Leah Hampton
@pludger
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Writer, British-Appalachian chimera. Author F*CKFACE AND OTHER STORIES from @HenryHolt, faculty at @IdahoMFA.
Smoky Mountain breakdown
Joined May 2008
Fyi I'm on Insta, Bluesky, Threads, and Spoutible. I loved this app for so long and enjoy talking to all of you so much. Will try to stick around, but follow me elsewhere.
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I grew up in the rural South. I know A LOT of white evangelical anti-choice women who've had abortions. And every single one of those women told me their abortions "didn't count.".
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People will really say "girls suck at math lol" and then be like look at this amazing quilt my grandmother designed by doing the quadratic formula in her head.
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People who believe we're in the Rapture/ end of days shouldn't be allowed to hold public office since they have no stake in the future of my cats.
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p.s. knitting patterns = computer coding, go get your money girls.
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@JoyceCarolOates Ah yes, 100 years ago when shell-shocked World War I combat vets were famously perky and unbothered, and Freud was inventing psychoanalysis with sunshine and rainbows.
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On today's episode of What It's Like to grow up in a pro-union, working-class household:.When I was a kid and my dad took us to the movies, he always made us stay after to watch the credits. "Those people worked really hard," he'd say. "The least we can do is read their names.".
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I don't remember who here on Twitter told me to start pronouncing "popsicles" like it's an ancient Greek name but whoever you are you've brought a lot of joy to our house.
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Thrilled to announce that this fall I will not be joining the faculty of anywhere or be a professor of anything, just gonna write weird shit and play with my cats.
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so many men with sportsball logos in their profiles saying "this never happened/ no one says this" so wow, I guess billions of women are all wrong about their own lived experiences.
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I was in my 40s when I found out people write their kids' college applications for them and universities *allow* this bullshit and I will never stop being extremely grateful to've had mildly neglectful busy parents who told me 85% of adulthood is paperwork so get to it kiddo.
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One reason I dislike most action movies/chase scenes is because I really care about fruit stands.
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I got to spend three debt-free years in Austin TX living in a garage decked w fairy lights behind a butcher shop named Long Horn Meat writing stories that eventually became a book called Fuckface, in case anybody's ever wondered where I stand on the "is an MFA worth it" discourse.
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Moon endorses Biden.
Nasa to make major announcement about the moon
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This is my district. Yes, it's nice that Trump/ Meadows got pwned tonight, but Cawthorn is faaar right and woefully unqualified, so y'all better open your wallets and show up for the brilliant @ColMorrisDavis asap.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- Madison Cawthorn, 24, defeats Trump's pick in North Carolina congressional primary for seat Trump's chief of staff held.
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@karenkho @bethanyaball I would happily sit next to five crying babies if it saved me from sitting next to the libertarian dudebro who wants to tell me all about Bitcoin.
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Also a lot of snarky under-30s replying "but nobody says this 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦," so I guess you kids aren't aware of current governmental stances on girls' education:.
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Maybe, and hear me out on this, maybe a writer's fiction rarely has anything to do with their actual lives nor is remotely autobiographical and if you assume it does that's maybe you not recognizing how good that particular writer is at the fiction part.
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@meghan_daum @GENmag Native Appalachian here. This is an exceptionally bad take. Rural hospitals and ecologies are not your cheap escape plan. Of all the exploitative, tone-deaf, karen moves in Appalachia's long history of being karen-ed by karens, your puppy retreat in a PANDEMIC is peak karen.
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Checked my grownup email account today and it turns out publishing a debut book called F*ckface is maybe not the best way to secure a teaching position at a small religious college but NEVERTHELESS I PERSIST.
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I still owe $14k on a $24k student loan I took out in 1998 and I've technically already paid back MORE THAN THE PRINCIPAL so if they canceled it they'd only be losing extra interest profit but they won't ever do it and this fact makes me so angry I want to break somebody's bones.
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OK, it's official: my forthcoming debut short story collection is called FUCKFACE. I'm sorry* about the title. I couldn't help myself. Release date: May 19, 2020. *I am not sorry.
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Dear movie/TV people: we can tell those fake to-go coffee cups are empty and we are FURIOUS about it.
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Any writing prize/fellowship with an age cap can fuck right off. Like who the hell even are you if your "foundation" thinks a 32-yo emerging writer is TOO OLD TO DESERVE YOUR SUPPORT.
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Sooo my father died last week; i know it's niche but if you're curious how Vietnam combat PTSD combined with borderline personality disorder affects your parenting of Gen X kids and their ability to process complex grief while 3,000 miles from home fyi I have SO MUCH INFO on that.
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If they give us an option between the two i want that Dolly Parton vaccine.
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My house is absolutely not clean and I have zero plans to do anything about it, A Quarantine Memoir.
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A Thing I noticed again today is we don't rly allow non-male artists to be volatile/sensitive, even tho that's kinda THE JOB. Like we let Hemingway punch walls and shoot endangered species but god forbid we grant a genius like @laurenthehough and her beautiful book their context.
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@MonicaCMiller I was lucky that I went to schools where everyone had to take home ec, shop, etc, but even then they made it seem like that stuff had nothing to do with classroom lessons and it blows my mind.
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Look I'm not trying to be a dick but "bone broth" is not a new thing and you are not healthier or better than me just because you made a batch once, jfc y'all rag on country people all day and then you come around here and steal all our hot salty liquids.
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Just want to point out I've loved Jean Smart since she was Charlene in Designing Women and btw why don't we have more TV shows about leftist southern women kicking ass and being hilarious because I for one am sick n tired of white guys named "Harlan" manspreading all over Netflix.
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I have literally never given a shit about any historical statue of anyone, and neither have you.
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I would like everyone complaining about the $15 minimum wage to work a ten-hour shift in a fast food kitchen and then dare to tell me you don't think you just earned a hundred and fifty bucks.
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@SeattleSwooze @erin_p_is_me He was a huge ass. I was friends with his daughter, whom he forced to take ballet lessons. She *hated* dance and wanted to be a veterinarian. Public schools in the 80s, man. What a hellscape.
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Fellas, when a woman says "thank you" to you 57 times in a row it is not a compliment and she is not giving you permission to keep talking. #VPDebates2020.
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OK fellas, don't get mad, but I have OPINIONS on Appalachian masculinity and I am coming for your Truck Nutz:.
Female creativity, not rural masculinity, is at the center of @pludger’s understanding of Appalachia:
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We've reached the socialist rant portion of the holiday. This year's topic: my mum thinks Downton Abbey is "a bunch of privileged pricks behaving like trash in their bloody castle while my Uncle Bert was fighting in the trenches" and y'all know she's right.
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Sometimes I stop in my tracks and remember I left my career to write a book and it got published and a lot of people took the time to read it and mostly really liked it and I get to do that again soon then I start crying, aaaanyway happy new year, go for your dreams kids.
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So my mum, who quit school at 16, speaks 5 languages (newsflash: working class people are smart!) including Dutch, which means I grew up pronouncing gouda as "HOW-duh" which made me a snooty-sounding kid who got picked on and thus I too left school at 16, but man do I love cheese.
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OK yes my depression is kinda bad lately and yes I should go to the doctor but what if I just got a corgi and named him butterbean that would fix it right.
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Several yrs ago I helped a writer of some repute-- friend of a friend, new in town--move into their house. We only met/spoke that one time, but today I randomly learned they have blocked me here on Twitter for what I can only assume is a grievous error in couch placement.
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Y'all. The way we are half assing Christmas this year. Just bought my mother a lemon zester at the supermarket and I'm prolly gonna wrap it in notebook paper.
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When my dad left the military a few years after Vietnam, the USPS was his first steady job, and it saved us financially. Now I live in the boonies, and rural mail carriers are heroes. The post office is a lifeline for millions. Also fuck Trump. #buystamps.
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@Becky44807763 Yeah, it's a shame Prince couldn't be less weird FOR YOU immediately after HIS BABY DIED.
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The other day a friend told me, "I've been reading your book and it's so DEEP and SAD which is weird cuz I think of you as such a happy, funny person" and I was like EXACTLY MELANIE THANK YOU FOR BUYING THE DEMON STORIES I EXPELLED FROM MY BLACK HEART SO I CAN GOOF OFF IN TARGET.
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@kathleen_belew Remember it vividly. It's difficult to explain to non Gen Xers how pervasive the sense of nuclear dread was that hung over our childhoods. See also AIDS. Like imagine being 10 and thinking "oh, so everything's hopeless and we're fucked" ALL THE TIME. That's who Gen X still is.
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I'm gonna go ahead and start calling the Trump administration's Covid policy "passive genocide" because that's what the history books are gonna call it and I'm the kind of bitch who likes to stay ahead of the curve.
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Biden will win, but we are still a bunch of shit-ass racists.
Hillary underestimated the size of the basket.
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Conventions don't usually sway me but finding out Jill Biden taught a 3/3 load of Comp at a communty college while also serving ft as Second Lady made me adore her & trust me NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY COULD HANDLE THAT SHIT FOR EVEN ONE DAY. CC faculty are 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹.
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GenX were the last generation to have shop and geography in school so it's really hard for us to have friends under 40 because they are always asking us to fix their toilets or find Tulsa on a map oh btw can we also drive them to Tulsa because this rental car is a stick shift.
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It is truly fascinating how many non-Gen-X people don't realize that HEATHERS was a documentary.
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If you don't want to pay for an MFA, don't. No one should. THE GOOD ONES ARE FREE. If you don't even want a free one, fine, no prob, it's not for everybody. But stop dissing writers who learn this way (even if they pay). Arts education is beautiful & essential. Don't be a dick.
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There are a lot of literary jobs and lists and awards for which I'm not eligible because I did not have the means to "emerge" as an artist until my 40s, and i would like book people to never forget how fucked up that is.
What would happen if all the “40 under 40” or “30 under 30” lists excluded people whose parents paid for their college, paid the down payment on their first place, or paid the bills while they worked unpaid or low-wage internships?.
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Fun thing to ponder is why it's OK for liberals to vilify all West Virginians because Joe Manchin is a shitbag and yet none of y'all say a word against NYC even though Trump is from there and NYers overwhelmingly vote "against their own interests" for ppl like Giuliani and Cuomo.
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@DanCrenshawTX You can literally watch the Philly vote count in real time on YouTube. It's "transparent" af.
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Today marks the six- month anniversary of me purchasing this "oak tree" coat rack which we discovered when it arrived looks like a bunch of dicks, aka the best accidental decision I've ever made
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About once a week I think about this guy i never met, friend of a friend, who adopted a big-ass Maine Coon tomcat with huge flooffy murder paws and a majestic face that looked permanently pissed off and in a stroke of absolute genius he decided to name that cat Jeff.
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People will really shout "Twitter isn't real life" from their suburban gated community house they purchased in nineteen seventy-Kojak for two rusty nickels they found in a hay bale while working a summer union job at the state fair.
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Guess what?.CLIMATE JUSTICE THAT'S WHAT.
We are delighted to announce that Leah Hampton joins us as Creative Writing and Environmental Humanities In-Residence Fellow, starting this Fall. Teaching prose workshops at all levels and working on a PNW climate justice project with the UI Confluence Lab. Welcome, @pludger !!
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What if I told you Paydays have the same nutritional values as most "healthy" protein bars and instead of eating chalky putty you can just have a candy bar for breakfast.
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@nhannahjones @Delta True story: coupla months ago I was sat next to someone like this on a Delta flight, so I turned on The Exorcist on my in-flight TV and laughed and cackled thru it. Creeped him tf out. Pretty sure it's still in their movie channel, fyi.
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The spousal unit thinks I should write a sequel to F*CKFACE called "I Wish You Had Two Asses So I Could Kick Them Both" and tbh I am considering it.
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My contribution to today's Cat Person discourse on literary Twitter is that nobody has ever told me a secret story about doing butt stuff with a married electrician at a Holiday Inn Express in rural Kentucky. I made it all up so please stop asking me if I know your cousin Trudy.
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Met someone today who thought that in Billy Joel's piano man people were putting literal bread in his tip jar and I am sorry I don't want to be An Old or anything but you kids need to pay better attention.
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A really simple way to avoid a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit in your life is to never ever trust the opinion or promises of anyone who hasn't had at least one job where they had to clean toilets.
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What if instead of blurbing my next book I just ask all the writers I know to tell me their favorite non-profane cuss word and we just put all those on the back cover, e.g. "Phooey" -- Elizabeth McCracken, and so on.
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I knew the Cormac Mccarthy tweets were fake right away because I found them entertaining.
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There are at least three extremely basic people in my social circle w birthdays this month who have grandly announced on social media that they're "celebrating [Name]-tober" so in addition to all the other shit on my to do list now I have to arrange multiple murders.
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Put a bunch of B average community college grads in charge of the IRS and Medicare and in two weeks we're Norway, I swear to god.
At some point we need to have a convo about all of these elite institutions churning out authoritarians.
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Not trying to subtweet anybody but sometimes y'all post excerpts/ page pics on book twitter like "loook at this life-changing gorgeous paragraph my heart *exploded* it's perfect" and then I read it and it's just "Claire had predictable feelings at her poorly described lake house".
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I do not believe that poverty is a moral failing or the result of not working hard enough and I wish we talked more about how lazy and immoral most rich people are but what do I know, I grew up in a house where we thought canned fruit cocktail was fancy.
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Do these billionaires realize we sent literal circus monkeys and dogs into not-quite-but-kinda-space like sixty years ago, I mean seriously dude it's not that big of a deal.
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Your periodic reminder that Dr. Jill Biden is a community college instructor, which means she is 150% bulletproof, 200% immune to other people's bullshit excuses, and 1000% a low-key Marxist revolutionary.
CNN’s @jaketapper to Jill Biden: “Your husband has been known to make the occasional gaffe…”.Biden: “You can’t even go there. After Donald Trump you cannot even say the word gaffe.” #CNNSOTU
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Real Appalachians have been yelling for years that JD Vance is a white supremacist (and a hack) and people thought we were exaggerating. Instead of saying I told you so, I'm telling you to read my friend's beautiful book.
FYI: I wrote a book about growing up in Appalachia and not becoming a venture capitalist .
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@laurenthehough 4 possibilities. Drops out before convention: open choice decided by party delegates .After convention, b4 election: technically open, but likely VP nominee.After election, after Elec College votes: VP nom, by law .After election, b4 Elec College: chaos, no rules, be afraid.
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Hi I grew up in the rural conservative South in the 80s and was taught evolution (as fact!) and comprehensive sex ed and we all went to Planned Parenthood for our 1st gyno so anyone who says down ballot races are not worth fighting in red states is either stupid or Tucker Carlson.
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Screw the techbros, I'm never pronouncing it "jiff" and yes I will die on this velar plosive hill, Steve, take a linguistics class before you start naming things.
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A great way to find out who really, truly loves and understands you is to title your first book FUCKFACE and then sit back and wait.
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@StationCDRKelly @DaveStroup oh shit, am I gonna have to move back to Texas and volunteer for an astronaut twin BECAUSE I WILL DO IT SCOTT.
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My house is surrounded, SURROUNDED by wild blooming rhododendron right now and you know what, it really helps
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