Write the stories you want to write. Because then, no matter what happens, no matter what markets are or aren’t there, you’ll at least have written the stories you want to write.

Sigh. Once again, if you are warning us about fascism while posting on Substack you’re asking us to do work YOU 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 WILLING 👏 TO 👏 DO.

People are harshing on some “diverse reading challenge” thing that’s going around, and I get it, but looking at what you read and asking yourself “what isn’t represented here?” is imo a good and healthy practice

Every so often, AI boosters will say their products are or soon will be capable of “Ph.D-level work” and then it becomes clear that they at a very basic level do not know what Ph.D level work is

How bad has 2025 been? We broke time.

Creative people: streaming is not your future. Disposable, ephemeral, intangible digital media is not your future. Books, records, CDs, Blu-rays, theatrical screenings, live performance...these will be the way your art will exist in the world beyond a temporary mad scramble for views and listens.

Without getting into it too much, the Thing You Do that feels simple & straightforward can seem like deepest sorcery to someone who doesn’t have that facility & vice versa, & that’s good & beautiful imo, whether it leads to striving through difficulty or dwelling more intentionally in your strength

We do not have to offer and I believe indeed should not offer any benefit of the doubt: Anything sold as "AI" should be presumed ineffective, exploitative, environmentally ruinous, bigotry-amplifying and otherwise until proven otherwise. /fin

Hot damn

Going into 2026, a reminder for everyone who's fallen off the creative wagon, game dev, writing, art, music, whatever, no matter how long:

Grateful to my queer internet besties

Babe wake up, new Sumerian myth just dropped. phys.org/news/2025-07...

As a disabled guy, I don't care that much about a few abled people faking disabilities. My concern lies with the myriad disabled people who have talked themselves into thinking they aren't disabled and hurt themselves over and over trying to stay invisible.

genAI is STOLEN WORK. Using genAI in *any* capacity is trafficking in stolen work, supporting the plunder. Period. These facts aren't even denied by the AI companies, they just find ways to make that plunder seem benevolent. Using their product enables that lie. Stop enabling the theft of our work.

"We don't want to be Luddites --" brother, Luddites were opposed to bosses concentrating wealth by using technology to make inferior product with warehouses fulls of starving exploited child labor. You don't have to wear the team jersey but respect the game.

These people can fuck off. I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user. I can walk from the gate to the plane, but not the 2 miles w/in an airport from the outer doors to the plane. More disabled people don't get services they need than the # of able-bodied scammers. Articles like this make things worse.

"Something that I have found difficult for non-artists to understand is that the ‘early messy stuff’ that non-arty folks insist can be ‘fixed by a human artist later’ is where the best work is done." True of every creative field. You can't start building halfway up; the foundation has to be sound.

Guess I'll post this again

First cohort in 500 years who have been asked to share… and the answer is clearly “no.”

"We Will Rise Again" by @drkarenlord.bsky.social, @annaleen.bsky.social, and @older.bsky.social (eds.) What better way is there to end the year than with a compendium of hope and resistance imaginaries!

Got yelled at this week for making statements that will supposedly alienate the average white male voter and what I want to emphasize is this: appealing to the average white male voter is not my aim and not my job.

The word gatekeepers here is really telling. Actual creatives know gatekeepers are the executives and publishers and techbros standing between you and your audience. Rando billionaires think people who are more creative than them are gatekeepers.

This is very good. "Anti-alarmists invariably conflate talking in a calm tone with being rational. Any expression of fear or anger from Cassandras is proof they’re not to be taken seriously."

Somewhere, beneath a leaf, a soft salamander waits to join your most vital memories. Somewhere, in autumn’s soil, a mushroom will stand above ground and remind you of the strange life below. Somewhere, a person like us, who has lost the knack of noticing will need the magic only you can bring.

- this will kill and immiserate children - the silence of cis people is deafening - no one should have the authority to tell you what you do with your body regardless of age - any system in which every 4 years genocide is an incompetent Dem candidate away from happening is not worth defending

People say AI is a magic shortcut to creativity & success. I’ll tell you the real secret and it’s voraciously reading, being interested in everything, being diligent in the pursuit of learning, paying attention to the interior lives of others & keeping a heart open to the world.

Every few years there's a bunch of "pivot to video" discourse about how creatives should all start making videos instead of doing text-based work. And every few years we discover again that the supposed "popularity" of video is based on fake audience numbers created by the video platforms.

Thanks to its desperate pushers, GenAI is quickly becoming an invasive growth. It’s digital knotweed, designed to fill every organic space, choking out the native forms of life. Once you’ve let it in your garden, good luck getting it out.

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫

Poetry is for amateurs. They should leave it to the prose.

Michael C. Rockefeller got shipwrecked in 1963, washed up on an island, and was promptly eaten by cannibals.

This feeling is part of why I named my company Liminal. We don’t see the ways yet, but I believe we will find or make them, together.

I don’t have a word for it either but for me, it is embodied in the phrase: “I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win.”

We’re not even *close* to running out of good ideas. The issue is smart people’s ideas being systematically persecuted, under-resourced, and blocked from opportunity by fascists. Do not believe propaganda in the “Future Perfect” section of Vox that’s underwritten by Effective Altruism extremists.

As a grant writer for environmental causes, I’ve seen first-hand how funding for the environment often takes a backseat to medical research and human services. This article helps demonstrate why this is a problem; the environment is a HUGE influence on public health and quality of life.

There is always something to be done, and that something makes a difference. That is what optimism is: choosing to believe that you can continue to make a difference, and doing so, as much as you can.

"I'll burn down your house" - legally actionable, boring, common "I told the trees about you" - legally acceptable, foreboding, unsettling, the plants know your name and hate you

I don’t want to be more efficient. I don’t want to get faster. I want to be deeper, more authentic. I want to be strikingly me. I want people to have shivers when they look at my art. Even if it takes time, I want me to enjoy the process and people to wait eagerly for my art and feel amazing

🎶 Come listen to the ballad of Lake Louisa. Learn about the *very real* backstory to this poem by jumping over to my free Ghost newsletter: entangled-worlds.ghost.io/field-notes-... #nature #naturewriting #poetry #naturepoetry #Appalachia #hopepunk #solarpunk

People always ask me, “how do I know my manuscript is done?” There’s only one way, my friends. If your file name looks something like this: Manuscript - Final Draft 3.7 FINAL FINAL - FINAL (5).docx Then, and only then, is it time.

if you’re still making art, that means some part of you believes that this world is worth staying in

Shop small!

I'm a weirdo, but most of my stories aren't written for myself or for an audience. Most of the time I'm writing to be true to the characters, both in exploring them without flattening them, and giving them the consequences they deserve. They're imaginary! But that's what animates my process.

ecologyaction.ca/sites/defaul... I was thrilled to work as an editor for the fall issue of Ecology & Action Magazine, particularly on writer Bianca Marzan's piece on EAC's pop-up bike hub. The entire magazine is beautiful and worth the read! #biking #diy #ecology

Thank you everybody! We’ve been backing several efforts to halt data center developments in different communities, and it turns out you’re making a huge impact. A new analysis shows that, in just a three-month period earlier this year, the

And we knew this. This wasn't speculation. We studied it, we had the talking points. We trained volunteers to explain this to people. It's not a surprise. Rich people don't flee places with good quality of life when we increase the quality of life. They might try to cheat us, but they don't leave.