Some ~personal news~
In case y’all haven’t seen my announcement on social media, I and a host of other great journalists were laid off at The Independent. I am still processing how I feel about being let go by the place I worked for more than five years.
1. How I’m feeling
Let’s be honest, getting laid off is no fun. At the moment, I can’t help but feel some gratitude for the time I spent there, the stories I got to cover and the friends I made. To borrow from a Mary Oliver line quoted in the finale of the latest season of Ted Lasso, “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. That I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.” I joined The Independent after leaving a stint as an editor at The Washington Post when I needed to finish my book and it reinvigorated my love of reporting. I got to ride on Air Force Two with Kamala Harris, cover the Republican National Convention after Trump was shot, bug House Speaker Mike Johnson about poop and interview Tim Walz about what the hell happened to the Democrats in 2024. I published my first book and finished writing my second one. I also met so many great people on the road and so many colleagues in the Capitol press corps. So many people sent lovely notes, from staffers for progressive members of Congress to a conservative Republican senator. So for now, I just want to say, thank you. More than anything, I am bummed I will be out of commission and not work in a newsroom on election night.
2. What comes next?
Not being in a newsroom doesn’t mean I will be out of commission. I still have my column at MS NOW where I write about disability politics. I still am working with BrightSight Speakers (book me here to speak at your school or nonprofit). And I have a new book coming out on March 30, 2027: Manly While Stimming: Autism and the Myth of the Masculine Ideal, which you can pre-order here. You can buy my first book We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation here.
3. What I want from this place.
But while I have plenty of new worlds to explore and tons of new opportunities, I want this place to be my home base. Expect this place to be a hub for news about Congress and campaigns, as well as analysis of the latest election results. In addition, I want to take the expertise I have built throughout the years on autism and disability policy to talk about the latest disability news. Over time, I hope to have some edit this space. Which leads me to my next chapter.
4. I am once again asking for your financial support
The best thing you can do now is subscribe to this newsletter. Subscribing is not only the way I can make money in this space: I want to use the money from this space to eventually hit the campaign trail and report live on the 2026 midterms and the soon-to-launch 2028 presidential election. I can only do that through your support. This is why I am also setting up a Ko-Fi to support reporting trips.
The first few posts will likely be free. But afterward, I plan to go to a paywall system. There will be some free articles. But subscribers will get exclusive content and be privvy to a mailbag. I will also work on some goodies for founding members, likely a signed copy of the next book. In addition, I want to pay someone to edit this space so it is not too sloppy.
5. Thank you for your attention to this matter
I don’t want to keep this long. So for now, I just want to say thank you for reading and being open to this new adventure. Let’s see what we can do.
Ugh I’m so sorry. I really appreciate your take on things and how you give perspective to folks not in politics. I just subscribed.
I’m sorry about the lay-off! Congratulations on continuing endeavors!