Happy #Caturday! Lockwood may be only a little thing, but he dreams big. (Notice the cardinals in the bush.) #caturday #catsofmastodon

Happy Caturday! Lockwood says I need to go outside and touch some grass, but he'll be happy to keep my chair warm for me. #caturday #catsofmastodon

Happy #Caturday! Lockwood is concerned that the party hasn't started yet. #caturday #catsofmastodon

Is is just me, or am I seeing an awful lot of posts on Mastodon lately that are nothing more than thinly-disguised ads selling products or services?

Happy Caturday! Lockwood, the Demon of Destruction, is delighted to have discovered the bathroom, and sends his regards. #caturday #catsofmastodon

Lockwood says Happy Caturday to those who celebrate! He'd hang around to chat about it, but he hears a can being opened somewhere in the world, and must investigate immediately. #caturday #catsofmastodon

Talk to me about search engines. Google now fills the first dozen results with sponsored links; Bing arbitrarily drops who chunks of the internet from results; Qwant keeps glitching, failing to load or requiring Captcha for even the simplest search; DuckDuckGo has sponsored links creeping into […]

For some reason, the cybersecurity Zoom call failed to engage Lockwood's interest.

Lockwood is catching up on his #caturday Mastodon feed.

I'm curious as to whether officials such as Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller envisage a career for themselves in a post-Trump world. What could that look like? In the bleak, authoritarian world they are working to create, what is their role? Are they staking […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Sen. Chris Murphy said Democrats in the Senate support these five reforms: "The Department of Homeland Security must cooperate with state probes. Customs and Border Protection agents must stay at border. Warrants are required for arrests. Agents must wear IDs and bodycams. ICE gets out of […]

RE: https://wandering.shop/@cstross/115967024834089192 At a time when fascism has infiltrated Western democracies globally. Unlike many other nations, we're not accustomed to needing VPNs to protect our quest for reliable news from our own governments, on penalty of incarceration or […]

Happy #caturday ! Lockwood is taking advantage of the special day to take control of my desk.

Those who do not feel remorse may yet be made to understand regret.

#writerscoffeeclub 1/11: Name a poem (or poet) which has influenced you. George Seferis, "Thrush." The first time I realized that profound silence can be conveyed through words.

I'm having workflow difficulties. #cats #cat #catsofmastodon

The news isn't all bad today. Say hello to my new friend, Lockwood. #cats #catsofmastodon

Since I don't seem to be getting a damned thing done today, here are some images of the space where my (alleged) writing takes place. #writing #books #office #linux

James Talarico (candidate for the Senate) said especially to Gen Z: “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. Your boss cares about politics. Your landlord cares about politics. Your insurance company cares about politics. And until you care about politics […]

Happy Caturday to all who celebrate! I am living catless at the moment; my two elderly cats died over the last four weeks, first one, then the other, so I'm regrouping. Another cat(s) is inevitable, but for now, I'll just enjoy all of yours!

I understand that passive voice has always been overused in news writing, but does it seem to anyone else that the problem is getting worse lately?

I spent a chilly couple of hours last night listening to Barack Obama speak at an event in Bentonville, and I could have cried. Rational ideas! A grasp of history! Humor! Intelligence! Complete sentences! All the things our current President lacks.

I think I missed another memo. Does every fantasy novel now require a title with the format, [blank] of [blank] and [blank]? When did that become a thing? #writing #fantasy #writingcommunity

You'd think we'd get used to these things, but somehow ever time is just as bad as the one before it. https://www.turningupbones.com/2025/11/28/5086/ #cats #catsofmastodon #loss

Yesterday's interview with our local NPR affiliate went well! Authors Madi Love, Gustav Carlson and I all talked to host Pete Hartman about the upcoming Local Author Open House that'll be happening on Dec 6 at the Fayetteville (Arkansas) Public Library. Note […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

@briankrebs Yes, can't think what could go wrong with rush-building a whole bunch of reactors under a relaxed regulatory system to meet demand for AI and then have them just sitting there after the bubble bursts with nobody willing to pay for decommissioning them safely.

I just participated in a brief "community spotlight" segment on our local NPR affiliate, focusing on local authors. It was fun (I can ALWAYS talk, the problem is getting me to stop) but I feel a bit of imposter syndrome: I've never written anything even […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

RE: https://aus.social/@MorpheusB/115612166048419132 That explains a few things.

How the f*ck could any Democrat or Independent in TN-7 not vote in this upcoming special election? Such a golden opportunity to make a statement to MAGA and the rest of America. #tn7 #aftenbehn #democracy #tennessee7

Jumpin' catfish! I'm being interviewed tomorrow on our local PBS station for a bit about local authors. This is great, because I definitely have a face made for radio.

"We do not want to go back to sham health insurance plans and denials. #obamacare isn’t perfect, but it’s better than what we had, and what the GOP proposes": https://contrarian.substack.com/p/we-do-not-want-to-go-back-to-sham?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true. #healthcare […]

My twenty-year-old cat Rusty -- failing kidneys, deaf, skin and bones -- had an incontinent episode this morning. I'm all too aware that this is the beginning of the end for the old girl. I've had two decades to prepare for this, yet ... I'm not prepared for this. It's funny how we can accept […]

I use social media to promote my books, and to tell people about events I'm participating in. I also use social media to express outrage regarding the actions of the petty manbaby occupying the US Presidency at the moment. Sometimes the two things clash, and then I realize that the people who […]

A dozen authors in a single place, for an entire afternoon. What could go wrong? (I actually enjoy these public events -- a pot of coffee and a stack of my novels, and I'm happy for the entire afternoon.)

From time to time, I receive mail addresses to me as "Honorable." This reminds me that I'm an elected official, an alderman of a tiny town in rural Arkansas. This, in turn, makes me wonder what happened to our political system that someone as wildly […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

#writerscoffeeclub 31 Oct 'How did this month go?' Coming into the third week of my first real writer's block. Not fun. On the other hand, I've done four in-person book events, and I'm preparing for two more. I'm even learning PowerPoint (actually, LibreOffice Impress) for a book talk in […]

So far, so good: One week in, husband's conversion from Windows 10 to Linux Mint is going smoothly. Very little bloodshed. Now to wean him off Google and Facebook. Send thoughts and prayers, y'all.

I've had pCloud cloud storage for a couple of years now, and I've been quite happy with it. I only realized TODAY that I can play movies and music from my stored collection without downloading them first, even with my crappy rural dialup internet. Doh! PCloud […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

#writing, #writers #writing, #writingcommunity, As writers, are we failing when we don't address real-world evil directly? Or can we create our own worlds without reference to the insanity around us? I'm a small-town elected official, retired from a career […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I did a thing! Ask for it in your favorite independent bookstore, (or order it online.)

I struggle with a profound and debilitating fear of storms. And here we are in the middle of another round of severe weather. Red patches all over the map. This isn't going to be pleasant.

#writerscoffeeclub 17 May - How do you 'write what you know'? "What we know" is a broader category of experience than we realize. It isn't just the jobs we've had or the relationships we've f*cked up, it's everything we've ever read or heard or seen. Every song, every book, every TV sitcom […]

#writing I'm not sure what it says about writers that writing the worst moments in a character's life is so easy, while the pleasant, quiet times are so challenging to get down on paper in a convincing way.

#writerscoffeeclub 5/13: Does alienation feature in your work? Not by intent, but organically, yes. To be a part of something worth writing about, a character has to stand out in some way, and to be different means being excluded from the great anonymous mass of humanity. This can happen either […]

Something totally non-political for a change. My novel Strange News is available everywhere, as of today! It won't save the world, but I'm proud of myself anyway, dammit.

#writerscoffeeclub Apr 28 International Workers' Memorial Day! How important is class or caste in your writing? In my current work-in-progress, the social and economic gap separating the protagonist from the main love interest is one of the triggering elements that launch the action of the novel.

Is PeerTube intended to be an alternative to YouTube? I keep dipping into it, hoping to find something of interest, but it seems to be dominated by gaming, mediocre comedians, and Jesus. What am I doing wrong?

#writerscoffeeclub 3/30. Do you label your works as LGBTQIA+? Why or why not? I do, but I'm conflicted about it. My protagonists are usually gay men, simply because that's who I am. It's easier for me to write authentically from that viewpoint. At the same time, the sexuality of the characters […]

Done with Chuck Schumer. A policy of craven appeasement is not what we need right now.