153. Ann Bauer on How School Closures Broke Her, and the Cultural Death Spiral of Being "Special"

Ann Bauer is a top-notch personal essay writer, who built a reputation for eloquence and honesty at Salon.com, back in the aughts when the site was still a cultural force. (Sarah was lucky enough to work with Ann back then.) More recently, Ann has become a spitfire on Twitter, where she’s sounded off on COVID-related school closures, the progressive politics of Minneapolis, where she lives, and the various absurdities of our culture-war era.

Nancy and Sarah had a far-ranging and often profound conversation with Ann: About what speaking her mind on social media cost her (professionally, personally), about the potential link between RenFests, polyamory, and Rachel Maddow, and about the son she lost a few years ago, whose autism diagnosis Ann now questions (along with many scientific “certainties”).

Also discussed:

• The ickiness of self-promotion

• “You’re trying to kill me and my family”

• Getting dropped by the Washington Post

• Bruno Bettelheim, somehow

• Writing: It’s all in the execution

• Ann did NOT burn down Minneapolis’s Third Precinct

• The Stations of the Cross for Trump Derangement Syndrome

• “Why are you dressed up as druids and maidens?”

• Big love for Tablet Magazine

• No love for an author who promotes autism as magic that makes you special

• The Cinderella story of Kamala Harris

• The lonely estrangement of the white male in culture

• Writing about your own children: good? bad? both? all?

• What is autism, really?

Plus, people who should not wear leather, Sarah gets sucked into a classic 70s mini series, the coolness of Debbie Harry, and much more!

Footage of reaction after Ann spoke her mind on Facebook