Kristen Martin

1 month ago | thebaffler.com | Kristen Martin

In the five years since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, the fact that humans react to pathogens politically has become impossible to ignore. The spiky orb of a SARS-CoV-2 particle does not care whom it infects—it wants only to reproduce inside a host. And yet in the United States, Covid-19 disproportionately sickened and killed indigenous, black, and Hispanic people.

Jan 22, 2025 | lithub.com | Kristen Martin

The first kid I knew who didn’t live with his parents was Shawn Hunter, Cory Matthews’s best friend on Boy Meets World. Like many in the 1990s, I grew up alongside Shawn and Cory, one episode at a time. Though Boy Meets World was set in Philadelphia, the white bread world of Cory (the titular boy, played by curly-haired dweeb Ben Savage) felt not unlike my own in the Long Island suburbs.

Jan 21, 2025 | bombmagazine.org | Kristen Martin

Kristen Martin’s The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood (Bold Type Books, 2025) begins with an epigraph from Gore Vidal, that in America, “We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” It’s an apt prelude to the cyclical history of how America has dealt with its orphaned children.

Nov 26, 2024 | postguam.com | Kristen Martin

Top 40 hits from 40 years ago piped into supermarkets and dentist offices on a loop. Rolling Stone declaring that Creedence Clearwater Revival, who last released an album of new music in 1972, is the biggest band in America in 2024. A Led Zeppelin tribute band playing Colorado’s historic Red Rocks Amphitheatre each year.

Oct 22, 2024 | tertulia.com | Kristen Martin

The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American OrphanhoodRegular price$32.00With free membership trial$16.0050% off your first book+ Free shippingPre-order: Ships Jan 21th, 2025Do you recommend this book? The real history of being an orphan in America is nothing like the myth, and nothing like the American dream. The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion.