+387 words today

Re Col. Sanders, his all-white suit & bolo tie invoked the idea of affluent antebellum Southern Gentlemen w/ a successful plantation. And just as Ayo notes re watermelon, fried chicken was something free/newly freed African-Americans were successful entrepreneurs at: gastropod.com/poultry-powe...

RIP Baudrillard, you would've loved The Devil Wears Prada 2 hiring a real artist to create an image in the style of AI slop.

If I were writing YA I'm not sure I would want to be published by an imprint that advertised ahead of time that my book was purposefully neutered to appeal to busybodies who would still be likely to find fault at anything that did not exactly conform to their own particular brand of repression

The biggest professional life-hack I've discovered is that networking is just making friends. Find cool people who do cool stuff, tell them they're cool, let other people know. Who cares about if it will one day benefit you. Brag about these awesome people you know! Have conversations with them!

+395 words today

This is (an oversimplified version of) what is known as the McDonnell-Douglas burden shifting test, and it comes from a case called McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973)). Disparate impact has been a vital part of all areas of antidiscrimination law ever since.

This is incredible! People can be wonderful. Children tend to be. And I am glad this captain was, too. (I hate that book.)

The ballroom, the arch… I have a PhD in Egyptology and I know a mortuary temple complex when I see one.

They’re basically admitting that creating nonconsensual deepfakes of women is not an unintended outcome of this technology but rather its main selling point, which some of us recognized all along

read your literary grandparents. whatever writer inspires you and seems like a genius, check out who inspired them. it will confirm what makes them unique but also reveal how traceable their influences are. it teaches you new craft tools and relieves some pressure. no one writes in isolation.*

A mistake that writers are prone to, even massive productions like Hollywood, is Plot Tunnel Vision, they often end up bending and twisting characters into acting in unbelievable ways in order to make them fit the plot. Good writers write a flexible story, that can accommodate their characters. 2/3

If you're not interested in writing it, a reader probably isn't interested in reading it. Gloss over scenes you aren't interested in writing by using a chapter/section break to get past them or a quick paragraph to sum them up. Then give the majority of the words to the stuff you ARE interested in

The smut arc (in a romance with smut) is as important as the romance arc or the character arc or anything else. Each sex scene should build on all that came before & add new dimensions. There’s nothing mindless about smut.

. . . oh.

When I met Gerry Conway, who has recently passed, he gave me the first, best advice I have received about having a creative career: "It doesn't last. You have your moment, and it is beautiful. But it doesn't last. And you have to plan for that. Emotionally and financially."

This is important, not just because it’s sad but true but also the amount of people who feel like they’re failure cause they’re not making a singular living off of their art or writing. When the truth is many successful writers and artist are still working and there’s nothing wrong with that

When people ask, "How can I promote my art when the world is going to shit" I hear that as, "How do I have the right to make art when the world is going to shit" And... We need art more than ever during such times. You need to be making art more than ever during such times.

This is coming from a place of warmth and acceptance… -It’s ‘sleight of hand’ -It’s ‘bated breath’ -It’s ‘lo and behold’ -It’s ‘one fell swoop’ -It’s ‘brass tacks’ -It’s ‘free rein’

the voting rights act actually worked, which is why the conservative legal movement immediately went to work on dismantling it this has been the focus of john roberts' entire legal career

One of the problems with technology today is if you're a millenial/xennial you remember when tech worked.

Can someone in the tech world PLEASE JUST LISTEN TO US and make tech WITHOUT ai. I swear, movies and shows really gave me false expectations for folks with inventing skills who give even one iota of a crap about doing what the people want, let alone doing the right freaking thing.

You know what's crazy to me? In movies, you get villains making things like 'The Big Evil Machine' on Big Evil Island with their manifesto called Big Evil Declarations. And we laugh about how stupid and childish it is ... And now we have real life villains naming their stuff after evil LOTR objects

So very true, so very accurate ^^’ Reminds me of another of your brilliant cartoons :)

"Despite social and legal opposition, at the end of the 19th century the condom was the Western world's most popular birth control method. Two surveys conducted in New York in 1890 and 1900 found that 45% of the women surveyed were using condoms to prevent pregnancy."

Looking for recs for books in the sci-fi horror set on a hostile alien planet variety. MUST have a BIPOC author. For example, This World Is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa. Trad pub preferred, but can be self-pub. I've been searching all morning can't find much of anything.

And at the very end of it all, your character is a beautiful diamond from dealing with all that pressure! ... Unless you're writing tragedy, then you've got a fancy tombstone or something like that.

+287 words today

“throughout history, the majority of threats to servicemember health have come not from the battlefield but from disease and nonbattle injuries” www.usmedicine.com/clinical-top...

Hegseth's repeal of universal flu vaccines is nonsense on so many levels, but his claim vaccine mandates were an "era of betrayal" irked me as a historian. Here's my response, in @thebulwark.com this morning; www.thebulwark.com/p/george-was...

You get an award if you've done this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_...

Important evidence of autism in the ancient world

Today we are THRILLED to announce the full panel schedule for our upcoming virtual conference, Storycrafting Sessions: Disability in Writing, happening on May 30th! Keep reading this thread or head over to weeknightwriters.com/2026/04/18/s... for the full details! 1/?

yeah, this feels really fucking shitty. it feels maybe the shittiest of all when I'm reading fanfiction. these people suck.

There's a reason she's or Queen 😍

+865 words today

Every time I read a piece about somebody with an “ai-assisted editing process” I feel like I’m watching someone trying to intellectualize a deliberate choice not to think or concentrate

It bears repeating that historically, the #1 thing that keeps people alive in hard times and disasters is “the ability to play well with others”

I hiked out to a sinkhole that hosts hundreds of alligators and stumbled across a rather surreal surprise: a grand gathering of #Birds.

For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?

+192 words today

This Hellenistic mosaic glass bowl looks so modern, yet it was made over 2,000 years ago! Ancient glassmakers created the tiny flower pattern using a technique now known as ‘millefiori’ (thousand flowers). A timeless design still made by glassmakers today! British Museum 📷 by me #Archaeology

Gonna spend the next two years spamming every elected Dem about the concept of "damnatio memoriae." Chisel his name off every inscription. Build over the various Trump Towers like they're Nero's Golden House. Remove him from physical memory, not to forget but as a sign of disrespect to the man.

This was a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone who came to see us!

What Autumn said. John Swartzwelder, former Simpsons writer, would say his first draft was intentionally shit with pattern dialogue and uncharacteristic moments, and that let him get into the better part of writing; rewrite mode. www.thewrap.com/simpsons-wri...

Oh this is me every time, what I love to do is write *around* it and then spiral into the thing itself. A monologue by a main character! A passionate speech by a villain! A newspaper article, bitchy online review, fake song lyrics, therapy session -- anything in the WORLD but not the story itself.

I would like one more historical novel to fit with this month's reading: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo China Dolls by Lisa See Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee Any suggestions for other novels set in Chinatown in California in 1930-1959, with some sort of entertainment/movie aspect?

If you've agreed to read a manuscript for the purposes of giving feedback and then feed it through ChatGPT to produce the feedback, you are the devil. Don't do that to your creative friends. It's not only unethical, it would put them in violation of no-AI clauses in contracts (including ours).