If you're living somewhere outside the USA, one thing you can do is pressure your leaders to boycott World Cup and Olympic events here.

Wrote a book? Cool, now write the next one. Out on sub? Write the next one. Won an award? Write the next one. Didn’t even get nominated? Write the next one. Querying agents? Write the next one. Waiting for pub day? Write the next one. Always be writing the next one.

Was able to witness a friend's first Indian cinema / Desi watch experience with Raja Saab in theaters and I can tell they're hooked now. Just 3 hours of pure storytelling bliss. Neither of us could fight the urge to dance during the end credits.

One of my concerns with college Admissions readers judging students' essays in the era of AI is that I don't trust adults to be better readers than teenagers, i.e., to see the ways AI writing can be syntactically pleasing but devoid of signs of deeper thinking.

First year of freelancing, 2023: Had my laptop at the holiday table b/c I had so much work to do. Freelancing, 2024: Understood that late-December work = higher fees, so was still very busy but at least getting fairly compensated. Freelancing, 2025: Scheduled 2 solid weeks off this month. <3

People don't talk enough about how Google's AI overview, in addition to being wrong, is condescending about it. Like I wouldn't work with someone who sent emails in AI overview's constant "gotcha" tone.

Got my first pass pages!!! It’s coming!

There's free shipping today from @bookshop.org so here's a reminder that I have a curated list of my favorite books on writing and publishing that also functions as a great gift guide for the scholarly writer in your life (including yourself) bookshop.org/lists/recomm...

70 years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that one of the main impacts of LLMs is to disrupt thinking: to make it so that far too many people never properly learn how to do it, and then to control the output so there are thoughts that people never learn how to think.

Had a great time last week at at Sui Generis in Madrid. Got to share the stage w/ writers like @gabino.bsky.social & @fondalee.bsky.social, meet w/my Spanish publishers @duermevelaed.bsky.social, speak w/ students at SLU Madrid & wax poetic bout all things fantastic. Also ate my weight in cured ham.

A lot of identifying themes to deepen in your own work is just pattern recognition. If you have a major character who keeps betraying his friends, then you're writing a story (at least in part) about betraying your friends, and the consequences thereof. Whatever keeps happening is a theme.

The way people use the Booker Prize to talk about whether books are for girls or for boys is so embarrassing.

“Librarians are the last punk rockers.” —my colleague in today’s staff meeting

I don't need AI; I need a Microsoft Word that doesn't hide some comments when you switch to "simple markup."

Congratulations to Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, whose book Required Reading has been shortlisted for @thenacbs.bsky.social's Stansky Book Prize! The winner will be announced on Wednesday, November 5th, at the 12:00pm EST virtual awards ceremony. See the full shortlist here: www.nacbs.org/news/stansky...

The Criterion Collection lineup for November hits all my very specific filmic interests, including a restoration of Zora Neale Hurston's fieldwork footage???

Dick Hallorann, my beloved 😭🧡🔮 #WelcomeToDerry

Want to hear a scary story? It’s about an author who didn’t register their copyright and had no recourse when someone infringed on their work!! ☠️

Can you trust the #accuracy of #science #publications? Some now use #AI in #publishing for #editing or #translation. Thus, skilled #science & #medical #editors & #translators are losing #authors & #publishers as clients, who hope to save #money by not #hiring #humans. tinyurl.com/mrxsk36j

Welcome to Derry is so good! I like how the show tricks us by making us assume the new group of kids are a stand in for the losers in the IT movies just to kill most of them off by the end of the episode. It’s clear they’re going in a totally different direction for the show

If they wanted to double their sales overnight? Start providing a zip folder containing blurbs, BISAC, and three to five web-ready images with each title stocked. It would shave hours off our work day, with the immediate effect that we'd prefer them over the rest of our suppliers.

lol, publishers pushing for bookstores to use AI to recommend books 🙄 They'd have to give the AI, like, information about the books, or something. We're what, 40 years into computerized point of sale systems? And they still don't give us even spreadsheets of basic bibliographic data consistently.

Having to use #CMOS 17 when I need to look up something quick for author-date citations because CMOS 18's citation chapters are now stupidly difficult to navigate 🫠 #AmCopyediting

150 pages into Joe Hill's KING SORROW and I'm struck by how fundamentally kind it is: What if your big, scary enemies were really small and human? What if your big, scary revenge fantasies pained you when played out in real life? What if they revealed you to be small and human, too? #booksky

What does “royalties will be paid on net profit” mean? https://bit.ly/3IU7cKY University press publishers answer frequently asked questions like this one on our #AskUP site. Curious about how university press publishing works? #AskUP!

Scholars who use art catalogs for their research & teaching will want to revisit our #NCCSpotlight by Reiko Yoshimura & Kit Brooks introducing the history and goals of the Japan Art Catalog Project, which makes rare & hard to acquire art catalogs available! Seet: guides.nccjapan.org/homepage/new...

From Saddam Hussein’s draining of southern Iraq’s marshes to Russia’s attacks on a Ukrainian dam and nuclear power plant, calls are increasing to recognize mass environmental harms as international crimes. @leilasadat1.bsky.social outlines a role for the proposed #CrimesAgainstHumanity treaty:

My library got me a Halloween present. KJ Charles's writing is really living up to the cover. It feels like the KNIVES OUT cast meets THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO. #booksky

#Copyediting tip: If you've already framed a list as being nonexhaustive, you don't need to end that list with a repetitive "etc." YES: Examples of great vegetable include zucchini, squash, and pumpkin. NOPE: Examples of great vegetables include zucchini, squash, pumpkin, and others.

New job: Open Rank Faculty Positions in Japanese Studies at the Center for Integrated Japanese Studies, Tohoku University Tohoku University jobs.h-net.org/jobs/69218

My subway take: AI will actually be good because it’ll make the internet so useless that we will have to reset our relationship to it

“She was some kind of spectacular lady.” — director Blake Edwards on Audrey Hepburn BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) is streaming on Kanopy and Hoopla (free with a library card) if you'd like to celebrate the 64th anniversary of its premiere. #FilmSky #Streaming

I’m giving a free workshop *today* on how to connect with editors at scholarly publishers. Let’s take some anxiety out of this first step so you don’t let fear or confusion about norms keep you from moving forward with publishing your book courses.manuscriptworks.com/courses/conn...

I'm writing a breakneck action sequence that I intend the reader to consume more or less in a single breath, flying urgently through the pages. It's taken me all morning to do 500 words.

This is the most complete information I've seen about the Anthropic copyright settlement — dates of when things are likely to happen, what to do now, and what it all means for different types of writers. nwu.org/anthropic/

A replacement for NaNoWriMo's been announced — Novel November, created by ProWritingAid. What do we think? Anyone going to participate this year? prowritingaid.com/novel-november #NovelNovember #Writing

Tomorrow (September 25th) at 5:30 pm CDT, hear @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social discuss his book, Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, at the Sixteenth Annual Naseeb Shaheen Memorial Lecture at the University of Memphis. Learn more about this in-person event here: www.memphis.edu/english/news....

I strongly recommend new authors join a well-run book club, when possible. Not only does it encourage analysis of storytelling from different perspectives, the range of “loved it—>hated it—>meh 🤷” in the room is a great reminder to write the book that speaks to you and let it find your audience.

As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read. They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.

Day 3 #ACESVCON25 surprise announcement! Get ready to trade your red pens for ocean views — we’re heading to Puerto Rico in 2027 for the biggest, boldest ACES in‑person conference yet, in honor of our 30th anniversary! April 26-29, 2027. It's a Mon-Wed.

We have it as a contract point that translations of my work have to be performed by actual humans, I think actual human readers deserve to have actual humans translating and making the works as excellent as they can be regardless of language

If a publisher won't commit to human editing, art and translation, the deal is not worth having. They're signalling how little they care about the final product, which comes with your name attached. This is the right place to push back. Having an agent here helps.

@petersokolowski.bsky.social has a book coming out in a year! It's called By Definition from @stmartinspress.bsky.social. He wrote a chapter called "The Invention of the Modern Dictionary: Webster's Unabridged of 1864" in The Whole World in a Book: global.oup.com/academic/pro... #VCON25 #ACESVCon25

By ~30,000 years ago people had fully colonised Japan's Ryukyu islands, but how did they get there? Archaeologists tried to recreate the trip with a bamboo raft but failed, indicating Palaeolithic boats were more advanced than expected #WorldBambooDay 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

How did so many publishers fail to register copyright for their titles? Here's what you need to know about copyright to help protect your work. Click to read: authorsguild.org/news/copyrig...

TOMORROW I’m speaking at the #ACESVCon25 panel “Making the Invisible Visible: Communicating the Value of Editing to Non-Editors” w/ Shannon Roman @version4.bsky.social, @h-e-saunders.bsky.social & Lauren Keleher at 10:30 a.m. ET / 9:30 CT! #VCon25 attendees, join us! aceseditors.org/conference/v...

I’m in back-to-back editing conferences for the next week – I’ll be spending a lot of time on Zoom with the cats, and little time in my mailbox. So please forgive me if I’m slower than usual replying to email. Kicking off tomorrow with @acesediting.bsky.social #VCon25

1 week until WHY I LOVE HORROR is released into the world (unless you are at Parnassus Books on 9/18, you all get it a few days early). My release event (& fundraiser) with @cynthiapelayo.bsky.social @librarylagrange.bsky.social only has 36 spots left! lagrange.librarycalendar.com/event/becky-...

A friend recently asked me how many times I go through an MS while copyediting. I realized the answer varies depending on deadline/budget, with the kicker being that publishers who pay a living wage *also* give more generous deadlines, so my answer ranges from 2 to 6 reads, a huge difference.