Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work. Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/

I'll be at the Folkestone Book Festival next week talking about Fall of Civilizations, my book and why societies rise and fall. Come and join me! www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/whats-on/pau...

did not expect the site of Thomas Beckett’s murder to be memorialized in a fashion that is quite so fucking metal

This article by @lukeplunkett.com is really interesting on AI: aftermath.site/ai-video-gam... He's writing about video game development, but this quote rung true for all arts:

Oof. She’s not wrong. There’s a big gulf between how culture is seen and experienced in the UK and Ireland, I’ve noticed.

Notice that @aptshadow.bsky.social ’s Children of Time is 99p on kindle in the UK. If you have any interest in SF and haven’t read it, this is a no-brainer.

Peter Cushing’s long friendship with Christopher Lee began on The Curse Of Frankenstein when Lee stormed into Cushing’s dressing room saying ‘I haven’t got any lines!’ & Cushing replied ‘You’re lucky. I’ve read the script.’

A 34-year-old as a politician: My god he's like a baby. It's like they just elected an infant to be their mayor. A 34-year-old as an athlete: You have to admire the bravery of him attempting that dunk, knowing full well the grim reaper is right behind him.

What an absolute hero Samir Zitouni is - doubtless he saved lives that day www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Haunting of Hill House is incredible TV, and it really does understand the true meaning of horror...

Pretty extraordinary story here www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc....

One of the all time greats in terms of game storytelling, play it if you haven't already.

this is how writers come up with character development, by the way

This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.

I spend a year plotting a mystery novel and then this happens.

Writing in this position is difficult, but not impossible, and worth it for the snuggles...

My hot take is that none of these are structure. These are all recipes that describe structure. Structure is the Salt, Fat, Acid Heat of writing. 3-Act/Hero's Journey etc are recipes. You can make great meals without using a recipe if you understand the principles of structure.

It really is superb, do watch it if you haven't already.

Lovely thread, this.

Anyway. Guess the moral here (like in the original post) is that WHATEVER you love a creator for from their work output, do tell them if you get a chance. It's not always the big stuff they loved the most. And there's no high like being told something you loved making was loved by someone else.

Flirt with someone today, do it for Jilly Cooper x

Never seen Avatar or Avengers:Endgame, and never read Harry Potter (despite being just about the perfect age to read it).

The most common error I see as a book editor is incorrectly punctuated dialogue. NO: “Nice to meet you.” She said. YES: “Nice to meet you,” she said. NO: “Likewise.” The editor said. YES: “Likewise,” the editor said. NO: She smiled, “Hi." YES: She smiled. “Hi.” Repost to save a life 😂 #writesky

There is a joke told in Turkey. A prisoner goes to the prison library to ask for a particular book. The librarian says, "We don't have the book -- but we have its author."

Got to be Zelda, I think it's the only franchise that's got a really consistent throughline from childhood to adulthood for me. Obsessed with the NES version as a kid, Ocarina of Time still one of the best game experiences I've ever had, and Breath of the Wild got me back into gaming.

Watched One Battle After Another last night - my first thought on coming out of the cinema was that it was a little over-hyped, and I think that's probably still the case, but I like it more and more every time I think about it, it's growing on me. Well worth a watch.

ICYMI on Tuesday, here's my *new* and *free* short-form summary of what's gone wrong in our universities. This is something of a last word really, because unless the Budget and White Paper do something really radical, the fate of much HE is already sealed. politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/where-n...

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

'Smile of the Wolf' is on a nice Kindle deal at the moment, at £2.99. Set in 10th century Iceland, it's my frozen western of a novel – a frontier culture of harsh landscapes, bloodfeuds, and revenge, but also of incredibly powerful and passionate friendships. www.amazon.co.uk/Smile-Wolf-T...

I remain obsessed by how much this publicity photo from Spaced looks like every British Xennial's First Houseshare Photo. The poses! The sofa! THE LITTLE BAMBOO TABLE FOR THE LANDLINE WITH SPACE BENEATH FOR THE YELLOW PAGES.

This is so wholesome I don’t know what to do with my face.

Walled gardens, Spitfire flybys, horses.

Super excited for SFSF! if you're Sheffield-adjacent this Saturday, come along and see us natter on about books and nerdy things!

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton." Happy Hobbit Day, and happy birthday Bilbo and Frodo! #LOTR

You guys, so many Romance girlies are reading "On Tyranny" that they've broken the Goodreads recommendations algorithm. 10/10; no notes. #romancelandia

Right. My students working two part time jobs and/or having an hour and a half commute to uni because they have to live at home due to the cost of student accommodation lack drive and vigour. Sure thing, Peter. The UK Govt still haven't a clue about the realities of universities today.

Lovely Q&A and reading with the wonderful @anniegarthwaite.bsky.social. Also, I really like this picture, I'm doing a passable impression of an actual grown up.

Ursula K. Le Guin writing "Expand this, describe undertomb more, + labyrinth" to herself in the first draft of The Tombs of Atuan is extremely relatable and really quite magical to see, in a way (I'm in the archive today and it's just as full of wonders as you might think)

Incredible email sign off from my dad. 10/10, no notes.

Here's a good Soviet joke from tehgraun that I hadn't seen before. www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

'Write the book you have secretly been training for your whole life' is how I (perhaps unhelpfully) think about it. Often you end up doing this accidentally, especially in Fantasy - you think you're writing about something very wild & distant & it turns out to be pulled directly from your daily life

Me, responding to basically every piece of news in 2025: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvNA...

ChatGPT was only pretending to write a book? Wow, it really is human.

With alt:

It's a rough time for artists, writers and other creators. If you have the means to do so, consider helping out a creator this weekend. Possibly sign up for their Patreon, or buy a commission, or buy their book. If not, maybe just help spread the word about one of their works. Everything helps.

Love reading about writers complaining about writing, and Dylan Thomas does it particularly well here...

real exercise in both misleading headlining and 'nobody bothered to read the article' here she used chatgpt to generate the responses for the part of the novel *where a character talks to chatgpt.*