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Isabel Kaplan

@izkaplan

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National bestselling novelist (NSFW) & chaos correspondent (Good Material on Substack, link below) & Long Covid-fighter. happiest underwater.

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Wallflower at the fish orgy 🦈 taken in Palau Micronesia by @izkaplan

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2 years ago

Out now in @guardian - link in bio! 🙃💁‍♀️🥨 by @izkaplan

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4 years ago

monday sketches on blood draws and rising ocean temperatures and rosh hashanah and societal collapse and stuff. read the whole thing you know where (swipe to the end if you don’t) taken in Los Angeles, California by @izkaplan

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18 days ago

my favorite pinnipeds

left my heart with these sea lion pups. 💙

#scuba #sealions by @izkaplan

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22 days ago

dive. draw. dehydrate. repeat.
summer sketches, from cozumel to the emergency room(s) to the sea of cortez 🫍

fact checking: orcas’ brains are 5x the weight of humans’. sea lions are not in the same family as red pandas and raccoons, but they are their closest animal cousins (from genetic lines that split 50 million years ago). antibiotic injections (vs pills) are popular in Mexico - they work fast and bypass the GI tract. But they require a doctor appt for three days in a row, which prob explains why we aren’t offered them in the US…

#sketchbook taken in Sea of Cortez by @izkaplan

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a month ago

Good news! I’ve discovered an environment where my body feels great and functions well.

Bad news: It’s an environment fundamentally hostile to human existence.

I have lived and experienced more in the past two months than I did in the preceding twelve months put together.

There have also been moments when the healing narrative I am constructing and doing my absolute best to inhabit shattered around me. I have landed in international emergency rooms twice - painful reminders of my body’s fragility and volatility. by @izkaplan

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a month ago

does anyone want a guide to making crow friends? (crows make great friends.)

#crows #crowbros #corvids by @izkaplan

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4 months ago

Here are my favorite Hollywood thriller recommendations for the @nytimes! 🤩 I had so much fun writing about these amazing books by Charles Yu @ellamberman @csmithpaul @catsteadman @may_cobb Katherine St. John @izkaplan and @staceyleeauthor! Pls check out these fabulous books along w my piece in today’s NYT! 🔥 #HollywoodThrillers #TheTake #KellyYang by @izkaplan

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5 months ago

tbh the fake pitches we came up with in 2015 seem like viable TV premises in 2026
l1nk in bi0 etc! 🥳☠️ by @izkaplan

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6 months ago

Three weeks ago I was in the hospital. Two weeks ago I found out I have a blood clot the length of my forearm. Now, I’ve been traveling on my own for a week.

Look at me go!
Not like I used to go, though.

What do I gain from that kind of comparison?
I gain, if I am able to offer myself compassion, appreciation of how adaptable and resilient I am, and of how unavoidable the dark emotions I’ve been battling are. It is SO hard to make do with so little living, so little exposure to and immersion in the world.
I think it’s a pretty standard human reaction: get a glimpse of the world and of course you’ll want a better view.

The internet doesn’t count. The internet is the opposite of the world, by which I mean people + nature. We know that. It’s part of why society is so fucked. Bring back the internet and technology of 1999. That was enough.

I have lost access to more and more of what I once considered integral parts of my self and life — I have been forced to ask myself just how little counts as enough, and who am I if I can’t ________ .
(Fill in the blanks: read, write, dive, run, travel, socialize, date, work, organize, plan.)
My life and self have become increasingly illegible to me, my friends, the medical community.

I am holding onto threads as best I can. This past week, I have been able to grasp a few more. And that has meant…the world to me. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

#sketchbookpages #illustrateddiary #journalart taken in Monterey Bay by @izkaplan

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6 months ago

more sketches from my hospital bed

(i’m finally out! problems unresolved, but life threatening situations ruled out.)

#artisticdiary #visualjournal #sketchbookpages #chronicillness #longcovid by @izkaplan

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7 months ago

Hospitals, like airport terminals, have an otherworldly aspect to them. Brightly lit portals to elsewhere that exist outside the usual rules of time and space. To enter one as a patient or a traveler is to put your life and its preservation into strangers’ hands. You become body more than person.

Creating my way through my worst moments is my way of refusing that reduction. An ongoing attempt to remind myself that I’m still alive - and that my life is worth living, even when it hurts the most. It is my attempt to transmute profoundly isolating experiences into vehicles for connection and mutual recognition. After all, isolation is one of the most universal aspects of suffering.

Sketches from a hospital bed part 1 (more posted you know where)

#sketchbookpractice #chronicillnesslife #graphicmedicine #visualessay #chronicillness #invisibleillnesses by @izkaplan

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7 months ago