⬇️🐴⬇️🐴 (and obviously:🩸🩸🩸)

We don't share our expertise with right-wing rags.

Well, I know what I'll be reading today 😁

SURPRISE! My first collection is out in the world! (Albeit currently only via the NBP website - this is the softest of soft launches) Is Magnus Archives-esque short fiction your thing? If so - THE NINE O'CLOCK HORSES might be the weekend read for you... tinyurl.com/4z45pbb9 (Tell your friends!)

A new post on Refusing GenAI in Writing Studies from @jsanofranchini.bsky.social, @rcmeg.bsky.social, and me: "A Year of Refusal" refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/a...

"Everyone should have the right to refuse to engage with technologies that harm them, their students, and the planet."

Spread the disease this holiday season... THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: NEW TALES OF STEPHEN KING'S THE STAND A New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post Bestseller Hardcover, audiobook, and eBook amzn.to/4oJdpvF

Great accompanying Blood In The Machine post/article here "AI" hasn't taken anyone's jobs, because LLM extruders aren't actually viable substitutes for human labour But they're an excellent justification for the sort of job cuts that keep shareholders (short term) happy & the hype bubble afloat

The Nine O'Clock Horses & Other Stories - coming soon Want an ARC for review? Give me a shout

If anyone can today please can you share as there’s only 10 hours left. Even if we don’t hit our goal we can use the final outcome to prove to potential sponsors the support we have for the show.

Everything is shit but young people discovering and falling in love with Discworld still brings me tremendous joy Yes, youth of today: Nanny Ogg IS awesome

"You can't un-invent AI!" We can't un-invent asbestos either. That doesn't mean we have to use it.

I'd rather eat my own feet Wasn't Wired doing proper journalism a minute or so back, instead of whatever this is?

Agreed. It's often said that one becomes more right wing with age. I seem to have run that tape backwards. The longer I live, the more cruelty, bigotry, & injustice I see; and the more pissed off I become.

And today it's the turn of The Times to try and patronise us all. Every single day the right wing establishment tries to close ranks. And every day we are growing. Join.greenparty.org.uk

What's the name of that cognitive bias that makes you look at the way [x], [y] and [z] demographics are treated by governments and institutional apparatus and think: nah, never going to happen to me? Asking for a country

I did my PhD at Notts with Mike, in the American Studies dept (despite writing on British media/politics) - in what was the most incredibly supportive & intellectually challenging environment imaginable The destruction of UK HE is a loss for everyone. Sign the petition & help mitigate the damage

Not to brag, but the Carry On Cinematic Universe had a brief cameo in one of my shorts only this year... (Mandragora, in the Good For Her antho) The Carry On *Extended* Universe is only logical next destination

Convincing you to read my novel with the first sentence: Here's Hummingbird www.amazon.com/Hummingbird-... QT and share yours if you fancy it!

Because THE DEAD MAN is out in exactly one week, let's go for the first sentence of that. Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want! books2read.com/thedeadman

If you're dreaming of a weird ecohorror Christmas*, preorder The Writhing, Verdant End, which comes out next month. Featuring horrific animal amalgams, plant apocalypses, and extinct birds born again! *Does not contain actual Christmas stories www.cursedmorselspress.com/product/the-...

Listened to Cat Burns' How To Be Human on my run this morning, and nearly burst into tears I cannot tell you what a record like this, and an artist like her, would've meant to me as a weird, queer, autistic-but-didn't-know-it teenager/young adult (As it was, I just had Gene's Olympian on repeat)

I'd agree with this. I've spent a long time defending the existence of the BBC, because I genuinely believe in PSB. But I'm no longer convinced at all that BBC News, or the BBC as a whole, is performing any sort of public service (1/2)

The BBC withdrew from the Stonewall workplace scheme in 2021. Absolute lies

Moving house is horribly stressful - but there's no better person to do it with than @shaunamceleney.bsky.social (who has gone above & beyond the last week, & deserves a very large gin) Happy to report: keys are returned, I have a bellyful of paneer roti... & hope to never meet another estate agent

In which Womble gives my story a specific call-out and blows my mind

I honestly don’t get the value of this company. They hoover up energy and water. Their product constantly gets things wrong and, in extreme cases, coaches people into suicide. And it’s all built on what seems to be malicious and vast intellectual property theft. What does OpenAI offer the world?

I'm not sure why anyone who actually knows how LLMs work would use ChatGPT - or any stochastic parrot If I wanted plausible-seeming bullshit whispered at me in a sycophantic way, I'm confident I could find it without stealing anyone's work or poisoning their water supply

"I don't normally share AI things..." So fucking DON'T. Stop normalising the theft and bullshit machine.

Freyja Stokes goes deep into the historical connections between European witchcraft and sex work, and draws out how #Pratchett uses these in the person of Mrs Palm. It's got history AND sexy puns... This one's very reasonably-priced - it's free! Read it now: www.speculativeinsight.com

One encouraging parallel to our “second Gilded Age” is that the first one ended partly because the corporations controlling critical infrastructure overextended themselves, investing heavily in technology they were certain would produce future profits, and then collapsed and enraged everyone

I love how, in a 20 year timeframe, we've "transitioned to a knowledge economy" - but somehow also unilaterally decided that knowing stuff is so fundamentally worthless, it can be outsourced to a Magic 8 Ball stuffed with pages from a thesaurus by a handful of sociopaths six thousand miles away

Good morning! AI is being force-fed to you by a handful of billionaires who will lose a bunch of money if they fail to convince you that you need it. You do not need it 🫶

I know I keep saying this, but I'm SO EXCITED about this course... I've been doing (and teaching) semiotic analysis for a living for the last 15 years - so to finally be able to apply it in a fiction writing context is sort of a dream come true...

Thanks, Gabino! My coming-of-age folk horror, The Haunting of Wounded Birds, releases in 5 days! If you love dark forests, black birds, old rituals, and haunted boys, this one's for you. mybook.to/woundedbirds (I only need one more preorder to get me to my goal)

I'm sure there must be bigger red flags than this, and lord knows it's been a while since I dipped a toe in the M/F dating pool. But to the man-loving ladies out there, I say: If your Tinder match describes himself as an "Evolutionary Psychologist," upper case or otherwise... Run.

Spookiness aplenty for the season, with my four-week look at WRITING GHOST STORIES kicking off on the 18th November! And we're online, so you can haunt us from anywhere in the world... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-gh... #ghoststory #ghoststories #course #courses #writingcourse #writingcourses

The fact that 30% of our stock market is wrapped up in “help-kids-kill-themselves” technology seems to be an important datapoint in the evolution of late stage capitalism.

It's been one month since A GAME IN YELLOW released! 💛 But this year also marks 130 years of THE KING IN YELLOW. There have been many stories inspired by it, and it was a pleasure of many kinds to play with this wonderful cursed book myself. May we be telling stories of Carcosa for 130 years more.

Semiotics For Storytelling course tickets are now LIVE!! ⬇️

Every billionaire is a failure of our ability to function as a society Every *millionaire* is a question mark at this point If you have more money than you and your family need to live and thrive, and you hoard it like a fairytale dragon instead of using it helpfully - YOU are a failure

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

BlueSky is automatically hiding posts with cuss words in them. You may want to adjust your settings:

I don't even know what to say, except possibly: fuck this Worth adjusting your settings

Is it in the room with us now?

Learn about semiotics and storytelling from the author of Tradwife! This is such a great concept, love it. Semiotics is a brilliant tool for understanding how culture is changing. It makes so much sense to apply it to storytelling, to keep the writing culturally relevant & exciting! 🏳️‍🌈💙 #writingsky

Very excited about this... Want to learn more about semiotic analysis and cultural research - and how to apply them to your writing projects and practice? Come join me and @alexdavis1981.bsky.social, and we can make it so!

The commodification and plunder of our actual memories, our sensations, and our stories, didn’t feel like it was happening, I don’t think I even noticed a generous human impulse tipping into content farming. Of course, I’m doing it now. But you need to reset sometimes. And just notice the colours.

For now. He might need a little more later, just in case