Twenty-Six Certainties for Twenty-Twenty-Six

Attention!

This past year has been abysmal and, as predicted below, the future ain't looking bright. Life's chaotic and distracting enough without superfluous emails, so if you feel anything other than immense joy when you see my nonsensical name in your inbox, feel free to unsubscribe from this newsletter. I shall take no offense since I, too, will be terminally offline in 2026. Thanks always for reading—and Happy New Year!

1) Beset by a bevy of ridiculous and embarrassing scandals, the University of Michigan athletic department will embrace its true calling as an elite women's basketball school.

2) When encouraged to pursue the joys of motherhood, tens of millions of women across the globe will kindly tell their lesser halves to go fuck themselves.

3) The United States of America will celebrate 250 years of refusing to practice what it preaches.

4) Your favorite god will worship at the altar of entropy.

5) Traditional publishing will remain an industry built upon luck, randomness, and preexisting fame. Related: The literary advice industrial complex will continue to exploit obtuse authors who fail to accept this reality.

6) If I survive until September 4, 2026, I'll reach the deepest, darkest depths of middle-aged misery.

7) The oligarch class will launder illicit profits, evade taxes, skirt regulations, commit accounting fraud, transfer wealth to their dipshit kids, and—with straight faces—rationalize the plight of the working poor.

8) Backed by the cult of neoliberalism, the wealthiest country in known human history will operate the shittiest healthcare system imaginable.

9) The University of Chicago, lauded for its academic rigor, renowned for its world-class business school, and home to scores of legendary Nobel Prize-winning economists, will manage its $10.9 billion endowment like a drunken sailor.

10) Pushy auto-complete salesmen will promise everyone that souped-up auto-complete software will revolutionize everything. Related: Souped-up auto-complete software will revolutionize internet slop.

11) Glorified gorillas across the globe—spanning all classes, creeds, and colors—will wage war and commit atrocities against one another and accomplish absolutely fucking nothing.

12) Smartphones will remain the skillets, social media platforms will remain the bacon grease, and our brains will remain the eggs.

13) In the endless ideological struggle between capital and labor, the better-funded team will remain undefeated.

14) Billions of soccer hooligans will lament their corrupt nation's failure to win the World Cup.

15) Though overshadowed by its more prestigious peers Harvard and Yale, when it comes to producing cartoonish, globe-trotting supervillains, Princeton University will once again punch above its weight.

16) My Gilded Age-era condominium, a financial and emotional sinkhole which has undoubtedly dented my existence by a decade, will give lie to the conventional wisdom that, in real estate, the only thing that matters is: location, location, location.

17) By empowering every citizen to become an internet-addled degenerate gambler, prediction markets will perfect the long con known as the American Dream.

18) As begun with the first cave painters, 99.99% of artists will fail to earn enough money to independently support themselves.

19) Rightwing nutjobs will commit heinous, unspeakable crimes, then accuse leftwing cucks of committing said heinous, unspeakable crimes. Leftwing cucks will piss and moan and rage and cry on social media, then beg their disaffected voters for money. Centrist cynics will equivocate, enable, and enrich themselves from the sidelines. Everyone will end up worse off.

20) Over the course of four exhausting hours, 22 Black and White men will bash their brains together on a rare meritocratic playing field, dozens of aspiring novelists (and a handful of algorithms) will brag to their friends about the ad copy they wrote, the average American citizen will consume enough calories to sate a beluga whale, and a bunch of bigots will reflexively bop their heads to the soulful crooning of a Spanish-speaking superstar.

21) Neither incredible set pieces nor amazing performances nor breathtaking visuals will overcome Christopher Nolan's penchant for ruining his own films with non-linear storytelling—a feat which will be doubly ironic since the source material for his latest blockbuster, an ill-advised adaptation of The Odyssey, is actually told in a non-linear fashion.

22) A once mighty empire will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the biggest own goal in its long, sad, sordid history.

23) The omniscient and all-powerful "Invisible Hand," first introduced to the masses by the error-prone economist, egregious plagiarist, and dreadful writer known as Adam Smith, will be willfully misinterpreted and shrewdly coopted for the 250th consecutive year.

24) National governments and regulatory bodies will do fuck all to mitigate climate change through public policy while private corporations—sensing prime opportunities to extract plump societal rents—will provide "innovative solutions" that enrich the shareholder class and, just barely, keep our species viable. All the wrong lessons will be learned from this depressing charade.

25) When the New START treaty expires on February 4, every single human in every major city around the world will move one step closer to instantaneous nuclear annihilation.

26) Deaths of reading, the republic, and the planet be damned, I'm gonna put my best possible effort into crafting the funniest, most outrageous, most ambitious, most fearless novel I can.

Three Faves from 2025

Global nightmares notwithstanding, my ridiculous writing career had a weird, wacky, and wildly successful year. As you might've heard, I published a crazy little novel called Leverage in August. You should buy a copy for everyone you know.

I wrote some bangers for this newsletter, too, three of which I've included below for your reading pleasure.

1. In March, I treated the DOGE debacle with all the disdain and disrespect it deserved. Read my vicious takedown HERE.
2. In July, following an incredible week at a summer camp for humanity's largest cult, I channeled my inner Hunter S. Thompson and recapped the madness. Read the hella fun piece HERE.
3. In September, on my 45th birthday, I redeemed masculinity by detailing a list of things real, actual men do. Read the inspirational piece HERE.

Finally, in case you missed it, last week I wrote my personal favorite piece of the year, which features Tiny Tim, the goddess of revenge, three unmedicated oligarchs, and an entreaty to hold the spirit of Christmas in our hearts each and every day. The story's as bonkers as it sounds—read it HERE.

Two Madmen Talk Satire and the First U.S. Civil War

During my first—and hopefully not last—guest-hosting spot for the Diverse Voices Book Review podcast, me and my friend Dennard Dayle talked about his hilarious Civil War satire, How to Dodge a Cannonball.

Our back-and-forth banter's a blast, so please be sure to give this conversation a listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you slake your aural desires.

See You in 2026!

Presuming you haven't yet unsubscribed, I hope you're excited to read more of my nonsense in the coming year. With Leverage on bookshelves, and my post-launch blues abating, I'm excited to be hopping back into the creative saddle.

My top priority in 2026 will be building momentum on my next novel, though I'm also looking forward to producing some short-form madness as well.

Thanks always for your support, interest, and engagement.

Stay safe, sane, and frosty out there.

—Amran