as a writer, i find that every book i write teaches me something new. this one taught me that TSA doesn't like it when you bring the CIA Guide to Simple Sabotage in your carry-on as "research material for work"

I could not love @edzitron.com’s latest newsletter edition more. We should shout this from the rooftops. www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge-...

1.) Don’t comply in advance 2.) Support* indie and queer publishing, bookstores, authors, editors, and scholarship 3.) Make your work gayer *With actual money and publicity** ** If you are doing the second on this list already but it’s just white people, you’re doing it wrong.

Anything you rely on AI to do is a skill you’ll lose. There’s a bunch of research on this. Stop using it for “just” anything

The fuck we are. There is literally nothing seductive about AI. We bitch about writing being hard (it IS and SHOULD BE), but there is NOTHING better than when you finally crack it and get the words flowing. AI robs you of that. It robs you of ideating and exploring and learning and CREATING.

Does anyone know of any grants for organizations teaching writing in Michigan? I’m the con chair for Penguicon 2027 and we need money! Last year the writing track was very successful so I’m hoping to leverage that into funding? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder Open Discussion: This book is one of the most visual and descriptive depictions of acts of horror that I have ever read. 10/10. Dialogue and subtext master class. I want sushi 🍣 #SisterMaidenMonster #LucyASnyder #BookSky

My housemate's cat was incensed that we are not my housemate, who was off with her game group.

Shedding time, open up your shell And wave your legs out in the air Shedding time, make a fresh new start A gleaming exoskeleton with shiny hair ....

This poem is by Lucy A. Snyder from her collection Exposed Nerve. It catches the bitterness and frustration of all those times doctors decide nothing is wrong with you when you, the owner of your own body, keep telling them something is fucking wrong with you.

View from my bedroom window this morning ... we don't normally have lakefront property! Or ducks! Ducks are very cool. Our basement is fine.

Less than three weeks until my new novel is due.

SFWA is Chicago-bound shortly! 🥳 We can't wait to celebrate our latest Nebula Awards amid a weekend of Worldbuilding with Grand Master @nkjemisin.bsky.social & a wealth of fellow creators. If you haven't nabbed tickets yet, today by 11:59 PM PDT is your LAST CHANCE! store.sfwa.org/nebula-confe...

The FCC is floating the idea of making shows put up a warning if they include or discuss trans people and trans lives. A short paragraph objecting to this would be helpful! The deadline for comments is May 22: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings...

Made a new friend this afternoon. He or she was very happy on my hand and resisted efforts to be escorted onto a bush. But was finally repatriated to a more camouflage-appropriate perch.

Lord of all he surveys.

Tree frog.

I can't take Columbus*, OH seriously as a city: there's no train service nor an el/subway. The COTA bus system is ridiculous to use. A real city should have robust, usable public transportation. Without that, it's just twenty suburbs stacked up in a trench coat. * Renaming it would be great, too.

Today, I received a newsletter from a publisher I've worked with several times, and they used an image in their email that has all the hallmarks of AI slop. Very disappointing. And unprofessional. I asked them straight up if they used AI to generate it, and haven't gotten a reply.

My decision to not travel by airplane unless it's an absolute emergency is definitely coming to a middle.

I was looking through a gallery of images of Nyarlathotep in the HP Lovecraft Wiki last night for research reasons. Canonically the entity has over 1000 different avatars. And of course many of the images were expected variations of the tentacled monstrosity theme. But ....

No, autocorrect, when I wrote "Nyarlathotep" I did not mean "marathoner". #TheRunnerOfTheDark #TheDreamQuestOfTheUnknownCadence #TheDreamsInTheFirstAidTent

If you like coffee ice cream, Graeter's Marrakesh Coffee flavor is really freaking good.

Jon Oringer, founder and executive chairman of Shutterstock @shutterstock.com, is trying to recruit comic and graphic novel creators over on LinkedIn to a new AI platform that he’s building. Feel free to let him (and them) know what you think of this, and never use Shutterstock again ✌🏻

My new Genre Grapevine covers the partnership between Clarion West @clarionwest.bsky.social and Common AREA Maintenance in Seattle to establish a long-term, affordable space for artist residencies, classes, and other events. Includes interview with @marneechua.bsky.social on what this means for CW.

Baby mourning gecko. As size reference, that "branch" she's on is about 0.25" thick.

I wonder where my gecko went?

Who's at Mo*Con? Is it amazing? Photos, please.

Repost to make it die faster

I'm about a month out from my deadline to deliver the follow-up novel to Sister, Maiden, Monster. Making good progress. Preliminary title (but subject to change): In The Bones of a Sundered World

The LLM struggling to give me reasons why I shouldn't write trans characters said I should follow the example of classical fantasty authors who didn't talk about gender identity and stayed away from politics, like Robert Jordan, JRR Tolkien, and Ursula LeGuin. URSULA LEGUIN. No gender or politics 🤣

The second audiobook in my Jessie Shimmer series releases on June 16h! Audible, Spotify, etc. Narrated by Devon Chandler. Cover art by Dan Dos Santos.

On June 16th, my Spellbent series will finally be available as audiobooks! Look for it on Audible, Spotify, and elsewhere. Narration by Devon Chandler. Cover art by Dan Dos Santos.

PSA: Hachette workers are currently leading the largest unionization campaign in publishing history and they're inviting all of us (readers, publishing professionals, anyone with a full name and an email address) to sign in support 💜 hachetteworkers.com/open-letter/

This Is Just To Say I have turned off the AI features that were in the update and which you were probably hoping to monetize Fuck you they were stupid so unnecessary and so annoying

This is a verified GoFundMe for librarian Luanne James from the Rutherford County Library Alliance. gofund.me/f7704eb98 Read what happened to this hero: www.newschannel5.com/news/rutherf...

Hot take: 99% of university administrators who push AI are grifters and I suspect they'd lose their careers pretty quickly if anyone checked their hard drives.

What a shock that the guy who pushed AI on the staff, faculty, and students of Ohio State University also turned out to be corrupt as hell. What a shock. This is my shocked face.

These scams are not new. A while back, I wrote about discovering letters sent to my grandfather in the 1930s. He was a songwriter and musician and it appears he fell prey to publishing scams back then. 3/ www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2020/5/...

We were recently asked about this old episode, prompting a re-listen. If you haven’t heard ‘Magdala Amygdala’, by Lucy Snyder, you should check it out 🧠 🩸 And a reminder that Patreon supporters can get our back catalogue in their podcatcher to listen to at leisure! pseudopod.org/2013/07/19/p...

Did a big thread about this on Twitter a few years back, about how the Columbine shooters were steeped in nazi rhetoric, including eugenicist beliefs about killing disabled people, and just how much their neo-nazism wasn't just downplayed but omitted. Text from: schoolshooters.info/sites/defaul...

Check out A Shadow Full of Stars: A Mind-Bending Fantasy Novel by Rob Cornell. I was a beta reader for this novel, and I recommend it. It's Lovecraft-adjacent but not horror, and has a bit of a "The Good Place" vibe to it. www.kickstarter.com/projects/rob...

Neil Gaiman popped his head up to claim he's innocent, so I guess we're in for 6 more weeks of winter.

Anyway here is the most successful promo I've ever done for a book. YOU DO NOT NEED AI.

The entire thesis here is "hey, do you realize how many people could choose to not use labor from human beings if they instead used the extruded meat product trained on labor from those same human beings?"

I don't think you could come up with a list more designed to inflame sentiments than "here is a list of things that publishers MUST use AI to do and remain competitive, but don't worry, this isn't pushing out creative labor"

Remember how I said I have it written into my foreign-language contracts that my work has to be translated by an actual human? This shit is why. Those book translations are gonna suck. They'll save money putting out books that are going to be painful to read. That's not a great long-term strategy.

Coming to my shop tomorrow, with luck: two Christmas stories. Mostly a gift for my Patronizers, but I have zero shame and'll take anyone's money.

Serpents-as-evil imagery never really worked for me, but it especially doesn't work now that I've been keeping snakes as pets. It's just ... most of them are the derpiest little noodles, c'mon.

Yoga studio owners are mantrapreneurs