Elizabeth Preston

@inkfish.bsky.social

5691 Followers 512 Following

Science journalist, humor writer and aspiring cephalopod. Boston-adjacent. Author of THE CREATURES' GUIDE TO CARING, out now! elizabethgpreston.com elizabethgpreston.substack.com

A stop motion video shows two yellow hardcover books “walking” across a room, hitting a closed door and falling down, then opening the door and going out. Text reads “just a couple of book buddies heading out for our big night. Porter Square Books Thursday at 7:00. See you there!” The books are POKING THE SQUID and THE CREATURES’ GUIDE TO CARING.
A baby echidna in a person's hand. The caretaker is squirting drops of formula from a syringe onto their palm for the puggle to lap up.
A baby echidna resting on a folded towel on top of a scaled that reads 700.0 g. The echidna is black and potato-shaped, with a brown beak.
Grainy photo of a red bird with a bald black head perched in a garden.
Screenshot from an email: "I hope you've been well. Five years ago, you wrote a wonderful New York Times article about our [scribbled out text]. At the end of your email, you said you looked forward to hearing what I would be working on in the future. I suddenly remembered that message, so I thought I'd send you a quick update."
An order form for The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care. Circled text reads "Inscription: Whatever the author would like to write for me. :) I loved reading this book so much! Thank you Elizabeth for writing it. It is one of my favorite books I have EVER read!"
A blue-green book cover with a swimming manatee adult and very chubby manatee baby. White text reads "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care." The author is Elizabeth Preston (me!)
Book with a yellow cover featuring a photo of a male Northern flicker feeding his chick. Blue and red lettering reads "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care." The author is Elizabeth Preston (me!)
Screenshot of text message exchange dated "Yesterday 2:11 PM": "Wtf was that??" "What the hell It shook the house"
Child's drawing of a sunset. Text reads "When life gets you down, be a sunrise"
Purple flyer reading "Upcoming event at the Williams Bookstore. Elizabeth Preston and Jim Shepard. The Creatures' Guide to Caring. May 14, 4:15-5:30 PM. 81 Spring Street, Williamstown, MA, 413-458-8071."
Screenshot from Goodreads for the title "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care" by Elizabeth Preston. Average is 4.90 stars (10 ratings, 8 reviews)
Flyer reading: "Harvard Book Store presents a discussion featuring Elizabeth Preston. THE CREATURES' GUIDE TO CARING: HOW ANIMAL PARENTS TEACH UST THAT HUMANS WERE BORN TO CARE. Friday, May 8, 7pm at Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA. More info: Harvard.com" with a photo of me plus my cute yellow book cover
"Recently, though, I've been thinking that I owe an apology to the concept of the snob. I've felt a little destabilized lately over how much mediocre garbage is funneled down our throats, as if we were all destined to become a rich foie gras made of Mr. Beast's viral stunts and dating shows where the eighteen hottest people in a small American city rub against each other until two of them are famous enough to do sponsored Instagram posts for FDA-ignored skincare products. It's overwhelming and dispiriting."
Stop-motion video showing two plastic toy naked mole rats in a construction-paper underground habitat. The mole rats eat the dirt, revealing the cover of THE CREATURES' GUIDE TO CARING. One poops out raisins and the other one eats them.
Close-up image of dirt and wood chips. In the background, fiddlehead ferns are emerging. In the foreground are several tiny brown fungi shaped like cups, with clusters of tinier white discs inside them.
Screenshot reading: "involved the simultaneous activity of all members of a clutch. Feeding behaviour is quite frenetic with the young frequently tearing pieces of skin by spinning along their long axes and sometimes struggling over the same piece of skin. The mother remains calm during this activity. When the mother has been peeled, the young continue to search for and eat fragments of skin on the substrate. Feeding bouts are short: just seven minutes for the only" (The phrase "When the mother has been peeled" is highlighted.)
Part of a typed paragraph with the first sentence underlined: "The Water-Holding frog holds as much awesomeness as it holds water! The Water-Holding frog lives in the dry deserts of Australia, and gets so big when it holds water. It even absorbs 50% of its own body weight just in water! It eats small frogs, tadpoles and insects. Some of its predators include birds, larger frogs and"
Yellow book cover reading "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care." The author is Elizabeth Preston.
Book cover reading "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care." The author is Elizabeth Preston (me!). The cover is bright yellow with a photo of a male northern flicker feeding a chick.
A Covid/Flu combined rapid test showing positive results for both flu B and Covid, because apparently I have angered the universe
Book cover reading "The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care." The author is Elizabeth Preston (me!). The cover is bright yellow with a photo of a male northern Flicker feeding a chick.
Text message labeled "Today 8:19 AM" reading "Collective disemboweling" with a green nausea emoji
Picture of a page from Harriet the Spy, with the line "Writers don't care what they eat. They just care what you think of them" highlighted
Handwritten card that says "Happy Valentine's Day! G+G" with an acrostic poem below: "Variation of cards Appetite of chocolate Love Excellent people Nice gifts Treasures Irresistable kindness No one being notty Egg salad"
A spread from Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks: "Luke Luck likes lakes. Luke's duck likes lakes. Luke Luck licks lakes. Luke's duck licks lakes. Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes. Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes."
"There is a certain irony in a cover of 'It Only Takes a Moment' that takes what feels like 18 years because it has been slowed to an unearthly crawl by a Mamma Mia cast member. ('Isn't that something,' Kelsey Grammer says afterward. 'My goodness.')"
A push notification on a phone screen reading "Apple News Spotlight: Trump officials' plan to dismantle a major weather institution, a looming reptile sexpocalypse — and more of the week's top climate stories."
Headline from Vice reading "Incredible Footage Shows a Squid Pretending to Be Deep-Sea Plant Life"
Many crows flying overhead in an urban setting.
Many crows flying overhead in an urban setting.
Google search result linking to the Instagram account by.elizabeth.preston: "5 Life Lessons on Caring from the Animal Kingdom. Get ready to learn from the best - animal parents! In 'The Creatures' Guide to Caring', author Elizabeth Preston takes us on a journey..."
A red sign at a farm that reads: "Pigs bite. We must all value our fingers. Please keep hands out of fence."
"Below 45 degrees, we require children to wear something long sleeved a t-shirt is fine or a sweatshirt, sweater, jacket, etc. Below freezing, children are required to wear a heavy article of clothing - waterproof if possible (jacket, heavy sweatshirt, several layers, etc.). They also must wear gloves and something that covers the head (hat the covers the ears, hood, earmuffs, headband etc).
A Trader Joe's candle labeled "Cedar Balsam."
Two children carrying clear umbrellas decorated to look like jellyfish, with dangling ribbons and strips of bubble wrap, and lights inside
A scene built out of Lego in which a farmer with a jack-o-lantern head stands next to a shed and waters vines that are growing human heads
A scene built out of Lego in which a human minifig lies on a surgical bed, while a sinister doctor with a jack-o-lantern head stands nearby holding a dagger
A child's drawing in green pen, showing a smiley face with long hair, six straight lines for legs coming out underneath, and two long arms with pincers
Close-up photo of a small black-and-white bee on a purple flower
Video of a dark porch at night. Many coyotes can be heard yipping and barking together.
A swan and three baby swans preening themselves at the edge of a pond, seen from a boardwalk above.
A female mallard and four ducklings walking down a path, cautiously but adorably.
Original post by me: “I’ve been sharing this information with pretty much anyone who asks how my book is going. I tell them to check the acknowledgments, and if no fact-checker is thanked, assume the book you’re reading has errors (possibly a lot).” Quote post by Maureen Ogle: “What the hell????? Kids, I assume [sic] you that my books do [sic] have errors. Period. And they’ve never been fact checked. This is a ridiculous statement.”
"Vie McCoy, the chief technology officer of Morpheus Systems, an A.I. research firm, tried to measure how often chatbots encouraged users' delusions. She became interested in the subject when a friend's mother entered what she called 'spiritual psychosis' after an encounter with ChatGPT."
Screenshot from an email inbox: sender is "do_not_reply," subject line is "Have you arrived?" and preview reads "Hello Elizabeth, Let us know if you've reached the clinic reception area..." Time is 6:30 AM.
Screenshot from a Word doc reading "shrinkage. Dads who lost the most gray matter were also," on the first line and "postpartum mental illness" on the second line. There's a blue underline under the words "most gray," and a popup box suggesting "grayest" as a substitute.
A screenshot from Google Maps labeled "A," showing an uncountable number of roads, including route 93, overlapping each other
A figure showing two rows of long, narrow bones labeled 0–29, under the title "Morphology and development of the baculum in harbour seals (Phoca vitulina)"
The following words and phrases, broken into three columns: "activism activists advocacy advocate advocates barrier barriers biased Biased toward biases Biases towards bipoc black and latinx community diversity community equity cultural differences cultural heritage culturally responsive culturally responsive disabilities disability discriminated discrimination discriminatory diverse backgrounds diverse backgrounds diverse communities diverse community diverse group diverse groups diversified diversify diversifying diversity and inclusion diversity equity enhance the diversity enhancing diversity equal opportunity equality equitable equity ethnicity excluded female females fostering inclusivity gender gender diversity genders hate speech excluded female females fostering inclusivity gender gender diversity genders hate speech hispanic minority historically implicit bias implicit biases inclusion inclusive inclusiveness inclusivity Increase diversity increase the diversity indigenous community inequalities inequality inequitable inequities institutional lgbt marginalize marginalized minorities minority multicultural multicultural polarization political prejudice privileges promoting diversity race and ethnicity racial racial diversity racial inequality racial justice racially racism sense of belonging sexual preferences social justice socio cultural socio economic sociocultural socioeconomic status stereotypes systemic trauma under appreciated under represented under served underrepresentation underrepresented underserved undervalued victim women women and underrepresented"
Screenshot of video from Zewald & Auersperg 2025: A white cockatoo is perched on the rim of a shallow red food dish with purple yogurt inside. The cockatoo is using one foot to hold a yogurt-covered piece of pasta up to its beak.
Photo of the lower left corner of a MacBook keyboard. The corner button says “fn” and has an icon that looks like a…globe?
Banner reads: CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Article headline: Infant Homicides Within the Context of Safe Haven Laws—United States, 2008–2017 Date: October 2, 2020 Authors: Rebecca F. Wilson, PhD, Joanne Klevens, MD, PhD, Dionne Williams, MPS, Likang Xu, MD