Virginia Eubanks

@virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social

640 followers 1.6K following 43 posts

Writing about violence and care. Memoir in 2026: A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving (FSG). Oral histories of welfare tech also IP: Not A Number (Voice of Witness/Haymarket). https://virginia-eubanks.com/ Most recent writing: https://link.tr/@virginiaeeubanks .. more

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Virginia Eubanks is an American political scientist, professor, and author studying technology and social justice. She is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. Previously Eubanks was a Fellow at New America researching digital privacy, economic inequality, and data-based discrimination. .. more

Political science 39%

Sociology 16%

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 2d

"The Trump administration’s tax and domestic policy bill... is projected to cost the country’s 1,512 community health centers roughly $7.3 billion annually in increased uncompensated care costs as they take on the treatment of new, and newly uninsured, patients." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/h...

‘Medicaid Cut Me Off’: A Rural Health Center Faces New Pressures

www.nytimes.com

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 4d

Shteyngart brilliant as always. "Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern-father archetype to their followers. Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Opinion | The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance

www.nytimes.com

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

@fsgbooks.bsky.social @goldinagency.bsky.social @msjennajohnson.bsky.social

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(8/8) Built from cataclysmic loss and tenacious love, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving challenges readers to reconsider the networks of care that sustain our lives, reminding us that no one survives the wilderness alone.

(us.macmillan.com/books/978037...)

A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving

A spirited, wise, often hilarious, profoundly moving story of one woman's efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fa...

us.macmillan.com

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(7/8) ...her research, and interviews with everyone from neuroscientists to forest rangers. The result is a genuinely moving, hopeful, darkly funny story of two people caught in their own kind of wilderness, trying not just to survive but to truly care for each other.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(6/8) Inspired by these lessons, she signed up for a series of classes: kayak self-rescue, winter survival 101, map and compass, bushwhacking, wilderness first aid, lifeguarding. In a memoir as disarmingly funny as it is quietly wise, Eubanks draws lessons in kinship from these experiences...

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(5/8) A reporter and an activist, Eubanks turned to reliable sources to figure out how to heal: scientists, therapists, trauma theorists, social movements. But it wasn’t until she happened on an old lifesaving manual that she found practical advice that actually helped.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(4/8) ...inadequate medical care, lost income, lost friends, endless paperwork, and a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, a second case. In her time tending to him, Eubanks had developed what is known as “collateral” PTSD, common among caregivers but rarely discussed.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(3/8) One night, Virginia Eubanks received the kind of news we all fear. Her beloved partner had been attacked, brutally beaten just steps from their house. In the weeks, then months and years that followed, they faced a cascade of setbacks: police disinterest, suspended health insurance...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(2/8) Only if you are a very able swimmer trained in open-water rescue should you approach drowning victims . . . Reach with a rope or branch, row out and offer the drowning person an oar. Do not get in the water.

But also:
No one survives the wilderness alone.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

(1/8) A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving
Lessons in Love and Survival: A Memoir

A spirited, wise, often hilarious, profoundly moving story of one woman's efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fail us.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 11d

Author photo options by the extraordinary William C. Gill. What do you all think? Favorites?

For context, the cover copy for the book is below. So as you vote, think vibez. 😉

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 23d

I'm gonna report this every month.

Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 23d

Monthly reminder: Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.

Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 23d

6 34 150

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Sep 2

Preach.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 24

4/4: Please, if you're able, help keep the public in public media right now.

adoptastation.org

It is especially crucial to support rural public media, as it often provides communities with their only local news and provide life-saving weather and emergency alerts.
ruralpublic.org

Adopt A Station - Rescue Public Media

Help preserve independent journalism and community programming across America by adopting a public media station. Congress has voted to rescind public media's funding.

adoptastation.org

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 24

3/4: In many ways, it's the model I've been trying to live up to ever since. I see lots of quotes if Timothy Snyder's first rule of defeating tyranny ("Don't obey in advance."), fewer of the second ("Defend institutions.") Public media in the United States is an institution worth defending.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 24

2/4: Watching college students and local community members rise to the occasion, sleeping on studio couches, caravaning down to LA to cover the aftermath firsthand, and getting information out to a community hungry for factual, accurate, humane stories made an indelible impression on me.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 24

1/4: I got my start in public media. I still remember when the Rodney King verdict came down my first year at KZSC. We had a remarkably good public affairs department.

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Laura Mauldin @lauramauldin.bsky.social · Jul 7

I feel both joyful & terrified: My book is actually on the @eccobooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social website now! IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Caregiving Crisis will be out Feb 2026 ✨ eeeeek! www.harpercollins.com/products/in-...

In Sickness and in Health

An urgent and deeply affecting account of America's failure to provide meaningful support to its chronically ill and disabled citizens and our resulting...

www.harpercollins.com

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 4

I think I just coined the phrase "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance," and I'm very proud.

On a white background, black text reports no results for a DuckDuckGo search of "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance."

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jul 4

I learned it from Mark Rank's great lifecycle research on poverty.... 20 years old now, but absolutely still worth reading. academic.oup.com/book/2883

One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All

Abstract. Despite its enormous wealth, the United States leads the industrialized world in poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged unravels this disturbing pa

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Larry Levitt @larrylevitt.bsky.social · Jul 2

There's a lot of focus on what Medicaid and ACA cuts would mean for hospitals, because hospitals have lobbyists. That doesn't negate what the cuts would mean for people, with about 12 million people projected to become uninsured due to the megabill.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 25

Made up a little song for myself today:

"You are feeling insecure...
Because that's a natural part...
Of the process!"

#AmWriting #EditingKillsEgo #GuideToOpenWaterLifesaving

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 24

Thank you for your amazing work!!

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 21

Also, read everything @mcgowankat.bsky.social
has written for NPR on caregiving!

www.npr.org/people/g-s1-...

Kat McGowan

NPR stories by Kat McGowan

www.npr.org

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 21

"In the early 20th century, disabled and older people who needed help were relegated to almshouses, which were public institutions of last resort."

No matter what I write about, I always end up back at poorhouses.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 21

Why is caregiving so hard in America? Excited to see this new film...

"Caregivers are on their own--and...spend an average of $7,242 out of pocket ea yr. According to a recent DoL report, they also miss out on an av of $43,500 in income due to the demands of adult care." www.npr.org/2025/06/20/n...

Why is caregiving so hard in America? The answers emerge in a new film

A new documentary on PBS shows what it's like to care for adult family members and recounts the history of caregiving policy in the U.S., revealing why those caring for family are often on their own.

www.npr.org

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 18

There are going to be Andrew Solomon-level endnotes on this book. Which is crazy, because it's a freaking #memoir.

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · Jun 18

All of the essays curated by @orionmagazine.bsky.social for mental health awareness month are worth a read! orionmagazine.org/article/hono...

Honoring Mental Health Awareness Month - Orion Magazine

A curated list of 12 stories

orionmagazine.org

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