Be so embarrassingly human.

www.instagram.com/reel/DWXLqNO... Here is a great video about the idea of "cringe" and how it will kill the voice acting industry. Not only that, the idea that expression itself is out of style will lead to AI taking over other art forms. Be expressive. Show emotion. "It IS that deep."

“Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know. The page, the page, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly; which you cover woodenly, ruining it; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut: that page will teach you to write.” —Annie Dillard

Meg Ryan in Joe Vs. the Volcano. 🥰

My mother read my new novel in a day and a half! 😂 Man, retirement seems cool.

Wanda Jackson - Funnel of Love 33rpm [USA, Surf/Pop] (1961) https://redd.it/2ppqzm https://youtu.be/Ojb7xSW610Y

what people are doing with AI and calling writing is not writing. you should call it something else. it is meaningless. it is crap. if you can’t point to a sentence, a phrase, a word, and tell me what piece of your “one wild and precious life” it came from, i don’t want it

writing is boring and frustrating and painful and ridiculous and confusing and embarrassing and there is nothing on this earth i want more. i’m always trying to make more time for writing, i always want more time to write because i know how much time it takes

time is an essential ingredient for writing. you have to spend time struggling to find original language, to think in original ways. and you have to waste time. and you have to grow older. and you have to unlearn things. and you have to sit with yourself again and again and again

if you’re trying to “save time” as a writer by using AI, i suggest you find another profession. it takes time to write well, time to write exciting books. it takes time to write one good poem. i’ve spent years on a single poem. the time spent learning one’s craft is everything

My only secret is that I have to watch Miss Congeniality every time it's on. Now you know everything.

Excited to announce that none other than @wilwheaton.net is going to lead a cast of voices in the audiobook of THE SHIP OF DEATH! Grateful for his talent and vocal cords. Thank you, sir!

Please don't let me spend three years working on the wrong novel before starting the right one. Not doing that again!

@tommydeanwriter.bsky.social posted a helpful reel on insta about avoiding cliched micro expressions (clenched jaw, fingernails on palm, etc), and genre writers rushed to his comments, some suggesting that these things don't matter to readers, and are useful in their genre. (1)

Writing a novel is like building a house: you have to start with the foundations. Well maybe the plans first. Those come after you get the permits, but I’m not counting that. Location location location. Where was I going with this.

Joseph Lezza stuns in shameless promotion of his next book.

I just spent too much money at the Criterion Sale.

The Dry Season by Melissa Febos is so fantastic. Wow. Have you read it? Also, the part where she reads Bestiary by Donika Kelly for the first time was like when someone starts talking about music that changed your life. I started talking to the book, because I always want to talk about Bestiary. 😆

This website is so weird.

You know when something good is happening to your friend and you love them and their work so much it feels like the good thing is happening to you? That. bookshop.org/p/books/the-... @bleakhousing.bsky.social

I heard a new term on NPR today: “over-documented.” As in the way the Iranian state has shared *too many* photos of its residents killed by US and Israeli bombs. I kept wanting to ask the writer who coined this term what the right number would be

The Thorn Birds! I was way too young, and I loved it and cried my eyes out several times. 😆

I have seen the future and it is hopelessly banal.

Welp, here we go. Been expecting this to happen soon.

I’ll read my friends’ books because they’re sexy. Otherwise, the best books can be found by simply walking amongst the shelves and picking out something that grabs you, regardless of the accolades.

I think a lot of folks get mad at books they don't like because they actually haven't had a hand in deciding what to read. They read what they're told to read by book tok or whatever books are getting attention and press due to a nice marketing budget. So they believe these books should please them

I get so many Amtrak emails since my AWP trip. "Buckle up and let us take you for a ride!" "Don't know how to get there, we'll rail you so hard to your destination!" OK, guys. Ok.

"It is with sadness we communicate the passing of the psychic who died in Christ yesterday..." Folks, we've got something SO special for you this week! Ryan Habermeyer's Necronautical Field Guide to Utah offers three incredible, wonderfully weird obituaries. Do not miss these fantastic pieces!

I'm really glad I'm not a person who cares so much about a celebrity that I argue with people online and it ruins my day.

My friend reminded me my book came out 3 years ago today. Time really flew by! 😬

After all these years it's still impossible for me to understand why anyone would care who another adult stranger married, what they looked like, or in what ways they altered/cared for their body. I don't think I'll ever get it, much less why we decided to burn this nation to the ground over it.

@kirstengillibrand.bsky.social you're a disappointment to the New Yorkers who voted for you.

I must convince myself that writing is not, for a man of my disposition, a self-destructive vocation. I hope and think it is not, but I am not genuinely sure. - John Cheever, notebooks from 1968

Suspended in Gaffa! (Tied with Love & Anger).

This book is FANTASTIC! PREORDER IT!

I would watch a reality show in which Darryl Hannah hunted Ryan Murphy for sport.

The Birdcage opened thirty years ago today, so in its honor, I want to share one of my favorite stories about Mike Nichols that didn't make it into my biography. This is from an interview I did with Nathan Lane.

Why do I always end up sitting by the person on the train that talks on the phone the entire time?

I'm glad my forehead muscles work.

This book is out now, so you have no excuse! Calls to mind Lynch, Joy Williams, Kafka, Shirley Jackson, the queer, the surreal, van den Berg! It is also very very sexy! And the writing is SO GOOD.

I'll be at AWP Fri afternoon to Sunday, and will be reading on Friday evening with all these fab @hexliterary.bsky.social peoples!! Come say hi! Saturday I'll prob just be hanging out at the bookfair with @josephlezza.com all day!

My "favorite" genre of gay Instagram is when the hottest man you've ever seen is like "My ex said I'm ugly and my muscles are too big. Do you think he's right?" And then all the average mortals in the comments are so earnestly like "No, baby! You are so hot!!"

To read!!

Smiling because I'm with @cayetanov.bsky.social.

still can't get over how one of the neatest tricks of writing is writing the wrong thing and thinking "this is wrong" and fixing it to the right thing, but never really being able to write the "right" thing first

If your profile pic is an AI portrait, I can't trust you're a real person. I block you.

26 years ago, when my parents moved to upstate NY, they began to receive mail for a woman with my mother's name (first and last.) My mother has an unusual first name. Today, my mother's physical therapist introduced her to this doppelgänger, who happened to be at an appointment at the same time.

Um. What?

Want to send us your FLASH/MICRO fiction? Here's what we like: ✨ Interesting, literary narratives with a modern, pop culture appeal. ✨ Voice-driven prose. ✨ Double-spacing with serif fonts. Browsing our archives is the best way to see if we're a good fit! buff.ly/HZLDfm0

Jesus, get off that cross and go to work!