Apple is 50 years old tomorrow. Today I have a new piece on Six Colors talking about the time 38 years ago when I first encountered a Mac, and how it changed my life: sixcolors.com/post/2026/03...

We are living in a @greatdismal.bsky.social future, only with more facepalming www.404media.co/an-ai-agent-...

Reposted with ALT cos its funny . How using an algorithim to select photos for your news article is going:

Brilliant animated cover reveal for Can You Solve the Murder? book 2: The Forest of Death! A new case, new setting, and new suspects for YOU to solve! (But don't worry, Sgt McAdam and the other police return 😀) Coming in July – pre-order it now 🔍 @transworldbooks.bsky.social @sarahsuch.bsky.social

A short but comprehensive history of the UK media’s transphobic addition, with @ludovicparsons.bsky.social 

anyway here’s @greatdismal.bsky.social in 2011 in Zero History describing the obsession with tactical clothing as a fetishized pursuit in a way that perfectly nails the combat cosplay of modern day ICE and BPD

Saturday night lazy dinner for one: creamy smoked mackerel pasta with peppers, mushrooms, capers, herbs, and a fistful of garlic 😉😋

Fun fact about the IOC's one time only, all or nothing, SRY gene test 'to identify men'. It's entirely possible to test positive after being pregnant with a boy. Fetal DNA can cross the placental barrier and linger in the maternal bloodstream for decades.

Rewatching I, Claudius, where Caligula decrees that he’s Zeus and his uncle Claudius naïvely thinks his madness will signal the immediate end of his reign. Instead the Senate immediately embraces his claim and Caligula remains in power.

Born 24 March 1935 - Carol Kaye, one of the most prolific bass guitarists, who has played on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years. Kaye was the bassist on many Phil Spector and Brian Wilson productions in the 1960s and 1970s. She is 91 years old today. #CarolKaye

🚨Book deal announcement🚨

Exciting times: proofreading the galleys of Can You Solve the Murder? book 2: The Forest of Death, out this summer… 🔍📖

Lambs! 🐑 (Distant shot because I didn’t want to get too close and spook them)

Get yourself friends who send you a link and say, "Is this one of yours?" 😂🐶🔍 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

I don’t title the chapters in my Dog Sitter Detective books, but when I’m writing the rough draft in Scrivener I do give each chapter document a short heading, to remind me what happens. Made myself laugh with this one, from the fifth book currently in progress…

Another fun Can You Solve the Murder? Live event last night at Waterstones Lincoln with a dedicated group of budding detectives 🔍 One attendee: "If you get a chance to do one of these nights with Antony Johnston, do it!" Couldn't put it better myself 😃

This is absolutely brilliant. Instigated by Gordon Brown, delivered today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The game industry’s obsession with graphics is so funny because every other year there will be some breakout hit called “Stick Figure Mansion” or some shit that outsells 90% of the market and runs on a toaster

see? here's the thing. A lot of people are like, the earth is fucked, it's beyond salvation, it's hit the tipping point, but time and time again we see that if we just fucking fixed the problem, it rebounds so incredibly fast. Imagine what could be done if people actually cared

Lego City now has a Lego Lego van with Lego Lego employees who deliver Lego Lego sets to Lego people. Luckily none of those Lego Lego sets is a Lego Lego Lego van, or the recursion would become infinite and we'd never escape. #Legopolis

This was such good fun!

Had a great time last night hosting Can You Solve the Murder? Live to a packed crowd at @yorklitfest.bsky.social with Fox Lane Books @foxlanebooks.bsky.social. Thanks to everyone who came along! Tomorrow I'm at Waterstones Lincoln to do it all again…

So, BlueSky, one of my passions is the study of tea in WW2. I need you to watch this oral history from three ex-tea ladies from the Bermondsey WVS. Because you could guess for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and you would not guess where it is going... #skystorians #history #tea

Sheep & landscape 🐑🏞️

In this week's newsletter, I tackle the question of how much influence authors have in the art direction of their covers: theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/a-question...

A blast from the past! Cast photo from a play my middle school staged at the Palace Theatre in Redditch. We were… 10, 11 maybe? I honestly didn't think there were any surviving pics of me acting (even though I did plenty of it when I was young) but there you go. (Can't spot me? Second from left 😉)

Great news to end the week. My wonderful agent @sarahsuch.bsky.social has been shortlisted (for the fourth time!) for Literary Agent of the Year in the @thebookseller.com's British Book Awards: www.thebookseller.com/british-book...

TAKEOVER, the movie I co-wrote will be released in theaters on May 8th, 2026! Best described as INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE-meets-THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, Quavo and Billy Zane star in the new feature. #screenwriting #movies #hollywood #migos #blacksky www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dL...

Hit a nice target in time for the weekend: 20k words on the next Dog Sitter Detective 🐶🔍 I’ve no idea how, frankly. I’ve never written a book quite like this one before, and every new chapter is giving me butterflies 😅 But it seems to be working out so far…

Ok, hear me out. If we cover this entire territory in solar panels and windfarms we can generate more power than the entire glibal fossil fuel output, and using that we can mount massive mag-lev boosters to the oil ships and fly them over the blockade. QED.

My horror novel CRAWLSPACE is out from @tornightfire.bsky.social on Tuesday March 17! @marcguggenheim.bsky.social calls it "The best mix of science-fiction and horror since Michael Crichton’s Sphere." Preorder links and an exclusive extract here! us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

#Booksky! Today is RELEASE DAY for BONE & BLOOD! There is a story of a widow & her two daughters, Snow White and Rose Red, the most perfect & darling little girls who had ever lived. This is not—quite—that story. I'm so proud of this one, guys! Please RT! :) www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXFPLQW...

Even for them this is beyond embarrassing. I'm sorry you've never heard of Sugababes, Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Wolf Alice, you fucking weirdos

NEXT WEDNESDAY EVENING I’m hosting another Can You Solve the Murder? Live event, this time at Waterstones Lincoln! Come along and test your wits in an interactive murder mystery, where you play the detective 😀🔍 Tickets and info: tinyurl.com/2f35u3mc

NEXT MONDAY! I’m hosting Can You Solve the Murder? Live as part of York Literature Festival @yorklitfest.bsky.social, 7pm at the Theatre Royal. Join in and find out if you’ve got what it takes to be a detective 😉🔍 Tickets and info: www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/can-you...

Example number 20,000 of austerity actually costing us more money

Even putting other issues aside (which you shouldn't) all these AI-written posts are *too damn long*. I guess by definition the people using it to generate posts instead of actually writing them don't know any better, but damn. If you insist on using AI, tell it to write shorter.

Some weekend reading for you: Alex Dueben interviewed me recently for Crime Reads, talking about the Dog Sitter Detective, Can You Solve the Murder?, and my wide-ranging, idiosyncratic career… crimereads.com/antony-johns...

Some weekend reading for you: Alex Dueben interviewed me recently for Crime Reads, talking about the Dog Sitter Detective, Can You Solve the Murder?, and my wide-ranging, idiosyncratic career… crimereads.com/antony-johns...

Presenting the cover for Omniboz: Tales from the Land of Oz, an anthology edited by @jendiagammon.bsky.social and @erniechiara.com publishing May 15, 2026 for L. Frank Baum’s birthday! Cover art by the amazing Oz writer and illustrator @ericshanower.bsky.social! #books #oz #omniboz #fantasy #horror

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer. 🧵 1/5

Our patron looking for a detective book where the reader has to figure it out may enjoy Can You Solve the Murder? by @antonyjohnston.bsky.social. #AskALibrarian

I can't quite do the #WorldBookDay 📚 meme as I don't have any photos of me as a child with a book! But I can tell you this 7-year-old had already read through most of his school library (and consequently taken by his mom to join the local community library, too. Thanks, mom 😊)

I just typed the sentence "17 years ago I'd already been a full-time writer for 7 years" and now I need to go and lie down

Definitely don’t remember that from the film 😮😂

This bit in the From Russia With Love game made me laugh out loud. You've got a fairly grounded, low key fight based on the one in the movie, then the most video game looking fucker of all time slides into frame.

It’s actually FEWER Misérables

"Can I help ewe?"

The creative industries are one of the UK's biggest and best exports, contributing more than $100 billion to the economy every year. Yet successive governments simply refuse to acknowledge this, as if it's unimportant. And now they want to sell us all down the river.

I'm pleased to announce that @doonpook.bsky.social and I will be debuting our brand new pilot script, NPCs, as a table-read at the Joy Who Lived festival on April 12th! The tavern is for tourists, and the "side quests" are their entire lives. www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticket...