Seth Abramson

In a 2019 interview, a Playboy interviewer said that "Abramson helped pioneer the literary form of the Twitter 'thread'" and, speaking of his 2018 book Proof of Collusion, credited "the eccentric New Hampshirite" for "his meticulous attention to the evidence of Trumpworld’s alleged collusion with the Kremlin." The magazine added that Abramson was a "left-brained gonzo."

In November 2018, Abramson published the New York Times bestselling book Proof of Collusion (Simon & Schuster), which sought to establish "proof of collusion in the Trump-Russia case." A Playboy interviewer wrote of Proof of Collusion that "not one error has been found in the book." According to a review in the Herald (Scotland), "Amassed theories and suggestive juxtapositions notwithstanding, we end up with something closer to the Scottish 'not proven' verdict with its unique mix of moral conviction of guilt and inability to conclusively prove the case." A sequel to Proof of Collusion, Proof of Conspiracy, was published by St. Martin's Press in September 2019, and was also a New York Times bestseller.

After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Abramson received widespread attention for his Twitter threads alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and foreign governments, especially Russia, but also Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel. Abramson suggests that, through intermediaries, Trump and Putin came to an understanding in 2013 that Trump would run for president and push for an end to U.S. sanctions against Russia, and that Putin would in return greenlight a multibillion-dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal and other potential Trump ventures in Russia while using Russian capabilities to aid the Trump campaign. According to Avi Selk of The Washington Post, Abramson "has become virally popular by reframing a complex tangle of public reporting on the Russia scandal into a story so simple it can be laid out in daily tweets."

During the 2016 Democratic primary race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Abramson supported Sanders. He authored what Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine called "a cult-favorite series of Bernie [Sanders] delegate-math fan fiction." Philip Bump of The Washington Post took issue with Abramson's analyses, calling them "empty theory, unproven...but innovative." Writing in The Chicago Tribune, Stephen Stromberg called Abramson a "Sanders zealot...[in] reality-denial." The Atlantic, citing an article by Abramson in which he referred to his writing on the Democratic primary as "experimental journalism," attributed Abramson's articles not to his political leanings but his self-identification as a "metamodernist creative writer." Politico concurred, referring to Abramson's political commentary as "verses from the abstract."

Prior to entering academia in 2015, Abramson was a trial attorney for the New Hampshire Public Defender from 2001 to 2007. Although still an attorney and member in good standing of the New Hampshire Bar Association and the Federal Bar for the District of New Hampshire, he no longer practices law.

In May 2014, Abramson was criticised for his Huffington Post piece "Last Words for Elliot Rodger", a "remix" of words taken from the final YouTube video of the perpetrator of the Isla Vista killings, which Abramson published less than two days after they took place. Both the reuse of Rodger's words and the timing of the poem caused offense. Although Abramson called the work "a vehicle for amity and compassion", Omnidawn, Abramson's publisher at the time, issued a statement saying that it was "dismayed, disheartened, distressed", adding that "his actions in this matter are not in alignment with our principles."

Other media outlets have offered different analyses. The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that Abramson often "feuds with anti-Trump conspiracy theorists whom he sees linking to dubious sources and making claims without evidence." Virginia Heffernan writes in Politico that Abramson's "theory-testing" is "urgently important." Der Spiegel calls Abramson "a quintessential American figure: an underdog who became an involuntary hero." The New York Observer writes that "events like Trump's 2013 trip to Russia for Miss Universe were covered extensively on Abramson's feed prior to the mainstream media catching on, a fact that has given him a reputation for being early to connect events within the broader Russia story."

Abramson and poet Jesse Damiani have been series co-editor of the annual anthology of innovative verse, Best American Experimental Writing, since its inception with Omnidawn in 2012. The series was picked up by Wesleyan University Press in 2014. Guest editors for the series have included Cole Swensen (2014), Douglas Kearney (2015), Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris (2016), Myung Mi Kim (2018), and Carmen Maria Machado and Joyelle McSweeney (2019). In 2018, The Rumpus called the anthology "meaty, daring, and beautiful." Nicole Rudick, managing editor of The Paris Review, has called the series "just my kind of rabbit hole."

Abramson has written for outlets such as Indiewire, The Huffington Post, and Poets & Writers. In 2011, Publishers Weekly wrote that he "picked up a very large following as a blogger and commentator, covering poetry, politics, and higher education, and generating a controversial, U.S. News-style ranking of graduate programs in writing." In November 2018, Abramson became a political columnist for Newsweek.

Abramson has published a number of poetry books and anthologies. Publishers Weekly describes Abramson as "serious and ambitious...uncommonly interested in general statements, in hard questions, and harder answers, about how to live." Colorado Review and Notre Dame Review have written favorably about Abramson's poetry. Abramson won the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. Editor Don Share said of Abramson's "What I Have," "The poem absorbs certain details but doesn't fasten upon them the way poets are tempted to do; it's not adjectival, it's not descriptive, it's not painting a kind of canvas with scenery on it, and yet those details are really fascinating."

Data from the MRP was regularly published by Poets & Writers between 2008 and 2013. The Chronicle of Higher Education termed the Poets & Writers national assessment methodology "comprehensive" and "the only MFA ranking regime." The data was not without its critics. In September 2011, a critical open letter signed by professors from undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs was published. In their response, Poets & Writers asserted that it adhered to the highest journalistic standards. The magazine's Editorial Director Mary Gannon said of Abramson, the rankings' primary researcher, that he "has been collecting data about applicants' preferences and about MFA programs for five years, and we stand behind his integrity."

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1998), Harvard Law School (2001), the Iowa Writers' Workshop (2009), and the doctoral program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010; 2016).

Seth Abramson (born October 31, 1976) is an American professor, attorney, author, and political columnist.

Abramson authors The MFA Research Project (MRP), a website that publishes indexes of creative writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs based on surveys and hard-data research. Indexes appearing on the MRP include ordered listings of program popularity, funding, selectivity, fellowship placement, job placement, student-faculty ratio, application cost, application response times, application and curriculum requirements, and foundation dates. The MRP also publishes surveys of current MFA applicants, and of various creative writing programs. Writing for The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945, Hank Lazer described Abramson's project as "a daring and data-rich endeavor." The Missouri Review observed that Abramson, along with novelist Tom Kealey, "had done a tremendous amount of work to peel back the layers of MFA programs and get applicants to make informed decisions."