Public Domain Day 2026 is just a week away! Published works from 95 years ago (1930) and sound recordings from 1925 now have no copyright! web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd... So many of these works seem modern! I read them in school or later, know the songs, watched the movie in class on or TV.

New #WriterBeware blog post: an explainer on the huge Anthropic class action copyright settlement: what it is, how it happened, how writers with eligible infringed works may benefit financially, and what eligible writers should do next writerbeware.blog/2025/10/31/t...

32: Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff. Yet another work I’ve engaged with recently that hits home for me personally. In this case, it’s a story that seeks to reconcile the author’s love for classic pulp fiction and weird tales with said fiction’s history and legacy of racism - a thing that, as a fan…

A reminder if you’re in Chicago: tonight at 6:30 I’ll be at the U. of Chicago Divinity School with Tananarive Due and Juan Martinez for a panel on Horror Writing and Religion, hosted by @americanwritersmuseum.org as part of their “American Prophets” series.

Join us this Friday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the University of Chicago as we talk horror writing and religion with @bymattruff.bsky.social, author of LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, alongside Tananarive Due and Juan Martinez. Free to students! Register here: bit.ly/46EnYIF

Gonna put this on a sandwich board and wear it on the street while ringing a bell like a town crier: “AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations,” he continued.”

I've already informed my publishers that as the sole owner of the copyrights of my works, I expect any sums received by them to be forwarded to me. We'll see how that goes.

Jane Austen. Spike Lee. MrBeast. “Modern Family.” The Atlantic’s new AI Watchdog search tool lets you see which creative works tech companies may have used to train their generative-AI models: https://theatln.tc/vQSlfiyC

Please do read the novel, "Lovecraft Country". The phrase “the book is always better” is not hyperbole - the book is full of extra gems.

Hey authors, the official list of Anthropic works is available for searching. secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

I'll be at the University of Chicago on Friday, Oct. 10 as part of the @americanwritersmuseum.org American Prophets series, talking about "Horror Writing & Religion" with Tananarive Due and Juan Martinez. Details/tickets here: tinyurl.com/bdh6zhtd

New #WriterBeware blog post: An update on the historic Bartz v. Anthropic settlement. It's been preliminarily approved by the court, but many questions remain about the claims process, the timeline, and exactly which works are included writerbeware.blog/2025/09/26/b...

I spent the summer reporting this essay on why it seems harder than ever to sell a book right now—especially if it isn't a debut and comes with the dreaded "sales track." I'm grateful to the writers, agents, editors, publishers & experts who spoke to me for this piece: thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...

Today the ebooks of four of Matt Ruff's novels are on sale in the U.S.: -- LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is $1.99 -- BAD MONKEYS is $1.99 -- 88 NAMES is $1.99 -- SEWER, GAS & ELECTRIC is $2.99 You can read about all of his novels on his website: bymattruff.com

Historians and researchers, you must prepare for this eventuality online. Some stuff will go away. Less likely; but I predict it'll happen – anything in physical govt archives that touches upon currently contentious matters could be made inaccessible. Create high quality copies of crucial docs.

Okay, and here is the crowdfunding campaign for my next project, which now I guess is going to have to be amazing and foundational and wildly essential and move us all: www.gofundme.com/f/help-nisi-... Help how you can. That's what I'm doing.

This is a nifty write up of both sets of novels—go read GENERATION LOSS!—plus an interview with me about why Aud, with her “slivers of strangeness” is a “unique character who could enliven a book in any genre”. Quite right!

My good friend @nisishawl.bsky.social, the author of Everfair and Kinning, is having a fundraiser for a book she literally dreamed into existence. You can check out the details here: www.gofundme.com/f/help-nisi-...

I am 60 years old today. bymattruff.com/2025/09/08/60/

The ebooks of 4 of Matt Ruff's novels are on sale in the U.S. right now: -- LOVECRAFT COUNTRY and its sequel THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS are only $1.99 each. -- SET THIS HOUSE IN ORDER is $2.99. -- SEWER, GAS & ELECTRIC is $2.99.

Another cool WorldCon panel, this one about adapting books to TV and movies. From L to R: Luke Elliott, moderator Caitlin Rozakis: Leah's Perfect Gift Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country Leigh Bardugo: Shadow and Bone Holly Black: Spiderwick Chronicles Nicholas Binge: Ascension

The Five Petals of Thought is coming real! Fundraiser for supporting me as I write this artifact of an alt history philosophical movement: www.gofundme.com/f/help-nisi-...

I adored the music of Tom Lehrer, who died yesterday at the ripe old age of 97. I wrote an appreciation of him here, with links to some of his best work. There is also a shout-out to Dr. Demento. www.rogerebert.com/tributes/lif...

RIP Tom Lehrer, truly one of the greatest to ever do it, a satirist beyond compare, a brilliant wordsmith, a cheeky fellow, I loved him and his work beyond reason.

The ebooks of two of Matt Ruff’s novels are on sale in the U.S. for only $1.99 each: his award-winning sci-fi thriller BAD MONKEYS, and his virtual reality gaming cyberthriller 88 NAMES.

Also, on October 10 I'll be at the University of Chicago Divinity School along with Tananarive Due and Levi Holloway for a panel discussion on horror writing and religion, hosted by the American Writers Museum.

Quick programming note -- I'll be attending Seattle Worldcon next month, and I've posted a preliminary schedule of my events on the Appearances page of my website (link below).

A thread explaining why today, July 2nd, is really Independence Day. 249 years ago today the Continental Congress voted & approved (with 12 colonies voting yes & NY abstaining) this resolution on American independence from Great Britain:

BIG AI (Litigation) News: Major decision out of the Northern District of California. AI training on copyrighted material is fair use under the Copyright Act, but obtaining the works by piracy (or a pirate website) is a separate violation. 1/

Ebooks of two Matt Ruff novels are on sale now for $1.99 each: LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, his “timely, terrifying, and hilarious” historical horror novel. THE MIRAGE, his “entertaining and provocative” alternate history thriller about the War on Terror, in which the US and Middle East have traded places.

With the recent success of Andor, I'm getting more questions than usual about how to land a job writing Star Wars books, so let's do the yearly How to Write IP thread, shall we? Firstly, IP means Intellectual Property-- that's shows, movies, plays, even books, any world owned by someone else. 1/

CBO projects that the One Big Beautiful Bill, combined with proposed ACA regulations from the Trump administration, combined with expiration of enhanced ACA premium tax credits this year would increased the number of people uninsured by 16 million. www.cbo.gov/system/files...

The ebook of Matt Ruff's 2016 novel LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is on sale in the U.S. right now for only $1.99! Read the book that inspired the award-winning HBO show and enjoy the continuing adventures of the characters you love, all still alive in the novel & its 2023 sequel, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

The GOP bill would cut $1 trillion from health care. This would kick 10.9 million people off their health insurance. That, plus the expiration of the APTCs (and the other half of the ACA rule), lead to 16 million people losing health insurance, pushing the uninsurance rate up 4 percentage points.

Next year "nearly all of the roughly 24 million Americans enrolled in healthcare coverage via the ACA exchanges will face massive premium hikes – in many cases, three and four times higher than what they’re paying right now. Millions will be priced out of being able to afford coverage at all...."

The ebook of Matt Ruff's 2016 novel LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is on sale in the U.S. right now for only $1.99! Read the book that inspired the award-winning HBO show and enjoy the continuing adventures of the characters you love, all still alive in the novel & its 2023 sequel, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

This thread is a great example of the heartbreak of footnote chasing-- earnestly attempting to verify published info or claims by repeatedly tracing the citations back to original sources. It's important to do when researching/writing, but often leads to frustration like this.

The ebooks of two of Matt Ruff’s novels are on sale in the U.S. for only $1.99 each: his award-winning sci-fi thriller BAD MONKEYS, and his virtual reality gaming cyberthriller 88 NAMES.

A new Coke ad proudly features a quote from a J.G. Ballard book, only he didn’t write the words and it’s not his book. www.404media.co/ai-powered-c...

No, we are not going to live on other planets. Bullshit artists like Musk might as well be the leaders of death cults. arstechnica.com/culture/2025...

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 118: Don't just write what you know. But make sure you know what you're writing about. That means due diligence; research; talking to people with specialist expertise or experience. And it means never stop learning; exploring; questioning; listening; being curious.

Very similar in concept to Lovecraft Country (the book) where the true horror isn’t supernatural, and the supernatural horror still serves as an allegory for the actual horrors of Jim Crow.

Announcing Shadow Ticket, the new novel from Thomas Pynchon, coming October 7, 2025! Learn more at: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316427/

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has named author Nicola Griffith (@nicolaz.bsky.social) the 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master! reactormag.com/sfwa-names-n...

NEW: LibGen contains millions of pirated books and research papers, built over nearly two decades. From court documents, we know that Meta torrented a version of it to build its AI. Today, @theatlantic.com presents an analysis of the data set by @alexreisner.bsky.social. Search through it yourself:

The ebook of Matt Ruff’s award-winning thriller BAD MONKEYS is currently on sale in the U.S. for only $1.99. "A science-fiction Catcher in the Rye” (The New York Times) with “enough paranoia, double-dealing plot twists, and mortal thrills to fuel a dozen Le Carré novels” (The Washington Post).

The ebook of 88 NAMES, Matt Ruff's near-future virtual reality/MMORPG novel (part cyberthriller, part twisted romantic comedy) is currently on sale in the U.S. for only $1.99.

For George Washington's 293rd birthday, a link to my 2016 Seattle Review of Books piece about the true story of his enslaved cook Hercules and our long traditions of mythologizing the Founders and lying to children about the past: seattlereviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-...

Below is a thread of federal government data being taken down this week. 🧵 It’s a growing list. Feel free to add others I’ve missed. #federaldata #governmentdata #datapurge

Data on the CDC's website are being removed to comply with the Trump administration’s ongoing attempt to scrub federal agencies of any mention of gender, DEI, and accessibility, Katherine J. Wu reports: