Still thinking about @meghamaj.bsky.social's A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF days later. What a brutal, beautiful, heart-wrenching book.

It's Black Speculative Fiction month! All October, health allowing, I'll update this thread with fun recs for classic & current black spec fic & a bonus work of my own. 1. MY BONES & MY FLUTE www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-bones-a... 2. A RUIN OF SHADOWS www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-ruin-of-... 1/2

THE BLOODLESS QUEEN by Joshua Phillip Johnson hits right where it hurts. Slow build with a powerful ending. 10 out of 10.

Especially weird when a popular argument was that it would be better for the left if Trump won because it would make liberals protest and resist things again...

“The question of who gets to live as long as they should isn’t moral but systemic. We often say that death is the great unifier as it’s the one thing that we all have in common. But sometimes, I look around and wonder if even the after-life is segregated.”

Had me in the first half. "Will publishing this story make anyone other than me feel anything other than my own urge to have written it?" "Is this ... my clumsy attempt at confronting myself with myself in the vain hope that I will be reborn as a new self?" Gets better and hurts more as you go.

I see generative AI used shamelessly, and I want to run into the woods, transmute myself into a beast, and never return.

Just finished THESE MEMORIES DO NOT BELONG TO US by Yiming Ma. It's such a striking and innovative novel about surveillance and resistance.

Trying to figure out how many ways we can flash the red lights here. This was NEVER EVER ABOUT BOOKS. Books were the tool. THEY ARE STEALING YOUR RIGHTS. THEY ARE STEALING YOUR RIGHTS.

Hope is always justified.

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

I honestly don't think everyone talks enough about how amazing it was when the world came together to fix the hole in the ozone layer, so I wrote this: everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/lets-all-r... It's a good reminder of what we're capable of.

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

Tylenol does not cause autism but *not* taking Tylenol can cause women to be truly miserable during pregnancy so you can see why the GOP is so gung-ho about this line of argument.

I cannot stress enough how much media consolidation under billionaires is not only part of the discussion about censorship, it is THE discussion. Oligarchs don’t care about ideology, they care about money, and if a leader offers them unlimited wealth, they’ll sell their own mother out to get it

Trans rights are not the rights of a tiny minority, trans rights are everyone’s rights to self-determination, control of our bodies, and a society where opportunity and aesthetics are not restricted by sex assigned at birth You should support and defend trans people because trans people are people

Hey, I know books are expensive and money is tight right now. But if there's a brand new book you really wanna read — including my own Lessons in Magic and Disaster — you can help get the book into way more hands by requesting it from your local library! It's easy! Check your library's website.

I want our young people to know that there is a path forward, that a better world is possible. I don't want them to give up, to become cynical. They deserve to be young and full of optimism. They are owed a world that supports and sustains optimism.

Political violence is evil, killing people is evil, a country with more guns in it than people is broken, and what the government is saying about political violence right now being a primarily leftwing phenomenon is factually, statistically untrue. They are using this moment to rewrite history.

Whether or not you support political violence won’t change where we’ve come to, nor where we’ve been for some time in this country. I am quite taken aback by how many people only invoke the term ‘political violence’ when it happens to a person with power. It’s political violence the other way too.

Only took two weeks away but so ready to dive into revising and editing. Fingers crossed for a plot-hole-less plot!

Bransford's blog is an incredible free resource that I've been following for going on fifteen years. Literally as far back as I can remember in my writing career. If you are not subscribed, you are missing out on priceless knowledge and publishing wisdom!

I know the problems feel big. I know you feel like nothing you can do will ever be enough. You’re right. It won’t be. That’s why we work together.

Like, wow. 2nd Amendment Defenders really did the math and said “yep, all those dead school children and dead churchgoers and dead grocery shoppers and dead movie and concert attendees are ABSOLUTELY worth my bad faith argument about defending myself from an invasion by the federal government.”

Animals are not objects, yet, in the animal agriculture industry, they are treated like products. 💔 Don’t be the reason someone is reduced to a number. Go vegan. 🙏💚  👉 Vegan Pledge: https://drove.com/.2A4o 🌱 Credits on video #veganmovement #veganshare #veganism #animalrights #animalliberation

From an uptick in comms from wildlife rescue places lately: don't use glue traps, they're so cruel; do not spray paint wildlife, including birds and turtles; do not pick any animal by the tail or you can severely injure their spine. This includes opossums, for whom it can be life threatening.

If you can’t have solidarity and can’t support a fellow diverse creator get out of their way. We are not all the same, and White people, thinking all diverse people are the same is a racist perception. We come from different background, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and so on.

I just completed the first draft of this book! About 79K words, 315 pages. Written in a whirlwind four months, a speed I never before thought myself capable. And I think it is promising! But now I need a rest. Phew!

on the one hand I should absolutely put my phone down but on the other hand what if the forces attacking democracy operate on weeping angels logic

Beautiful words of wisdom from Marcus G. Miller in Suleika Jaouad's The Book of Alchemy. Lots of inspiration for writing and living in this collection.

It's important to know about things that happened before you developed consciousness. If you have never been aware of a world without birth control access, gay marriage, women w/ bank accounts, etc, listen when elders speak. Shouting them down with "that's not how it is now" is a oneway ticket back

I'm using the #mini1000 with @jamiattenberg.bsky.social as inspiration to power through the last of this draft. I think I have about 10,000 words left. Certainly won't cram that all in this weekend, but it will kickstart this final stretch. Let's gooooo!

A little rant/pep talk about doing your own shit and tuning out all the noise of algorithms, pop culture, and artist-hating AI bros. countercraft.substack.com/p/why-you-sh...

I was overjoyed last week when I received an acceptance to the Futurescapes Fall Workshop! But I applied in haste, and September will be better spent revising my novel before I put it in front of others' eyes. It looks like an amazing program! I'll apply again in spring! @futurescapesww.bsky.social

I've got a story titled "Home Sweet NewHome" in the new issue of Daedalus, about a community of climate migrants trying to employ a mega-corporation's suite of techno-utopian farming solutions. It's a pattern story, with grateful debts owed to Barthelme's "The School": www.amacad.org/daedalus/hom...

It's profoundly saddening to read that AP will no longer be assigning or running book reviews because readers don't engage with them enough and they take too much effort to plan and assign. People complain about critics as gatekeepers; wait until all that's left is marketing.

My toddler loves asking what things "mean." In a book about Halloween, Big Bird is dressed as a ghost. She asks "Ghost means?" How do you explain what a ghost is to a 2-yr-old who's never heard of death? I settle on "It's a spooky creature people dress up as for Halloween." She accepts it, for now.

The solution to homelessness is safe and secure housing, not jail time or forced treatment.

Excellent words of wisdom from @charliejane.bsky.social today. "Writing an unpredictable story can help you deal with randomness in the real world, where you never know what publishers or readers might throw at you. Don’t be thrown off course by change — be mercurial and ever-changing."

Hi writer friends! just a reminder that this book exists, it is meant to be helpful and inspiring no matter where you're at. You can buy it at your local indie or you can check it out of your local library. It’s meant to be a resource and was made with love. <3 bookshop.org/p/books/1000...

If you're using AI to write essays, eulogies, a text to your wife, I do think less of you as a person. Ceding your mental and creative abilities to a machine is an embarrassing thing and people should be ashamed to admit doing it in public.

The end is in sight for the first draft of this novel. Fingers crossed I'll be done by the end of August!

I got yelled at on this website today and somehow did not write a story for a magazine about how I'm reorienting my entire political orientation to piss off the people who got mad at me, in fact I learned I was being a bit of a butthead and, despite disagreeing, listened to their concerns, AMA

Bodily autonomy is a human right. Transness isn't a disease that needs to be cured. We're a normal part of the spectrum that is the human condition. And we deserve to have the final say over our own bodies - not just because of the harm if we don't, but because they belong to us and not the state.

Sometimes you need to tell your rep that you hate them so much for their capitulation in the face of facism that when they are up for re-election if there are still free and fair elections not only will you not vote for them but you will run against them solely for the goal of ruining their election

Finished up #1000wordsofsummer with over 17,600 total in the last 14 days. Planning to maintain a more sustainable pace and finish the draft in the next couple of months. This challenge proved to me that I can write a huge volume in a short period of time, which I haven't done at this scale before!

My favorite thing about #1000wordsofsummer is that I'm so immersed that there is no time for self-doubt, no time to ponder if the idea is good enough. I'm just powering through, reaching for the word count goal. If I always wrote like this, I would actually make it to the end of so many 1st drafts.

Oppression breeds rebellion.

Congratulation to all of the winners and finalists of the Nebula Awards! locusmag.com/2025/06...

Halfway through #1000wordsofsummer and proud of myself for sticking with it. I'm feeling motivated to keep the momentum going!