One last #ShortStory to write about before I call it a weekend: this one is not my usual cup of tea, but it's oddness and strangeness appealed to me. It's beautiful. @bethgoder.bsky.social #AmReading #AmReadingFiction #Booksky #WritingCommunity #WritersLife strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

I loved the format on this short story: I could see where it was going the whole time, but the step-by-step gave it an emotional punch it wouldn't have otherwise had. Recommended reading. @jrdawson.bsky.social #AmReading #AmReadingFiction #AmReadingSciFi www.uncannymagazine.com/article/six-...

An interview with me about "The Day We Said Goodbye to the Birds" that came out today on several different Facebook groups. It also has a short excerpt from the book. #Eco-Fiction #EcoFiction #EnvironmentalRacism #Booksy #Booksky #AmWriting #WritingCommunity www.facebook.com/groups/22086...

A story with a very cool format that imagines co-working as augmented by neural sharing. Definitely worth your time to check this out. Free click. @renanbernardo.com #AmReading #AmReadingFiction #Dystopic #ShortStory #WriterSky #AuthorSky #WritingCommunity www.phano.co/articles/we-...

This deceptively simple-seeming short story packs a strong emotional punch. It does so by implying the emotion and never showing it, making a truly strong story. Recommended reading. @thomasha.bsky.social #AmReading #AmReadingScienceFiction #Dystopia clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha_04_25/

So, why am I getting four emails a day purportedly from Slavic girls looking for men over 40? Slavic girls looking for a Jewish guy? Do they want to apologize for the Chmielnicki Massacres?

And this is out, with my story, "Become the New You." The launch was at a horror convention in Utah this weekend. I look forward to reading the other 34 stories. @whisperhousepress.bsky.social‬ #WhisperHousePress #Horror #CostsOfLiving #DreadMondays #booksky #horrorsky www.amazon.com/Dread-Monday...

New blog post. Important #MiddleEast stuff many of you likely missed. Consequential for #ScienceFiction authors setting stories there. #Booksy #Booksky #Israel #Palestine #Peace #E1 #WestBank #AmWriting www.allandyenshapiro.com/post/the-new...

For those wondering why my posts have been apolitical, a McCarthyite witch hunt is underway in Florida that's nabbed many for social media posts. I'm still hitting anti-fascist/anti-racist themes in my fiction. The witch hunters are generally too dumb to read fiction. #Booksky #AmWriting #Writesky

Solved my Codex contest story no-plot problem: It's a mystery. I don't know what's going to happen yet, so neither does my protagonist. But my hardboiled attorney has met the femme fatale and she's dispensed him to deal with the big bad. Who's a bird. I'm stealing lines from Poe. Horror comedy.

I got my story seed for the Codex Halloween/horror contest and liked it so much that I've coasted a while, writing on just a vibe. Humorous noir with a sentient animal protagonist. I really should figure out what the story's about soon. Readers tend to like a plot.

ICE foolishly arrested hundreds of South Korean immigrants at a Hyundai plant in Georgia. Don't they know that the men are actually demons? When they start harmonizing and dancing, the ICE terror forces will be in serious trouble. Honmoon over homeland! #Huntrix will defeat Noem! #KpopDemonHunters

Friends at #WorldCon, especially those I haven't yet crossed paths with, I have a table talk from 3-4 today in room 427. Anyone who liked (or didn't like) what I said on any of my panels this weekend, feel free to come by and chat, too. Or anyone else. #Worldcon83 #seattleworldcon2025

New flash fiction humor piece out today. Enjoy! #aliens #alienconquest #satire #humor #sciencefiction #anticapitalist #scifi #Booksy #WritingCommunity #oligarchy #writers #writing #amwriting #amwritingfiction #amwritingscifi #amwritingsciencefiction stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2025/08/glos...

My WorldCon Panels: Wed 6:00pm: Interesting Energy for Future and Fiction Thu 9:00am: Why you wearing riot gear? Politics in Horror Fri 9:00am-10:00am: Plagues and Pestilences Sat 10:30am: What if everyone had a roof and two meals? Sat 4:30pm: You Ask, We Build Sun 3:00pm: Table Talk

An interview with me done on the podcast 2 Black Critics Minus One where I talk about The Day We Said Goodbye to the Birds. www.podchaser.com/podcasts/2bc... #Booksy #WritingCommunity #Hopepunk #ScienceFiction #ReadMoreBooks #BookLover #EnvironmentalRacism #EcoFiction #ReadMoreBooks #NewBook

I just submitted a short story I've been trying to sell since early 2020 to yet another market. My world had a pandemic, climate-related population displacement, and refugees placed in a concentration camp to die. But my camp was in Georgia rather than Florida. So, I guess it's still near-future SF?

For those of you going to WorldCon, my book will be on sale at the Liminal Fiction table. If you'd like me to sign a copy, I'll be at the table Thursday 2-3, Friday 12-1, and Friday 3-4. www.limfic.com/book/the-day... #Booksy #WritingCommunity #Hopepunk #ScienceFiction #ReadMoreBooks #BookLover

The scammers are going to need to up their game a bit. I just got a friend request on Facebook from Cormac McCarthy. Not only did the scammer not know McCarthy was deceased, the scammer didn't realize he was male.

And guess whose book is featured in the #SFWA New Release Newsletter this month? #Booksky #WritingCommunity #Hopepunk #HardSF #SciFi #ScienceFiction #Books #Writer #Writing #AmWriting #ReadEveryDay #read #Reading #AlwaysReading #ReadMoreBooks #NewBook #BookLover drive.google.com/file/d/17DR2...

First #ReaderCon selfie, with ‪ @karchwrites.bsky.social. Awesome time catching up before programming began. Other members of Aurora Street critique group are also here (@bethanypowell.bsky.social and @larkmorganlu.bsky.social). Former member ‪ @willmcmahon36.bsky.social is here too.

#ReaderCon attendees, I will be in the Dealers Room, at one of the Authors Alley tables, from 3 - 7 pm on Friday. If you'd like me to sign a copy of The Day We Said Goodbye to the Birds, that would be the best place to find me. #Booksky #WritingCommunity #Hopepunk #HardSF #SciFi #ScienceFiction

A scene in which two Ph.D.s talk to each other required me to to Google to establish that a drug released in your eye could reach your leg muscles. Retinal vein to cavernous sinus to jugular vein to heart to arteries. If I'd made the characters mail carriers, "This shit works!" would have sufficed.

Random fact of the day. Obtained via Googling as a double-check on the plausibility of a line in the story I'm working on. China is the world's largest producer of apples, with an output of ten times that of the US. So, it appears fine to have my Chinese character in Shanghai eat an apple.

When I resubmit a previously rejected story to a new market, I don't always reread it first, but when I do, especially one I haven't read in a while, it can put me in a good mood. The feeling that it is awesome and deserves acceptance is worth the time. #WritingCommunity #Writersky #Writesky

You'd think physicians would realize it might undermine confidence in their skill when the auto-confirm message for an appointment asks you to bring your advanced care directive paperwork with you to the doctors office.

No, Grammarly, I really did mean to have my character say she "didn't give a shit." Correcting it to "she didn't care" doesn't cut it. I'd specified "informal" rather than "formal" or "neutral." Maybe they need a setting for "vulgar"? Or "real people talking"?

My schedule for ReaderCon. Totally looking forward to it.

Quick comment on the news that the centrifuges at Fordo are no longer operational: I used ultracentrifuges a lot in grad school. Another grad student once ran one slightly unbalanced, and the rotor went through two concrete walls. It doesn't take much to destroy a centrifuge. A hammer would suffice.

And for anyone who would prefer to buy my book from a different billionaire (not Jeff Bezos), this link takes you to where you can buy the digital copy from Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, and other places. books2read.com/The-Day-We-S...

A good thing about revising science fiction: when the real world interferes with a plot point, you have time to ret-con a kluge. WIP has a Chinese character who is adopted internationally. These were banned in 2024. Solution: the Chinese birthrate rose in the 2040s, leading to relaxation of the law.

Latest blog post: an attempt to contextualize today's news about the Middle East. www.allandyenshapiro.com/post/warning...

Europeans, please ignore the NYT article on cooking oils. It claims that what North Americans call canola oil is called rapeseed oil in Europe. No, Canadian scientists in the 1970s bred low erucic acid rapeseed. "Rapeseed oil" is used in the automotive and chemical industries and will poison you.

And now available in paperback as well as Kindle: www.amazon.com/dp/195833319...

Latest blog post--science, this time. www.allandyenshapiro.com/post/correct...

A recent spate of op-eds on AI and the death of thinking convinced me to opine. Lacking the credentials to write something scholarly, I decided to do what I do better: being silly. Here's my latest blog post, a satirical take on the issue: www.allandyenshapiro.com/post/listen-...

IT'S OUT!!! Digitally, on Amazon, at least. More platforms and the paperback coming this month. Blamed for a toxin poisoning the air, Joe is leaving the Bay Area with his 18-month-old daughter. He's trapped in Oakland. Most of the city wants him dead. www.amazon.com/dp/B0D95QGYS...

Should I be embarrassed that this trailer really makes me want to watch the show? Am I not old enough that I should be watching Masterpiece Theater instead? www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzCA...

Microfiction is really hard. This was excellent.

My novelette, "The Day We Said Goodbye to the Birds," will be out June 1 in paperback and digitally. A blurb: Blamed for a toxin poisoning the air, Joe has finalized his divorce and is leaving the Bay Area with his 18-month-old daughter. He is trapped in Oakland. Most of the city wants him dead.

My latest short story is out in the world. Enjoy! factorfourmag.com/mindseye-let...

A short story sale! "MindsEye Lets You Love Again" just sold to Factor Four Magazine. A medical science fiction story that ropes in immigrant struggles and family drama, all in 996 words. It will be a free click, so I will definitely circulate the link once it comes out.

Peter Capaldi was absolutely brilliant in this season's episode 4 of Black Mirror. No spoilers here. Watch it.

Glad to have a 4-day weekend. Spent much of the morning revising a short story that my critique group had critiqued three weeks ago. It felt good to write--the tiredness from cancer/meds had made that difficult with my return to full-time work. Sleep until 9, and you aren't tired. Magic.

I had a dream last night that I was extradited to prison in El Salvador over a story I wrote that Trump didn't like. The New York Times reprinted it on page one as a protest. I know, dreams are silly. There's no chance the New York Times will ever publish anything I write.

This account is hysterical. Trump put tariffs on an island inhabited by penguins and seals but no humans. They purport to be the penguin government.

If anyone wants to buy tactical nuclear weapons, I'll import plutonium at only a 5% tariff and sell you back the finished product. A great deal. You don't want to buy from losers like the guy at Mar-A-Lago. I might quadruple my tariff tomorrow. Or not. Still a better deal than you'll get from him.

Today, I gamify my short story submission process. I submitted to The Dark first. If I finish all today's submissions before getting a rejection letter from The Dark, I win. I have lost before. The Dark has taken as little as ten minutes to reject me (and as much as 6 days). They're fast.

I'll surrender to the first wave of Mounties. We've already got Canada geese in the pond in my backyard; they winter here. Our colonists will feel at home, albeit warmer. Many of us are ready to become the 11th province. I hope the horses don't drown. Or will they fly to Florida for the invasion?

Today's random thought: How did people write prior to the Internet era? Revising a story, I questioned a verb choice: do people hail an Uber or did "hail" mean waving one's hands for a taxi? I Googled and was assured my usage was fine. Oh, they didn't have Ubers pre-Internet. No need to Google.