Katy Waldman

New York

Staff Writer at The New Yorker

writer @newyorker. formerly @slate. moves like ice on a hot stove. sorry for tweeting this, I don’t have instagram!

Articles

Trump Is the Emperor of A.I. Slop

2 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

On February 19th, Donald Trump logged onto Truth Social to congratulate himself on vanquishing congestion pricing in his home state. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” he posted. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” The message was amplified by the White House’s official X account, which tweeted it with an A.I.-generated image of Trump, golden-haired and golden-crowned, blotting out the New York City skyline.
The Trump Show Comes to the Kennedy Center

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

On the evening of March 23rd, the Kennedy Center honored Conan O’Brien with the 2025 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The ceremony, which attracted a mix of comedy stars and arts-adjacent members of D.C.’s beau monde, was the biggest event held by the center since February, when President Trump purged eighteen members of the nonpartisan board of directors and installed himself as chairman.
Goings On Newsletter

2 months ago | link.newyorker.com | Rachel Syme |Katy Waldman |Fintan O'Toole |Justin Chang

Plus: Steven Soderbergh’s spycraft in “Black Bag”; Jonathan Larson beyond “Rent”; and overheard at the Eavesdrop bar. View in browser | What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week.
How “Severance” Makes a Fetish of the Office

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

When “Severance” premièred, in 2022, it felt like an absurdist parable about the alienation of labor—a moody, eerie critique of technocapitalism that seemed in keeping with our age of “upskilling” and A.I. The four main characters worked at Lumon, a cultlike biotech company. Their division was “Macrodata Refinement,” so they spent each day sorting numbers into folders based on what kind of creepy feeling the numbers emitted—a Graeberian “bullshit job” by way of Stephen King.
How “Severance” Makes a Fetish of the Office

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Katy Waldman

NowCan reprogramming our genes make us young again? A breakthrough in longevity research may be nearing its first human trials. For those hoping to cure death, and they are legion, a 2016 experiment at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego has become liminal — the moment that changed …
"95% of vampire novels take place in Alaska, New Orleans, or Las Vegas"

Jan 8, 2025 | metafilter.com | Katy Waldman

Article by Katy Waldman in The New Yorker about an allegation of plagiarism in a romantasy series. Archive link. Unpublished novelist Lynne Freeman thinks that Tracy Wolff's Crave has used elements from Freeman's Blue Moon Rising, with involvement from her editor and publisher. Waldman discusses the difficulty of establishing plagiarism when the books are different in tone but have many similar details, particularly within a genre which uses tropes extensively. Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?

Jan 5, 2025 | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

A few months after she’d finished, in December, 2010, Freeman signed with an agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, the founder of Prospect Agency, a small firm based out of Kim’s home, in New Jersey. Kim, a slight woman with a youthful aura and a bright, clenched smile, struck Freeman as a kindred spirit—she’d launched her own business, just as Freeman had, and she’d even briefly attended law school. For the next three years, Freeman and Kim worked together to expand and refine the manuscript.
A Novelist’s Unnerving Memoir of Disordered Eating

Nov 20, 2024 | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

“My Good Bright Wolf,” a new memoir by the novelist Sarah Moss, begins in dishabille. A narrator is speaking to herself in the second person, and she’s using language recognizable from fairy tales and old poetry.
Kamala Harris Makes Her Closing Argument at the Ellipse

Oct 30, 2024 | newyorker.com | Katy Waldman

Approaching the Ellipse, a fifty-two-acre green space about a fifteen-minute walk from the White House, from the southeast, you might pass by a bronze sculpture that mysteriously appeared on the Mall last week. It’s a replica of Nancy Pelosi’s desk and it’s topped by a giant, swirled pile of poop.
ヘレン・フィリップス最新SF『Hum』レビュー：AIと環境崩壊の時代に母であることの難しさ

Oct 20, 2024 | wired.jp | Katy Waldman

ヘレン・フィリップスの長編3作目である『Hum』は、こんなシーンから始まる。1本の針が一定のペースで動き、メイという名の女の顔を横切っている。メイの顔は、もはや元の状態には戻れない。彼女は人工知能（AI）を欺く「敵対的テクノロジー」の実験に報酬をもらって参加し、容貌をほんの少しだけ変えて監視カメラで特定されにくくする手術を受けているのだ。小説の冒頭で、すでに手術は行なわれていて、針で「貫かれた細い線が容赦なく」メイのこめかみからまぶたへと進んでいく。手術のあとに待っているのは、「否定できないが検知もできないある種の変容」だとフィリップスは書く。「陰影がどことなく変化し（中略）顔立ちが、見慣れたものと見慣れないものとの間をかすかに揺れ動いている。ちょうど奇妙な角度から撮った写真のなかの顔のように」...