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How a Kentucky lawmaker’s friendship with a Jewish woman helped inspire her viral speech decrying anti-trans legislation
(JTA) — Pamela Stevenson, a Democratic state representative in Kentucky, was chatting recently with her friend Zahava Kurland about one of Kurland’s duties at her Orthodox synagogue: preparing the dead for burial.
“She was trying to explain to me certain things that had to be done,” Stevenson, who is also a Black Baptist minister, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. The seemingly esoteric topic was one of many the two women have discussed over more than a decade of weekly Friday-morning conversations — which cover anything from politics and friendship to faith and being one’s true self.
Stevenson said her conversations with Kurland have made her attuned to Jewish sensibilities. “She’s always listening for and giving me information” about Judaism and Jewish experiences, said Stevenson, who was first elected to the Kentucky legislature in 2020.
So Kurland was not surprised when, in a viral speech on Wednesday decrying her fellow lawmakers for signing off on a law that bans gender-affirming care for trans youth, Stevenson also centered antisemitism.
“First, you hated Black people,” Stevenson said, addressing the Republican lawmakers who voted for the legislation. “Then, you hated Jews. Now, you’re hating everybody. So the question is, when the only people left are you, will you hate yourself?”
Kurland said her friend is a listener and naturally empathetic, so she would be sensitive to how hatreds intersect.
“She’s truly well balanced,” said Kurland. “She truly cares about people.”
Stevenson says she looks forward to her Friday morning talks with Kurland. She said the conversations have helped give her a more expansive perspective on life, which drives her to fight bigotry.
“I really believe that I will never know as much as she knows,” Stevenson said. “But I can develop an appreciation for what it’s like and not use my view of the world as the only view of the world.”
What prompted Stevenson’s floor speech was the overwhelmingly Republican legislature’s override of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a law that bans a range of medical treatments and practices for trans youth. It outlaws doctors from providing gender-affirming treatment to youth; requires them to cease care if it has already begun; bans conversations in schools about gender identity or sexual orientation; bans school districts from allowing transgender students to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity; and allows teachers to refuse to use a child’s preferred pronouns.
The bill was introduced weeks after state Sen. Karen Berg’s trans son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, died by suicide. Berg, who is Jewish, said that referring to the anti-trans bill as a parents’ rights bill is an “absolutely despicable affront to me personally,” according to The Washington Post. Stevenson, who has appeared alongside Berg at rallies, called her “phenomenal” and said, “This is infinitely more personal for her.”
Stevenson said that she mentioned anti-Jewish hatred in her speech because she believes hatreds are mutually reinforcing, and she connects the anti-trans sentiment she sees with rising racism and antisemitism.
“If you have a model where you have to hate somebody to win, then you always have to have somebody to hate,” she said. “People say it was out of nowhere, but it’s really out of somewhere. We’ve gone through the cycles of the Native Americans, the Black folks have been hated for a long time, the disabled. Everybody is always on the bottom of that model. And in just recent years, it was the Muslims, then it was the immigrants, and then it was back around the Blacks again. And so because of this overflow of hate, there’s been an uptick in antisemitic actions.”
Stevenson said her mission is to make people cognizant of the roots of hatred. “People want to say that all the attacks against the Jewish temples and the Jewish people in recent times came out of nowhere,” she said, referring to reports of a spike in antisemitic attacks. “No, it did not. We just have chosen not to pay attention to what’s been said.”
Kurland, who is a member of Congregation Beth Jacob in Atlanta, and Stevenson, a retired Air Force Colonel and an attorney who is running to be Kentucky’s attorney general, met in 2006 when Stevenson was serving in the Air Force and Kurland was working as an accountant in Atlanta. They attended a three-day course with Landmark, the personal development program that presses participants to face uncomfortable truths about themselves.
“When we were closer-in logistically she came over very often for Shabbos meals,” Kurland said. “I often invite people for Shabbos meals and the holidays and I love explaining, you know, how Judaism gave more to the world than anything, anybody, any person. Torah, Judaism has given the world its whole structure for society.”
The Air Force started moving Stevenson around. “That’s when we started talking on the phone all the time, because we couldn’t get together,” Kurland said.
Stevenson is “a committed listener, someone who’s going to hear you and call you out on your stuff,” Kurland said. “It’s not a friendship where you massage each other’s egos. It’s a friendship where you hold each other to account for who you say you are.”
They each speak with outrage at the lawmakers who, they feel, would breach the relationship between a parent and a child.
“As a mother, how dare you interfere with one of the most intimate relationships?” Stevenson said two weeks ago during debate on the bill, addressing Rep. Jennifer Decker, a Republican who was its lead sponsor. “We have no right to interfere in the parental rights.”
Kurland agrees. “These are all decisions to be made between a child and his parents or her parents and their doctor,” she said. “It has no place for the government to have anything to do with anything.”
And both Kurland and Stevenson say religion is a key part of their identities.
“Judaism is the center part of my life,” said Kurland. “It’s what I am, it’s who I am, it’s what I’m about. And as a Jew, you cannot sit by and let another one of God’s human beings [be excluded]. I mean, when we honor other people, we are doing God’s work. We are honoring God. When we cut people out, then we’re not “
Stevenson likewise calls herself “a woman of faith.”
“I believe what is required, in almost every faith that I know of, is to love one another and take care of the people around us,” she said.
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The post How a Kentucky lawmaker’s friendship with a Jewish woman helped inspire her viral speech decrying anti-trans legislation appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Antisemitism Mainstreaming Pipeline — and Why Ben Shapiro Drives It Crazy
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism rarely introduces itself honestly. For much of its history, it has tried to initially arrive in disguise — entering public life not as overt Jew-hatred, but as something designed to appear as a concern about public welfare, power, influence, corruption, or social decay.
In medieval Europe, it appeared through the blood libel — the accusation that Jews murdered Christian children for ritual purposes. During the Bubonic Plague pandemic, it surfaced in charges that Jews poisoned wells. By the 19th century, the accusation adopted a modern vocabulary: hostility toward “cosmopolitan financiers” or shadowy bankers manipulating nations. The 20th century refined the charge further, replacing superstition with ideology — Jews recast as “rootless elites,” global conspirators supposedly undermining civilization.
In the 21st century, the costume has changed again. Antisemitism now frequently arrives wrapped in language generally treated as respectable: “only criticizing” Israel, denunciations of globalization, or warnings about corrupt “elites” controlling Western institutions.
The rhetoric evolves. The structure does not. Ideas that begin on the fringe migrate into respectable conversation until what once sounded extreme begins to feel familiar.
What has changed is the speed — and the machinery.
In earlier centuries antisemitic conspiracies spread through pamphlets and fringe publications. Today they move through podcasts, YouTube channels, and broadcast platforms hosted by personalities who insist they are merely facilitating debate or “just asking questions.”
The result is the antisemitism mainstreaming pipeline: a system through which fringe ideas gain legitimacy simply by appearing on platforms with massive audiences and ostensibly respectable hosts.
Few figures illustrate this more clearly than Piers Morgan, Megyn Kelly, and Tucker Carlson.
Each presents himself or herself as a champion of open discourse. Each insists controversial guests deserve a hearing and that viewers can judge for themselves. In theory, that sounds like a commitment to free speech. In practice, it functions as a laundering mechanism — moving conspiratorial narratives rooted in Jew-hatred into mainstream discussion.
The pattern is now familiar. A guest known for trafficking in conspiracy theories appears on a widely viewed show. The host frames the claims as legitimate debate. Clips spread to millions. Later the host insists that interviewing someone does not imply endorsement.
By then the damage is done. The narrative has already escaped the fringe ecosystem that produced it.
Consider Piers Morgan’s program. Morgan insists he is moderating debate. Yet his guest list regularly includes figures whose currency is outrage and antisemitic tropes.
Dan Bilzerian has claimed that Israel controls American politics and global media while warning of “Jewish supremacy” as the world’s “greatest danger.” Nick Fuentes traffics openly in conspiracies about Jewish power and Western decline. On the far-left, commentators such as Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian have repeatedly echoed barely updated versions of Henry Ford’s “Jews control America” trope.
On Morgan’s stage these claims sit beside legitimate commentary as though they deserve equal footing.
The result is not scrutiny. It is normalization.
Megyn Kelly’s approach is subtler, but no less revealing. Her program often frames controversial ideas within broader critiques of elite hypocrisy and institutional decay. Within that frame, conspiracy theories about hidden networks slip into discussion disguised as cultural criticism.
Kelly has even suggested that figures such as avowed Hitler-fan Nick Fuentes raise “good points,” illustrating how fringe rhetoric — and the people advancing it — enter mainstream discourse.
She has also portrayed criticism from Ben Shapiro as evidence that he only criticizes her because he objects to her willingness to criticize Israel.
Yet when Shapiro criticized Kelly, Israel was never mentioned.
His objection concerned her embrace of figures such as Candace Owens, who has promoted grotesque conspiracy theories — including the claim that Erika Kirk was complicit in her husband’s murder.
Rather than address that criticism, Kelly reframed the dispute as one about her being “critical of Israel.”
The maneuver is telling. When antisemitic narratives are challenged in this pipeline, those in the pipeline seek to shift focus away from the claim and toward the motives of the person objecting to it. The implication becomes that the Jewish critic is acting out of tribal loyalty — shielding Israel rather than confronting falsehood.
In other words, the argument moves from “is this conspiracy true?” to “why is this Jew objecting?”
That shift is not incidental. It is the point.
Tucker Carlson represents the most advanced stage of the pipeline.
During his time at Fox, Carlson cultivated a narrative in which Western civilization faces existential danger from shadowy elites and corrupt institutions. Earlier versions avoided explicit references to Jews, relying instead on the language of globalism and hidden influence.
Once he left Fox, the euphemisms started to disappear.
His guest list expanded to include figures who openly promote antisemitic conspiracies or offer revisionist interpretations of 20th-century history designed to soften — or outright invert — the moral verdict on Nazi Germany.
Each appearance serves the same purpose: the guest gains legitimacy simply by sharing a stage with a host whose audience numbers in the millions.
None of these hosts need to identify as antisemites for the pipeline to function. The mechanism is normalization. Morgan does not need to repeat Bilzerian’s rhetoric, and Carlson does not need to echo his guests’ most grotesque claims. Ideas once confined to the fringe become more mainstream because they are repeated in supposedly respectable settings.
The host maintains plausible deniability. The guest gains reach, credibility, and a larger audience.
This helps explain why Ben Shapiro has become such a lightning rod.
Shapiro occupies a rare position in American public life: openly Jewish, unapologetically pro-Israel, firmly rooted in conservative politics, and consistently condemning antisemitism from both the far right and the far left.
That combination disrupts several narratives at once.
For elements of the populist right, his prominence challenges the notion that conservatism must purge Jewish influence. For the radical left, he is not a complication but a confirmation — evidence used to reinforce their claims about Zionism, power, and Western alignment. What unsettles both sides, however, is not his identity but his refusal to indulge their premises.
He does not debate conspiracy. He rejects it.
When Shapiro criticizes media figures for platforming such narratives, the response follows a predictable script. Rather than address his argument — or confront the conspiracy itself — critics claim he is reacting to their “criticism of Israel.”
The maneuver is clever. It is also pure deflection.
The facts do not cooperate. In these exchanges Shapiro almost never mentions Israel. His criticism targets the decision to give enormous platforms to voices promoting dangerous and false conspiracies, including those about Jewish power or hidden networks controlling world events.
Within hours, that accurate criticism is reframed as an attempt to silence dissent.
Shapiro’s conduct, however, is far less dramatic. He criticizes hosts he believes are behaving irresponsibly and declines invitations to appear on their shows. That is not censorship. It is editorial judgment.
And that is where the conflict sharpens. Because the pipeline depends on participation. It requires credible voices to sit across from conspiracists, to treat the exchange as meaningful debate, and to lend legitimacy through proximity.
Shapiro refuses.
That refusal is not incidental to the feud with Morgan, Kelly, and Carlson — it is the feud.
It exposes the gap between what these platforms claim to be doing and what they are really doing. If this were simply open inquiry, the absence of one guest would not matter. But when the model depends on staging spectacle between credibility and conspiracy, refusal becomes disruption.
And that leads us to the real question at the center of this fight: will platforms that profit from outrage, clicks, and the steady elevation of the worst ideas continue to drag the public square downward — or will enough people will simply stop showing up for the performance?
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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Five facts about Passover you may not know
אַ טייל פֿון די בעסטע באַשרײַבונגען פֿונעם אַמאָליקן שטעטל געפֿינט מען בײַ די ווערק פֿון ב. גאָרין (1868 ־ 1925). באַקאַנט ווי דער מחבר פֿון דער ערשטער געשיכטע פֿונעם ייִדישן טעאַטער, איז גאָרין אַבער אויך געווען אַ פֿײַנער שרײַבער מיט אַ ספּעציעלן אויג פֿאַרן שטייגער לעבן, סײַ אין אייראָפּע, סײַ אין אַמעריקע. איין באַנד דערציילונגען, „פֿאַרגעסענע ניגונים” (1919), האָט ער אָפּגעגעבן ימים־טובֿים און די קאַפּיטלעך וועגן פּסח זענען אָנגעפּיקעוועט מיט אינטערעסאַנטע פּרטים וועגן די אַמאָליקע פּסח־טראַדיציעס.
1. בײַ די שנײַדערס, שוסטערס און קירזשנערס זענען די וואָכן פֿאַר פּסח געווען די סאַמע בעסטע צײַט צו פֿאַרדינען
פּסח איז דאָך אַ פֿרילינג־יום־טובֿ און צוזאַמען מיטן ווידער געבוירן ווערן פֿון דער ערד, ווערט דער מענטש אויף ס’נײַ געבוירן. מע קויפֿט זיך נײַע קליידער וואָס מע באַשטעלט בײַם שנײַדער מיט וואָכן פֿריִער און ערבֿ־פּסח טוט מען אָן די נײַע מלבושים צום ערשטן מאָל. ווען אַ קינד האָט געטראָגן אַ נײַ גאַרניטערל האָט מען דאָס באַמערקט און אים געוווּנטשן „תּתחדש!‟ — טראָג געזונטערהייט! לויט גאָרין האָבן די עלטערע ווײַבער אויך געזאָגט „פֿאַרניץ געזונט!‟ און „געזונט זאָלסטו טראָגן!‟. אַגבֿ, דער מינהג פֿון טראָגן נײַע פּסח־קליידער האָט זײַן עקוויוועלענט בײַ די קריסטן, וואָס פּראַווען זייער חגא פּאַסכע אויך מיט נײַע היט און קליידער.
אַזוי ווי נישט אַלע יאָר האָט מען זיך געקענט פֿאַרגינען צו באַשטעלן אַ נײַ גאַרניטערל, האָבן די קליידער געדאַרפֿט זײַן אַ ביסל גרויס, כּדי דאָס קינד זאָל קענען אין זיי אַרײַנוואַקסן און מע זאָל זיי נאָך קענען טראָגן דרײַ־פֿיר יאָר. דעריבער באַקומט זיך אַ קאָמעדיע דאָס ערשטע יאָר ווען דאָס קינד גייט אָנגעטאָן אין אַ רעקל וואָס איז גענייט געוואָרן אַ סך צו גרויס פֿאַר אים.
2. דאָס רייכערן פּאַפּיראָסן יום־טובֿ האָט צונויפֿגעבראַכט מענטשן
אַן אינטערעסאַנטע סצענע מאָלט אויס גאָרין וועגן רייכערן פּסח. רייכערן מעג מען, אָבער אָנצינדן אַ שוועבעלע און מאַכן אַ פֿײַערל — נישט. נו, אויב אַזוי, האָט מען געזען אַזאַ סצענע אין שטעטל — אַז מען האָט געזען אַ מאַן גייט פֿאַרבײַ רייכערנדיק אַ פּאַפּיראָס אָדער אַ ליולקע, האָט מען אים אָפּגעשטעלט און בײַ אים דאָס געליִען און אָנגעצונדן דעם אייגענעם פּאַפּיראָס. דערנאָך האָבן אַנדערע אָפּגעשטעלט דעם צווייטן ייִד מיטן נײַ־אָנגעצונדענעם פּאַפּיראָס און אַזוי ווײַטער און ווײַטער. איינער האָט געהאָלפֿן דעם אַנדערן רייכערן.
3. קינד און קייט האָבן געשפּילט אין ניס
דאָס שפּילן ניס איז, ווי באַקאַנט, אַ פּסחדיקע פֿאַרווײַלונג. אין גאָרינס שטעטל האָט מען געשפּילט אַזוי: צו ערשט אַראָפּגעקײַקלט איין ניס (אַ וועלשענער נוס). דעם נוס האָט מען גערופֿן דעם ראָש. דערנאָך האָבן די אַנדערע געקײַקלט זייערע ניס, און וועמענס נוס איז געקײַקלט געוואָרן צום נאָענטסטן צום ראָש האָט געוווּנען אַלע ניס. עס דערמאָנט אין דער איטאַליענישער שפּיל „באַטשע‟, וואָס ווערט אָבער געשפּילט אָן אַ ברעט.
4. אָרעמע־לײַט האָבן פֿאַרדינט פֿון באַקן מצות
איינע פֿון די שענסטע פֿאַר־פּסחדיקע טראַדיציעס איז דאָס באַטייליקן זיך אין אַ פּאָדראַד (בײַ גאָרינען אַ „פּאָדראַט”), אַ קאָלעקטיוו צו באַקן מצה, די אָרעמע־לײַט זאָלן קענען פֿאַרדינען עטלעכע רובל און דערבײַ טאָן אַ מיצווה. די טראַדיציע לעבט נאָך הײַנט אין חסידישע קרײַזן. גאָרין דערמאָנט זיבן פֿונקציעס בײַם פּאָדראַד — אַ וואַסער־גיסער, אַ מעל־שיטערקע, אַ וועלגערקע, די קנעטערקע, אַ רעדלער, אַ זעצער (זעצט אַרײַן די מצות אין אויוון) און דער „מענטש‟ וועלכער „קלײַבט אויס די מצות פֿונעם שלאָפֿבאַנק‟.
געוויינטלעך לייענט מען וועגן פּאָדראַד אין דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור ווי אַ לעבעדיקע, פֿריילעכע אַרבעט. אָבער גאָרין שרײַבט אַנדערש. די פּאָדראַד־אַרבעטער האָבן געוואָלט כאַפּן אַ דרעמל ווען נאָר מעגלעך:
קיין לײַכטע אַרבעט איז דאָס נישט געווען. מע דאַרף שטיין פֿערצן שעה אין מעת־לעת אויף די פֿיס און וועלגערין און וועלגערין ביז די הענט ווערן געשוואָלן און אַלע גלידער ברעכן.
5. די באָבעס, נישט די עלטערן, האָבן פֿאַרזיכערט אַז די קינדער און אייניקלעך זאָלן פּראַווען פּסח
גאָרין באַשרײַבט אויך פּסח אין דער „נײַער היים‟, אויף דער איסט־סײַד פֿון ניו־יאָרק. אין עטלעכע דערציילונגען לייענט מען וועגן דעם דורות־ריס בײַ די ערשטע אימיגראַנטן און זייערע קינדער. אָפֿט האָבן די אימיגראַנטן פֿאַרגעסן וועגן זייערע ייִדישע טראַדיציעס, אָבער די אַלט־מאָדישע באָבעס האָבן פֿאַרזיכערט, אַז זייערע קינדער און אייניקלעך זאָלן זיך צוגרייטן אויף פּסח און אָפּריכטן די סדרים.
די קינדער זענען פֿאַרכאַפּט געוואָרן מיט דער לעגענדע פֿון אליהו־הנבֿיא, זײַנע מעשׂים און זײַן כּוס בײַם סדר. וואַרטנדיק אויף אליהו־הנבֿיא האָט זיי געהאַלטן וואַך בײַם סדר. אָבער אויך די באָבע, וואָס האָט זיך באַקלאָגט פֿאַר איר טאָכטער און איידעם וואָס פֿאַר אַ גוייִש לאַנד ס’איז אַמעריקע, האָט במשך פֿונעם סדר פאַרשטאַנען, אַז אין רוסלאַנד זענען די ייִדן טאַקע געווען ווי שקלאַפֿן. קיין ייִד האָט נישט געוווּסט וואָס דער מאָרגן וועט ברענגען. אָבער אין אַמעריקע קען מען טאַקע רויִקער שלאָפֿן. מען האָט אפֿשר אַנדערע צרות, אָבער, רעלאַטיוו גערעדט, קלענערע. איין מעשׂה ענדיקט זיך אזוי:
שוין אַ צײַט מיט יאָרן ווי זיי אַלע האָבן ניט געהאַט אַזאַ פֿריילעכן און באַהאַרצטן יום־טובֿ ווי דעם איצטיקן. נאָר די זכרונות פֿון דער היים זײַנען ווי אַ שאָטן געהאָנגען איבער זייער שׂימחה.
בײַ גאָרינען איז פּסח נישט בלויז אַ יום־טובֿ וואָס פֿאַרבינדט אונדז מיט דער אַלטער געשיכטע פֿון די ייִדן אין מצרים, נאָר אויך מיט דער נײַערער געשיכטע פֿון די ייִדן אין שטעטל און ניו־יאָרק.
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A brilliant Jewish storyteller may be gone, but her characters are ‘still talking’
Still Talking
By Lore Segal
Melville House, 128 pages, $19
In one of the stories in Lore Segal’s posthumous collection, Still Talking, a group of women in their 80s and 90s agree without the need for discussion “that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on. They were going to die.”
It is characteristic of these tough-minded women, who have graced the pages of the New Yorker and taken a star turn in Segal’s 2023 collection Ladies’ Lunch, to renounce one of the most annoying euphemisms of modern life.
Like the stories in the earlier collection, this book also features the “Ladies Lunch,” a literary device that Segal’s longtime friend Vivian Gornick describes as “a group of very intelligent Upper West Side women (Lore and her friends)” who get together regularly to talk.
“Aging is the condition at the heart of all their musings, a development that has not made them any less interesting than at any other stage of their lives,” Gornick says in a warm introduction, calling Segal’s writing “one of the small glories of American literature.”
At one such meeting, a character named Farah suggests a discussion topic: “forgetting as an Olympic sport” because names, dates, events — almost everything — won’t stick in their minds. At another get-together, Ruth, the “bona-fide retired activist” of the group, regrets not going to a dinner she was invited to, not because she missed the food or conversation, but because “it makes it easier to not go the next time.” And in “Left Shoulders,” a character wonders if she is losing the very capacity for speech. “There’s something I want to say, but my mouth doesn’t open to say it, or not in the moment when there is a gap in the conversation.”
Segal’s life and work are now the focus of a new exhibit at the Center for Jewish History’s Leo Baeck Institute, an archive and research library for the history and culture of German-speaking Jews. The show, which opened in January and closes April 15, features photographs, documents and artifacts that trace Segal’s personal and literary journey from prewar Vienna to New York.
Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1928, Segal escaped Nazi-occupied Austria on the Kindertransport when she was 10. She grew up in England in a series of foster homes, material that she mined for her first autobiographical novel, Other People’s Houses. Eventually she was reunited with her parents in Britain, then emigrated to New York with her mother in 1951. Her father died in the final days of the war.
Some of this historical trauma in reflected in the story “Ilka,” in which the eponymous character tells her friends that her daughter applied for and received her Austrian citizenship. When they ask whether she considered doing the same, she says, “I did not. I was remembering my parents’ desperation assembling the papers that were required for our emigration.”
At first, the story has a light-hearted tone as Ilka describes going back to Vienna for visits when she was younger, dropping her bags at the hotel and racing off in search of a remembered tower or palace. Then it takes a darker turn as she reports on her daughter’s efforts to find out what happened to relatives who didn’t manage to escape, including a beloved, “immensely overweight” aunt who was killed at Auschwitz.
“Ilka tries not to imagine Tante Mali, who needs help getting up from her chair, forced to run to the right, turn and run left. To imagine the men? Not Dante, not Milton, not Shakespeare has anatomized their human hearts, and about what she cannot imagine she cannot think and I cannot write,” Segal says in a metafictional twist at the end that shifts from the third to the first person, shedding light on Segal’s distinctive storytelling method.
Segal elaborates on that technique in another story, “In the Mail,” in which a writer character named Bridget compares the act of writing fiction to the transporter in “Star Trek,” a device that dematerializes people into energy so they can be reassembled elsewhere. “I turn us into the words that would allow [others] to imagine us,” she says.
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