Harold Underdown

Reminder! next week: "Publishing Trends, Market Shifts, and Opportunities" online workshop via Boyds Mills. In it, I cover not just trends in the children's and YA market, but other kinds of change in publishing, and how to research, understand, and respond to them. boydsmills.org/workshop/pub...

Or do we let the stupidest, worst people among us lead us into the ecofascism of border walls, drone warfare, and exterminationism? That's our choice. We've had generations of being told to "vote with our wallets" instead of organizing in political, labor and social movements.

Do we create full employment for every person who will live for the next 300 years, relocating our coastal cities inland, treating the sick, retrofitting our infrastructure, and accommodating our neighbors who are driven out of their homes?

Thank you to @fuse8.bsky.social for this wonderful preview of our Spring 2027 books!

Average Trump scandal: many people dead after uncontroversial government program illegally cut by doge for nonexistent savings Average mamdani scandal: he’s playing BASKETBALL with his FRIENDS

Our election research team put out an article today explaining how the prediction markets (e.g. Kalshi, Polymarket) — and social media posts featuring visualizations from those platforms — may feed election rumors & conspiracy theories around the U.S. midterms: uwcip.substack.com/p/what-to-kn...

This starts tomorrow--and has a second session Thursday! You can still sign up.

Today, our election research team published our updated (from 2024) framework for understanding how most rumors that sow doubt in election processes mislead. A lot of what we see is on that right side of the graph, real issues that get wrapped into false rumors. uwcip.substack.com/p/spot-the-l...

"In order to change someone’s mind, you have to change their life. You have to change their network of friends and connections. You need to change the experiences they’ve had in the world," says @sarahsteinlubrano.bsky.social.

High level observation from some of our election rumor work this season: The Trump admin & right wing media ecosystem are focusing a lot of energy on California — which with all of their congressional seats and the long counting period could set the stage for some "rigged election" shenanigans.

Defeating the global incumbency curse when people have every reason to be furious at the status quo is hard. And it requires making clear who, exactly, is behind our woes and that you will fight with all your might for working people.

This starts tomorrow--and has a second session Thursday! You can still sign up.

What you fight, you feed. The right is very intentional about the vile they spread. They lie not to be believed but rather to be repeated. Congrats Brazil - may this and Serbia be a portent.

this is a really good, important read. featuring no-bs comments from @ezralevin.bsky.social @hunterisntdunn.bsky.social and more

I’m not a political journalist, so was gladly surprised at the community I found here last night. To Americans anxious about the upcoming elections, a key thing we learned in Brazil that might help you: DO NOT engage with the far-right online. Don’t share rage bait. Amplify your people. Ignore them.

**A Note by Kyle Lukoff** The Ashford School District in Connecticut recently informed Newbery Honor-winning children’s book author @kylelukoff.bsky.social he would not be permitted to visit with their students. Our silence makes us complicit. theauthorvillage.substack.com/p/banned-by-...

We tackle the spooky urtext. Today on the @fuse8nkate.bsky.social podcast we see whether or not Kate can identify the morals on these pages by reading a copy of this book that is printed entirely in the original German. #kidlit 📚👍 afuse8production.slj.com/2026/10/26/f...

Today we (@propublica.org) published this map of every location with an active 287(g) agreement with ICE. (with the help of @tituslegaldesign.com's initial data analysis). Read the story: "The Small-Town Cop Who Helped ICE Deport His Ingram, Texas, Neighbors" www.propublica.org/article/depo...

NYC has it right - good 'ol paper ballots that are inserted into an electronic scanner that records the data, but also retains the paper ballots for a proper MANUAL audit and recount if requested. Stop making things more complicated than needed.

Thank you @markruffalo.bsky.social for seeing how strong our people-powered campaign is. Let’s “smash” MAGA at the polls this Election Day! Early voting runs from now till 11/1. Election Day is 11/3! #StatenIsland #SouthBrooklyn #Vote #GOTV #MarkRuffalo

What every author committing to a bookstore signing does...

Hearing reports of discarded ballots? Concerns about WA State National Guard deploying to protect elections? Allegations of ballot harvesting in Minnesota? Investigations of non-citizen registration in AZ? Check out our latest rumor rundown to learn more: uwcip.substack.com/p/election-r...

Happy first day of early voting for all who celebrate democracy, New Jersey! Now go vote! www.nj.gov/state/electi...

This is literally the end of the rule of law. If a President can pardon people committing crimes on his behalf - and the Supreme Court says he himself can't be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his job - then the government becomes a lawless entity able to violate our rights without limit.

Our research team did a deep dive this week on the Wedgewood "fake polls" confession and the different rumors and strategic narratives that have taken shape around it. We expect this story and the rumors around it to continue spreading into and beyond the midterms. uwcip.substack.com/p/from-confe...

A billionaire banker named Julio Herrera Velutini was charged with trying to bribe Puerto Rico’s governor to fire the official investigating his bank. Herrera wanted his record wiped clean, so he went looking for a pardon from Trump.

Would stand in line for days to send my kid here.

found out that my mother in law decided she was aggressively pro trans rights literally by going, I don't know anything about this but everyone who is against trans rights is also against free school lunch, the issue I know and care a lot about, so this must be the correct way to feel about this

Start spreading the news- early voting starts TODAY! Find your poll site at vote.nyc

And don’t forget to flip your ballot to vote on 5 questions about making government run faster.

Children’s books and YA literature. The quality has always been there, but the diversity of voices & styles & subjects available now is extraordinary.

There was a fucking hole in our planet’s *atmosphere* Like a legit, no joke, “this will unravel our entire ecosystem” hole in the world, and then we fixed it by working together across national and political lines As a species we decided, “we will survive” Let’s do that some more

Dying to know your dad’s response to this glorious collection of “evidence to the contrary.”

The most immediate thing Alaskans, and Americans across states, can do is make this shit TOO BIG TO RIG. We can't just vote, we gotta do a full scale Revenge of the Voters Republican Repudiation, a Red Wipeout.

Recommended read on why we should not blindly trust “AI detectors,” a point I have been making for years and will continue to make, but @emilymbender.bsky.social is obviously much better at explaining why that is.

About 2 million kids have lost SNAP since deep cuts were enacted last year. The ripple effects: Kids losing SNAP also lose automatic enrollment for free meals at school. And as more kids lose SNAP, their schools may be forced to drop Community Eligibility.

Some cities it's just not worth fucking with

Rarely do people come out and explicitly say sexual abuse victims are too damaged for responsibility. But there it is. Peak rape culture.

Saturday is the last day you can register to vote. Go to vote.nyc to register and learn about what's on your ballot.

Our weekly big list of kid lit links is up (Oct 23): kidlit411.com/2026/10/the-... Inside:Querying, Publishing Trends @hunderdown.bsky.social, @roundtablementor.bsky.social, more. Thx @alpacasbookshelf.bsky.social for the illo, @laurasmetana.bsky.social @sueyoungmusic.bsky.social for the giveaways.

Republicans appear to be building a case to potentially challenge the election outcomes in states that refuse to allow them (or help them) to remove people alleged to be non-citizens (using lists known to be riddled with errors) from voting rolls.

Once mass spam texts were made legal, younger donors vanished, leaving a grassroots fundraising machine that subsists on squeezing vulnerable seniors, some of whom give hundreds of times a day. It’s a horrific model. Consultants get generationally wealthy, and the party hollows out its future.

References attacks WITHOUT REPEATING CHARGES? This is how you pushback at lies without giving oppo air. Ascribes MOTIVATION, tells us not just what but why Elon is at it? This is how you make your counter claim credible. Uses POISON PARASITE DEFENSE? This is how you get further bang for ad buck.

AOC: "As AI begins to encroach in our society, their goal is to take your cognition away from you. AI's goal is to take your thoughts away from you, your ability to think away from you, so that you become dependent on a machine ... reading books is active resistance"

Here's our team's "election rumor rundown" for yesterday. It was a busy day with reports of machine glitches and mail-in ballot concerns. These (mostly real) issues were spun into false rumors that suggested they were intentional efforts to tilt election results. uwcip.substack.com/p/fa68f983-1...

Some TN counties used BMDs (touchscreen where it marks a paper ballot you then turn in) or DRE/VVPAT (counts straight from the touchscreen but also prints a paper trail). These are inferior to hand-marked optical scan ballots. Touchscreens can be poorly calibrated and have higher error rates.

Friends, this is our moment. We are 138 signatures away from 1000 on the petition to tell Mamdani to stop experimenting on our kids with AI. Can you help us get to 1000 signatures today? @gregpak.net @liatro.bsky.social @climatefamsnyc.bsky.social @comixaction.com