BILBO: just wants to finish his damn book; “butter spread over too much bread”; ages dramatically
GANDALF: would rather be doing pretty fireworks; instead has to ride around shouting policy advice at inexplicably reluctant leaders; can’t get a day off even when dead
THEODEN: “What can men do against such reckless hate? A THREAD 1/“