Go to pretty much any social gathering in Washington, DC, and you are reminded that these are not normal times. Neighbors are being grabbed off the street, losing their jobs, facing unpredictable challenges in the work they do have, seeing longtime institutions destroyed, and navigating doublethink. Some of it is horrific; some frustrating; some darkly funny. Yet a lot of the wild stories you might hear on your neighbor's porch are not making it to the media, which is increasingly centralized under the control of billionaires who like what's happening just fine.

Porch Party is a newsletter, a website, and an informal community devoted to life in these Interesting Times. Based in Washington, we are interested in the ripples of a profoundly changed federal agenda across the nation and what it means for individual people trying to live, work, and thrive. We aim to publish news, essays, and interviews that are not making it to mass audiences, and to do it with curiosity, journalistic standards, and a moral compass that still works.

We want to hear from you. We hope you'll subscribe, send tips, pitch us, and/or contribute, which allows us to pay writers in a time where so many journalists and other thinkers are leaving institutions to work independently. We aim to publish once or twice a week, and to stay in touch without overwhelming your inbox.

I'm your host, Amanda Katz. A former book editor, I went on to work in journalism as an editor of the Ideas section and a Spotlight investigation at the Boston Globe, a senior investigations editor at CNN, and most recently a senior editor for Opinions at the Washington Post. I've spent most of my adult years in Brooklyn, but right now I live in Washington with my family.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the Porch Party.

Porch Party logo by Yasser Monem