PicoBlog

And I am Makenna Held (she/they). CEO of Okay, Perfect. Mama. American living in France. I’m a recipe developer, cookbook author, host of La Pitchoune: Cooking in France on HBOMax and Magnolia Network, developed the first curriculum to teach cooking without recipes in such a way that transforms how home cooks cook, business mentor and investor, and the human who bought Julia Child’s house site unseen. Okay, Perfect—the company I created with my best friend and husband, Chris—is a cooperative that builds experiences and educational products at the intersections of what makes us human.

I pluck the most fascinating news items of the day and then create a modern-day column which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight. Dave Pell has been writing about news, technology, and media since 1999. He writes NextDraft, a newsletter offering a quick and entertaining look at the day’s most fascinating news. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Time, NPR, Wired, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere.

Good question! My name is Robert Wright. Some of you may know me from my books—including Nonzero, The Moral Animal, The Evolution of God, and, most recently, Why Buddhism is True.  You may also know me from my shockingly long history of podcasting. I co-founded Bloggingheads.tv in 2005, and I’ve been at it ever since. My twice-weekly podcast, formerly known as The Wright Show, got a new name last year: Robert Wright’s Nonzero. When I’m not taping podcast episodes or writing my newsletter, I’m working on my new book—The Radical Power of Cognitive Empathy—about why understanding the perspectives of other people is so valuable and why it can be so hard.

Site is up! Crisesnotes.com. You should be able to access your account like normal there. let me know if there are any issues. I am moving Notes on the Crises to the hosting service Ghost where I will have my own website at crisesnotes.com. I will post another update when that is available. Please bare with me during this transitional period. Why subscribe? Notes on the Crises covers the play by play of the current pandemic-induced global depression and how policymakers should respond to it as well as assessing how they actually are responding.

Sometimes, you just want to know you’re not alone. That’s the point of OK Doomer. This newsletter talks about what’s really going on in the world, with an unfiltered but empathetic perspective. I have a Ph.D. in English, but I study language and communication, including the history of both. This is where I go to post my blunt thoughts about politics, culture, and education. A few years ago, I didn’t think I’d be writing about pathogens and pandemics, but circumstances compelled me to start speaking up against mainstream narratives that I found harmful and counterproductive.

Perspectives aims to be your personal “career coach” in a newsletter. Hi, I am, Deb Liu. I have been a Silicon Valley tech executive of nearly two decades. I am the President & CEO of Ancestry, a tech company focused on helping people connect to their family history and tell their family story. Prior to that, I was the Vice-President at Facebook where I served on the executive team. I led a number of products throughout the years including Marketplace, Facebook Payments, Platform, and Games.

Hi! I’m Sean L. McCarthy. That’s me photographed by Bryon Summers on Election Day 2021 at the Substack Grow meetup at Book Shop in New York City’s East Village. My resume, in brief…Grew up in the newspaper age; got to cover the 1992 presidential election while interning at my hometown paper, The Hartford Courant; moved West after college and learned how to work a beat at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho; became a comedian in Seattle, then an entertainment reporter in the suburbs, and published my first newsroom blog in 1998 before “blog” was even in the dictionary, while competing in the Seattle International Comedy Competition (winning an innovation bonus from Scripps Howard).

PTFO is novel-length fantasy and science fiction stories, published serially here on Substack. The stories you read can here are part of a small but fun genre called AP Fiction: Stories told through the solo play of a tabletop roleplaying game. Because the direction of the story is influenced by the roll of the dice and, sometimes, by the votes of the readers, AP Fiction stories are unpredictable, even to the author — rather than the author setting out to tell a specific story, we Play to Find Out.

RAVE NEW WORLD is a newsletter on drugs and nightlife by gonzo reporter Michelle Lhooq—this is a view from the streets, no bullshit! Join me in the underground as we examine the cultural zeitgeist from the belly of the beast. This newsletter investigates how counterculture is evolving in the age of platform capitalism, algorithmic oppression and drug legalization. It’s about how music and drug subcultures everywhere—from Los Angeles to New York, Bangkok to Berlin—are fueling the fight for cognitive freedom and political autonomy—and the messy politics of forging new worlds.