Oscar Villalon
Editor, ZYZZYVA (zyzzyva.org); contributing editor, Lit Hub; publications: Freeman's, The Believer, VQR, Lit Hub, Stranger's Guide, Alta, and other places. San Francisco is my home.
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- Reposted by Oscar VillalonThe longer I've gone in journalism, the more I think I underestimated how important the institutional knowledge inside newspapers really was. Newspaper reporters and editors *knew the place* and their combined knowledge is irreplaceable.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonThought I was done writing about the bullshit that outside media says about S.F. But this pair — making fun of unhoused people in wheelchairs — coaxed me out of retirement. On loving the city, and the fragility of visiting adult male Patriots fans. Gift link 🎁 www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/arti...
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonAfter 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post. substack.com/home/post/p-...
- Aside what these layoffs mean to the Washington Post as an organization, the toll on the people who lost their jobs is awful. The dread and the anxiety of now having to find a job, of figuring out bills, insurance. And for those who kept their jobs, the stress of working even more to paper the gaps.
- Laying off “more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom” is wretched. Shuttering the sports and the books section is nonsensical. Whatever plan the Washington Post has it doesn’t involve ambitiously fulfilling the mission of daily journalism for a regional and national readership.
- So far, the only thing amazing about Super Bowl week in San Francisco has been the traffic in and around downtown.
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- Heading home from the big rally that turned into a march from Dolores Park to City Hall, and a couple of things: one, the majority of protestors looked to be high school kids or college aged, which is heartening; and two, what a fine way of catching up with old friends and meeting new people.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonCity Lights will be closed all day January 30th in support of the national shutdown to abolish ICE. Like many others, we are horrified by the unmitigated use of force on civilians in Minneapolis, in the United States, and beyond our borders. Hope to see you in the streets.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonDAILY MEMO: Border Patrol and ICE Raid Almost 20 L.A. Communities, Almost 30 Total in SoCal in Record Numbers @eltragon.bsky.social
- It does seem like the ground is shifting, like the momentum has been recaptured by the forces of humaneness and integrity and possibility. The stronger that feeling of hope gets, the greater the violence of all kinds that may be thrown at us. If so, it just means they know they're about to fall.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonIt’s really difficult & disorienting but the feds hit LA extremely hard today. There were kidnappings all over & reported cluster raids in Chinatown, East LA, Ktown. This list shows to 1130 AM but they haven’t stopped all day Just because the media attention stopped doesn’t mean the abductions have
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonThere are so many great publishers in Minneapolis—one thing the rest of us can do is support their books. Here are a few recent novels from Coffee House, Graywolf, and Milkweed sure to give the goons from ICE a stroke: www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-fea...
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- Reposted by Oscar VillalonSome context for the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
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- San Francisco State, making the arts great.
- We’ll soon find out what this new framework on Arctic security is. But no matter what he agreed to, there’s no reason to believe he’ll honor it. Just takes one or two people getting into his ear to get him to change his mind. He is reliably unreliable.
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- Hoping that a problem will just resolve itself at a future time isn’t a strategy, it’s surrendering of agency, it’s saying there’s zero you can do about it. Likewise, appeasement never works. It only subtracts from needed courage, an incremental debasement that impoverishes your values & leadership.
- Is he going to want the check that comes with it, too?
- As much as the Warriors are beloved, as much as the Giants matter, what the Niners mean to San Francisco and the Bay Area at large can’t be overstated. Incredible playoff win, and given all the setbacks this season, it somehow feels much more significant than that. So much heart in that squad.
- Their dead certainty about the unassailability of their moves portends the worst. Venezuela already seems primed to be a failure, but that probably won’t dissuade them on Greenland or Iran. The math is unforgiving; miscalculation could mean global if not domestic cataclysms. Yet blithely they go on.
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- Nebraska is top ten in men’s basketball, and Indiana is the favorite to win the national championship in college football: a minor but descriptive footnote when relating just how tumultuous and uncertain life has become.
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- The video doesn't lie. He was clearly firing at the driver out of frustration--out of anger--than out of self-preservation. And that's what this is about: forcing the citizenry to obey unreservedly. Might makes right. The law is what they say it is, and the law is them.
- As incredible as it seems that they would actually wrench Greenland from Denmark, consider how they have telegraphed every one of their punches thus far. Deploying the National Guard. Attacking Venezuela. Lawfare against political opponents. Those blows were announced from a mile away.
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- Reposted by Oscar Villalonthis Friday!! we’re having an info session for The Ministry of Words, our new teaching collective 🌱 if you have any questions for Fatimah Asghar, @ingridrojasc.bsky.social, or me, or if you just want to hear more, please contact us at trip.whitfield@gmail.com for the session link
- helloo friends we have an update to our teaching collective, The Ministry of Words: we’ve added a screenwriting class ✨ scholarships are available for writers of color & the new class will be taught by the formidable & Emmy-nominated Fatimah Asghar theministryofwords.com
- The motor that is the mind is at a chugging idle. The waves are too choppy, too inscrutable, to be barreling full speed into anything for now.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonI have a bad habit of forgetting to sell my poetry collections. My newest chapbook, Tricks, is available here and comes with a trigger warning: it is highly gay and should not be read by anyone who may not be prone to frequent arousal. www.cutbankonline.org
- Two quick things about Venezuela: yes, it’s as deranged as it looks, and the implications domestically and internationally are beyond troubling; and second, that familiar lament remains ever true, said of Mexico but applicable to all of the Americas: “So far from God, so close to the United States.”
- We made it what? two days? into 2026 before the powers that be picked up where they left off in 2025.
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- Just after the toll of the midnight, ushering in the New Year playing Eddie Money’s “Baby Hold On” is the right move. It’s blue-collar hopefulness, you-and-me-are-all-that-we-need bravery, but tempered with that “whatever will be will be” wariness. And it’s a killer song.
- Ready or not, here comes 2026. Good luck, everyone! We’ll make the best of it. (We might even be delightfully surprised, as unlikely as that may seem, given 2025.)
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- This is good stuff. Started with Garro’s story collection “The Week of Colors” (Two Lines Press), but you can jump into “The Queen of Swords” cold. Barrera does a magnificent job of writing a fascinating biography that is personal to her but not about her. And it makes you want to read Garros’ work!
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- Reposted by Oscar Villalonhelloo friends we have an update to our teaching collective, The Ministry of Words: we’ve added a screenwriting class ✨ scholarships are available for writers of color & the new class will be taught by the formidable & Emmy-nominated Fatimah Asghar theministryofwords.com
- we’ve been working on this for months—introducing a new teaching collective ✨ starting 2/4, Fatimah Asghar, @ingridrojasc.bsky.social, & I will offer generative & workshop-based classes! In fiction, nonfiction, & poetry! theministryofwords.com
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- First couple weeks of the NBA season: The Thunder are unstoppable! Xmas Day: … unless they have to play against Wemby.
- A very Merry Christmas And a Happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear
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- Doesn’t matter how much they pay you. Doesn’t matter what your title is. Doesn’t matter how connected you are. If you lose the newsroom because the rank-and-file have zero respect for you, you’re screwed. It’s a slide toward your termination, or every competent person on staff looking to get out.
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- “Waiting in a car/in the Goodwill parking lot/as the sun sets over Vista” is not a Warren Zevon lyric, but could’ve been.
- The Fireside Shout-y Rant.
- WHY ARE YOU YELLING?? WE CAN HEAR YOU.
- What a clown. A loser. A shell of a shell of a shell. The subtitles on this should just read "yadda yadda yadda to infinity."
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- During the miserable Reagan years, listening to "Will the Wolf Survive?" was a powerful thing—to hear a song in English by one of the best-ever U.S. bands giving voice to the travails, the resilience, and the pride of a mostly ignored community. But hearing it today? Man, that song hits so hard.
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonAnnouncing the National Book Critics Circle 2025 Longlist for Criticism
- Reposted by Oscar VillalonAnnouncing the National Book Critics Circle 2025 Longlist for Fiction
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- Reposted by Oscar Villalon"Sometimes you had to be alone with your thoughts and maybe a copy of Lunch Poems (1964), while you were on the subway or killing time at a job. The Beats had a kind of popularity that writers, and especially poets, don’t really achieve anymore."—Garrett Caples, editor at City Lights bit.ly/4555gK3
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- A remake of “The Birds,” but make it SantaCon: one lone family gingerly stepping through a sea of passed out people.
- Two of the five Heisman finalists are Latinos and both QB: Fernando Mendoza and Diego Pavia. Pretty cool. I think the last Latino to win the Heisman was San Jose’s very own Jim Plunkett, back in 1970.
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- Apologies to Mark Twain, but there’s never going to be an August in San Francisco as cold as this December.
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- Given ICE and the current Supreme Court (to name just two factors), this is not in the least surprising.
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- It’s been so unseasonably cold for so many days in San Francisco. We’re all bundled up for Truckee but are trudging around downtown instead.
- What is even memory? It turns out I know the lyrics to “All the Gold in California.” When did I memorize this song? Was I a die-hard Larry Gatlin fan in fourth grade? The past is lived country that reverts to terra incognita.
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- Reposted by Oscar Villalonwe’ve been working on this for months—introducing a new teaching collective ✨ starting 2/4, Fatimah Asghar, @ingridrojasc.bsky.social, & I will offer generative & workshop-based classes! In fiction, nonfiction, & poetry! theministryofwords.com
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- Lane Kiffin is truly an agent of chaos. I don’t think college football has ever seen the likes of him.
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