Kelly Caldwell
@kkc212
Writer; dean of faculty @GothamWriters. she/her I live in NYC but still say gapers' block.
For some reason, I can't get U2's "I'm stuck in a moment, and I can't get out of it" out of my head.
What better time than the mushy middle of the year to talk about the mushy middle of stories? If you're in one, first, don't panic. It's just your brain doing brain things. More wisdom and remedies, from people much smarter than me: blogs.gothamwriters.com/2026/07/12/m... #writingcommunity
Hey there #NYC! This Friday, the NYPL St. Agnes branch will let teens pick up YA books for free—for keeps! Starts at noon! This is the branch in Manhattan, on Amsterdam and 81st! #WritingCommunity #books
I'm increasingly distressed at the way the #cyclospora outbreak is being reported right now, with people citing lettuce as the possible source when the facts are that NOBODY REALLY KNOWS. Look at this doctor's VERY careful phrasing here! She is not saying they've found it in lettuce!
Pops will again be chilling under table of the egg guys at the USQ greenmarket, who give out treats.
This "only famous people sell memoir" line is becoming such a thought-terminating, creativity-smothering cliché, and it makes me crazy because it is NOT TRUE! Thank you @Jasonprokowiew for pushing back on it! #WritingCommunity open.substack.com/pub/memoirla...
Did everyone else know about the @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social vintage READ poster fundraising auction?! I just found out, and what FUN this is to browse! So much nostalgia, so many '90s hairstyles, so many surprising book choices! movieposters.ha.com/c/search/res...
NYC @mayor.nyc.gov, July 3: America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. How small they are. How weak. How unoriginal. Patriot Front, July 4th: Let's prove that Muslim guy right! (Photo @theguardian.com)
Oh! Lilliann Hellman makes a cameo, reminding us all that she was a heroic bad ass. ❤️
Settling in to see Are You Now or Have You Ever Been @citycenter.bsky.social tonight, I thought, "Do we need to revisit this ugly chapter in US History?" I mean, I get it. When JD Vance on down to Mike Arnold, former mayor of Blanco, TX, are hounding people out of their livelihoods for ... 1/
What it means to write with restraint, or how a sentence about soap landed me in hot water: blogs.gothamwriters.com/2026/06/16/r... #writingcommunity
More excellent reporting from @jonathanlarsen.bsky.social, this time about a House committee voting to make EV cars less affordable. In the middle of an oil crisis. open.substack.com/pub/thefucki... #gas #GasPrices
Pops, now 11, still runs to the door when I walk in, and, truly, nothing feels quite like that!
BIG congratulations to @gothamwriters.bsky.social's own @scottalexanderhess.bsky.social, whose novel Drought won the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction last night! Well deserved, Scott! 🎉 📚 🥂 📚 🎊 📚 🏆 Y'all go read his book now! www.goodreads.com/book/show/22... #WritingCommunity
He not only "well, actually"-ed an obvious joke, he did it on a post celebrating a pretty successful protest, a post written by a Yale Professor and former FBI counterintelligence agent, who is also a woman.
These two stories are the same story. #Iran www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... thehill.com/newsletters/...
Freitag graph. Save the cat. Rashomon. Hero's Journey. Inverted pyramid. There are so many methods for structuring a good story. Here's another one, introduced to me by Theresa Okokon, (author of "Who I Always Was,"): Sankofa structure. blogs.gothamwriters.com/2026/03/17/s... #writing