I didn't think that going out in the morning to discover something has eaten the stems off my columbine plants would send me into a spiral of despair, but I am already hanging on by a thread, and my garden is one nice thing to look forward to. *I don't want advice. I do everything I can already.

I'm sorry for anyone asking how I am lately, because I'm being honest.

Reworking my "AI is awesome and you should unquestionably embrace it" graduation speech after some feedback

I wanted to live in the When I Think of You video when I was a kid. Happy birthday, Janet.

Just booked a small cabin in NE NY, near the Vermont boarder. I need to get away and make friends with writing again.

Saw an AI bro refer to "brain-only writers" lol

Some news! UNCLE TIME, my new chapbook of prose poems, is out this fall with @gasherpress.bsky.social pre-order: www.gasherpress.com/product-page...

William Carlos Williams (2026)

this graduation speech moment is notable, and her amazed shock at having failed to read the room feels instructive. when you're inside the bubble, you think everybody else is. but everybody isn't.

Sally Field's memoir, In Pieces, is really fantastic.

Richard I’ve asked you once already please stop calling me AI slop in my comments 😭

There are AI sexy model dudes on Insta that are so obviously AI and NO ONE IN THE COMMENTS knows. I'm the one asshole in there calling them AI SLOP, like a rat on a sinking ship.

I want a retelling of the Odyssey where Odysseus gets back to Ithaca but it's modern day Ithaca, New York

My favorite thing about those annoying scam emails for authors is when they tell you about your own book, breaking down the themes, an amalgamation of everything anyone's ever said about it. It cracks me up.

Watching Angels in America right now is ... an intense experience. It always is, but wow, it sure is pointy at this moment.

I'm sad to see @storymag.bsky.social going in hiatus. They published amazing work, and i hope they'll be back someday. I will always remember Michael Nye calling me on the phone to say he wanted to publish my story, The Green Coat. Such a lovely and old fashioned gesture. 🥰

Montreal is only a 4 hour drive from me and I want to go. Have you gone? Where should I stay? I'm thinking like a 3 day visit.

Literally, where did all my socks go? There's been some supernatural event and I have one sock from every pair I own. Who is fucking with me?

"Bluesky will never be Twitter." Then how come I look at it every morning and it makes me sad, hmm? Explain that.

www.eventbrite.com/e/emma-cople... MAY 16TH AT KINDERHOOK BOOKS. I'll be chatting with Emma Copley Eisenberg about her new collection FAT SWIM, which came out yesterday!

Today's bonkers thing i saw on Threads: "Queer male writers can't write emotionally compelling characters." 😂 That place is actually delightful in its absurdity.

and if you gaze long into your unfinished novel, your unfinished novel will also gaze into you

www.eventbrite.com/e/emma-cople... MAY 16TH AT KINDERHOOK BOOKS. I'll be chatting with Emma Copley Eisenberg about her new collection FAT SWIM, which came out yesterday!

this beautiful gay planet deserves so much better than billionaires and chatgpt and landlords and cybertrucks and US presidents and coward universities and therapy speak and biopics

Yet again I have left my earbuds at home. 😭

Have you read Whidbey by T Kira Madden? Because WOW.

When people tell you using a certain technology is inevitable (in your personal life), just think of Joy Williams and her typewriter.

Writing a book is extremely fun. It's an extreme way to have fun

I want to do things myself. I WANT to get stuck, struggle through creation. I want to owe people emails. I want to figure shit out myself. I want my life to be FULL!

not a novel not a short story but a secret third thing (a super satisfying novella)

"fuuuuuuuck 🫦" >Do you want Copilot to summarize this for you? Copilot:

No, I actually don't need AI to summarize a paragraph... learn to read??

Vacuum while the baby vacuums! Promote your book while the baby promotes his book!

I wrote about how AI in book publishing is a labor issue. "AI paranoia is a symptom of a larger problem: a corporate culture that values quantity over quality, quick output over the very human labor of poring over a manuscript & making sure that each & every word sings." lithub.com/its-getting-...

Oh, what did i do to suddenly acquire this dad bod, you ask? Why, nothing! Have not changed my habits at all. I simply entered my mid 40s. And you can, too!

My baseline is gassy, at this point.

Evergreen

"Studies show that overreliance on these digital tools causes cognitive decline, but if current events are any indication, nobody’s making much of a contribution anyway. Go ahead and use A.I. however you like." This is so great.

I finally had to force myself to write last night. I don't like to force it, but I'm glad I did. I wrote only a little, but I'm INTERESTED in what I wrote.

Pray for me. I'm planning a 50th anniversary party with my Italian American relatives.

Dream-pop at its most divine: Cocteau Twins’ 20 greatest songs – ranked!

I have a book recommendation for emerging authors:

FYI if you use AI to write emails to authors, they'll be indistinguishable from the slop scams we're all getting on a daily basis (and just in general... if you use AI to write me an email I will treat it as I treat all AI—feel a moment of contempt and then ignore it)

"My mom sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on toast when I was sick like all good mothers of the 1970s, but my child turned eighteen and I still haven’t made him the toast." EIC @maureenlangloss.bsky.social has 3 micros in the latest issue of RUBY 🥳 Check them out here: buff.ly/ii3cgxU

"A girl and her brother are on vacation in the mountains." Such a thrill, this week, to have two new fairy tales by @noramaynard.bsky.social up on hex! Dreamy and dreadful, these pieces feel like contemporary cautionary tales unperturbed by clean, wrapped up endings. Don't miss this fantastic pair!

I’m excited to have a pair of v. short fairy tales out today! Thank you, @hexliterary.bsky.social, for giving them such a marvelous home! And big thanks to @rpmirabella.bsky.social’s brilliant workshop at @writingco-lab.bsky.social, where the first tale got its start

People who actually write know that writing is inseparable from thinking. AI doesn’t think so its output isn’t writing… AI generates content that *sounds like writing* and sadly most people don’t know the difference 😑

I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.

Who says I MUST accept anyfuckingthing!? We don't have to use a tool we don't want to use. For fuck's sake!!

AI can’t write a novel because it doesn’t want revenge