I thought @johnchrostek.com’s Boxcutters was weird and really funny, but I hadn’t thought much about it since launch. Sorry, John. Then I’m listening to @somanydamnbooks.bsky.social, nearly caught up, and there’s @drewsof.bsky.social recommending it and reminding me how good it really was. Read it.

My newsletter subscribers got the first look yesterday, but now I can finally share the cover for The Mess That Made Them more widely. Concept by Elizabeth Pozzi, designed by Jen Huppert. Preorders are live: www.ryantpozzi.com/tmtmt #skywriters #booksky

My newsletter subscribers got the first look yesterday, but now I can finally share the cover for The Mess That Made Them more widely. Concept by Elizabeth Pozzi, designed by Jen Huppert. Preorders are live: www.ryantpozzi.com/tmtmt #skywriters #booksky

Stop by today and wish my wife, Elizabeth, well as she celebrates one year of her web comic, @a-lone-ghost.bsky.social!

My debut, The Mess That Made Them, is now available for preorder. It’s a narrative biography collection that pushes back against the myth of genius and makes the case for creative persistence instead. Preorder here: www.ryantpozzi.com/tmtmt

I'm not saying you HAVE to care, but if you want to keep up on the books I'm reading lately that I've absolutely LOVED I keep a list on my Bookshop.org page. bookshop.org/shop/ryantpo...

Coming up soon on Life on the Midlist: creative citizenship, marketing overload, sales tracking, and the cost of attention. In other words, the weird mix of art, labor, ego, math, and endurance that apparently counts as an author career. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

Lately Life on the Midlist is less “here's a tidy essay I drafted in advance,” and more “holy hell, everything's happening at once and I did at least half of it wrong.” Not many places in the publishing industry to get that. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist #skywriters #writingcommunity

This was a tough read for me. Some pretty intense moments for my injustice sensitivity along the way. Uneven characters, but the more developed ones were sublime. Longer than I usually like at around 400 pages, the fact that it still only took me three days says more than any review could. #booksky

Life on the Midlist readers are getting something first on Tuesday: my cover reveal, preorder link, and preorder incentive information before I post them anywhere else. Get lucky, like them: www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist #booksky

It's been a long time - ten years at least - but some days, for no reason at all, I really feel like having a smoke.

Her: The results of my poll are in. We’re going into the fairy ring. Me: I would’ve voted no. I’ve read about faeries. Horrifying. Her: What if they give you free fairy food and free fairy healthcare? Me: I don’t want faerie food. Faeries eat people. Her: Says who? Men? Sounds like propaganda to me.

Seriously, the number of things, even as an obsessive researcher, that I've learned accidentally about publishing is bonkers. I've gotten career changing insights as passing comments tacked onto the end of an email or addressed briefly as though it's barely worth mentioning. 😳 #skywriters

Apropos of nothing: I'm pretty basic. Put some hand claps on the backing track of that song and I'm like 75 times more likely to fall in love with it.

Welcome back, insomnia. I should use this time for good, but instead I'm watching Damian Lewis shows and eating stale tortilla chips. Follow me for more life hacks.

My first foray into Aimee Bender's work. I went with the audiobook for this pleasingly weird story. The last third was when it really blossoms. I would have liked an earlier turn. Beautiful at the line level. My favorite part about the audiobook is that Bender has the perfect voice to embody Rose.

I can't really imagine any US President taking to social media explicitly to call the country stupid and still having the support of 36% of its citizens, but here we are.

First two endorsements are back. Both are very positive. Neither was a product of blackmail or coersion. Maybe there's hope for this book after all!

A special holiday tag line for my BTS publishing newsletter. Life on the Midlist: publishing facts that sound like April Fools jokes but aren’t. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

Having heard Marie-Helene Bertino rave about it, I finally read The Little Prince. It’s a tender, strange tale about loneliness and love that reads like a speculative fable. I don't expect to have the same deep relationship with it as MHB, but it was well worth the (very short) read. #booksky

Today I'm overhauling my website. Do I look as excited as I feel? 😑

Fun and enlightening read mostly about how language functions as the most important element of recruiting and control for cults and cult-adjacent groups. Worth a read, I think. #booksky

Even if this sort of book isn't your jam, I think everybody should read Chapter 13: Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. Sometimes I read it to help with panic attacks. That's not what it's for exactly, but it works. #booksky

An important reminder from your resident persistence spokesman.

Do you love watching me make terrible decisions? I've got one for you on Tuesday. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

I can't quantify how much of this was actually new information, but if you're writing nonfiction it's useful. At a minimum, I was reminded about a number of best practices for working with the team at my publisher - some of which I wasn't currently doing. That alone is worth reading 300 pages.

I'm not anybody's favorite author, but I AM lots of people's "that guy should really go back to therapy" author.

Too good not to share.

Oh man. Maggie Nelson is such a badass. Bluets is full of humanity, vulnerability, and yes, some real sentiment, but it never feels indulgent. It’s emotionally open while still feeling precise. I wish I'd written it. Hell, I wish I was capable of writing it. A fully satisfying reading experience.

Vague publishing post: I recently shared very inconvenient news with my editor and the production dept. The complete silence from the team is the scariest thing I've experienced in trade publishing so far. (It's probably fine. I'm sure they went: Ah, f%@^ and then started talking about what to do.)

With all respect to @aliahanna.bsky.social, whose book Take It From Me I'm currently reading to see if I've been building my career correctly, I love writing book proposals. To be fair to her estimation of enjoyment, I also love writing business plans so I assume I'm an outlier in the data set.

Sometimes I see those posts/memes that say some version of: WTF? Don't post that. Go the therapy, or at least get a group chat. And I think, oh yeah, that one's definitely for me. #writingcommunity #skywriters

It occurs to me that now (upon receiving the revised proof copy, about two weeks before it goes to the printer, after about spending eighteen months with it) is a terrible time to decide I don't want to publish this book after all. 🤷‍♂️

(This is what I meant) #skywriters www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

I finished my 28th book of 2026 this morning. I don't say that to highlight some competitive goal, but to acknowledge that in 82 days I've surpassed my entire 2025 reading total. That's how you can tell that last year I was writing a book and this year I'm AVOIDING writing a book. #skywriters

The full cast audiobook was great fun. Of course, there's also this abomination: "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination.”

With endorsements for my debut not back for a few more weeks, I've become irrationally apprehensive. After all, this is the first time they've read the book and all commitments of this kind are conditional. What if this is when we learn the work is amatuerish and clumsy? How terrible would that be?

Labor organizing works, even in publishing. Dig that.

This one found some acclaim in 2025 and when I started it I was pretty excited because it's an interesting mix of fiction and nonfiction writing. I gave it a real shot, but by not quite 100 pages in I started to feel like I'd seen the move and the narrative propulsion was breaking down for me. DNF

Least surprising surprise ever: I spent several days away from social media this week and got much more writing done.

Big Bird and Mr. Rogers share a birthday today. When today does what days do lately, just think, "Happy birthday, guys!" I'll bet it helps a little.

What do you think of my new LotM tagline candidates? 🙂 www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist Life on the Midlist... All this and no dental. Welcome to the almost. Like making it, if making it sucked more. Where your publisher believes in you just enough. Does it count as group sex if we're all getting f**ked?

Why was this book so compelliing? Maybe it was Maralyn's likeability that got me rooting for them. Definitely in my top however-many books from 2024. Don't skip the Epilogue. Love knowing that Elmhirst happened upon their story while researching for an article about people living on boats. #booksky

No shade if this is your genre, but when I see people writing self-help, I always think, "So you cracked the code, huh? The rest of us are barely hanging on, but YOU are here to save us?" Ironically, my debut got assigned the categories Inspirational & Moving Stories & Mental and Emotional Health.

H. P. Lovecraft died of cancer on this day in 1937. His fiction is inseparable from his personal prejudices. Some modern authors attempt to subvert his xenophobic themes, turning the fear of ‘the other’ into narratives of resistance. Try Victor LaValle, Ruthanna Emrys, and Kij Johnson for a start.

I WAS following Saeed Jones, for obvious reasons, but now I'm not. *Looks around suspiciously* (Thankfully, I am again.)

This week in Life on the Midlist, we're talking about author platform. Why do "unofficial" industry follower count minimums exist? Does social media really matter? If not, what actually moves the needle? Get on the list to join Tuesday's By Request conversation. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

On This Day in History: March 15, 1969 Anne McCaffrey became the first woman to win a Nebula Award for the best US work of science fiction or fantasy when Dragonrider took Best Novella. Less than a year earlier, Weyr Search had made her the first woman to win a Hugo Award, the international version.

Feeling cute. Might meet some friends on the steps of the Curia later...IDK