Distribution is THE under-reported story in book publishing (outside of the trade publications) and losing B&T is going to have untold ripple effects on the industry, small presses, and authors.

Freedom is an Endless Meeting press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

when you become a boss you lose the right to chop it up with the employees in the break room. you gave that up in exchange for power. if you want a business AND the camaraderie, start a co-op

I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?

Reading Rainbow… is back! 🥹 This LeVar Burton/Reading Rainbow raised human is feeling all of the library joy. We hope your kids believe they belong in books, just like you ✨ Take a look, it’s in a book 📚🌈🦋🌌 youtu.be/gHAIjSkmnYI?...

Is a tiny giant squid not enough for you? How about a giant giant squid??? The photo doesn't quite capture the magical rainbow iridescence of the sealant I used, it's amazing. thebrokencircle.etsy...

If you have two minutes free right now, call Netflix and leave a comment in support of this programming and ask them to stand up for their shows against political pressure. Phone number is 1-866-952-4456, and I waited less than a minute before a human picked up.

Let's get cooking as @chotoranii.bsky.social looks at what is now her favorite game of the year, Critter Kitchen. www.thefandomentals.com/critter-kitc...

We love My Shelfie from Lucky Duck Games so much that @chotoranii.bsky.social wanted to give it another review! www.thefandomentals.com/my-shelfie-b...

Big Elizabeth Taylor energy.

"“They thought we were just white trash rednecks & that we would just roll over & take it & not say anything." Remarkable new feature by @laurengill.bsky.social about the doubts & resistance that Sarah Huckabee Sanders' mega prison project has spurred in rural Arkansas: boltsmag.org/arkansas-pri...

New from 404 Media: airlines are selling *5 billion* ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching, per new docs we obtained. ARC is a data broker owned by United, American, Delta, etc. Then sells peoples' travel info to ICE, Secret Service, FBI etc www.404media.co/airlines-sel...

Next year's WorldCon is in Los Angeles, and the theme appears to be Westward Expansion or possibly Manifest Destiny. The guests are referred to as Pioneers and the venue as The Frontier. This year the awards were swept by Indigenous writers. The choice is stunning in its ugliness.

If you actually watch Gavin Newsom's podcast I think you will lose any faith you have misplaced in him. I'm sorry! He capitulates repeatedly to the conservative provocateur B-team. I don't think he can do combative discourse well enough in person and I suspect he does not write his own tweets

"If your books were uploaded to LibGen/fed into the LLMs, add your name to the potential class action lawsuit by tomorrow." Details: LibDem database: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... Attorney form: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au... (This information comes via a reliable Discord source.)

I know lots of you have strong opinions on this topic, so I hope this will be of interest: "You are being asked to participate in a survey of romance authors and readers that is being conducted by Prof. Bridget Kies in the Film Studies and Production program at Oakland University."

The New York Times has signed an AI deal with Amazon. The Times will get $20 million to $25 million a year, and in exchange Amazon gets access to content from the paper's news and cooking sections, and the Athletic. Amazon will use the material to train AI models and more.

I wrote about Epstein and the rot that's killing us. "To wave off every horror as a distraction is to participate in the very obfuscation that protects the powerful." Special thanks to @sarahkendzior.bsky.social for talking with me for this piece.

"edit: never mind, i figured it out"

"When we romanticize spaces where everyone shares the same background, speaks the same way, and faces the same (usually economic) problems, we're participating in the same fantasy that drives both Arkansas compounds and gene-talk advertising campaigns. The fantasy that homogeneity equals harmony."

One of the hardest-to-hear kinds of responses to my new story are premised on ICE detention being motivated by profit—and in part, it is—or on cheap or free forced labor—again, some is. But these detention centers also cost millions and now billions to run. Profit is not a top motive here.

When a famous white person dies in the US and people start using ‘complicated legacy’, it’s because the person was racist and sexist. Usually racist.

Maybe we could find out. Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372 Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111 Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911 Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440 PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000

For everyone who has ever asked, on seeing my Baltimore homicide charts, "How did they do that?"

Yes, connects to Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore’s point about “hollowing out of the term” prison industrial complex: “the meaning of ‘industrial’ shrank to ‘profit’ and the state disappeared behind the specter of immoral gain.” When we only focus on profits, we miss a lot about the economy!

The labor done by prisoners is NOT mainly for profit. People in prison work to REPRODUCE the prison itself. They are engaged in maintaining the prison - cleaning, cooking, etc etc etc.

In the meantime, this is a good first step: www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2...

Here Vox's explainer for just what is going on at the Department of Education which includes me saying I don't have faith in financial aid disbursement next year and, oh yea, I think we're in a constitutional crisis www.vox.com/policy/40233...

Yep

2 stories today. Supreme Court overturned lower court order to bring back fired employees at the Ed Dept. Employees are out. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p... And my story this morning describes congressionally mandated activities that cannot be done without them. hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

Influencer to politician makes the most sense of any of these modern pipelines. More sense than trader or banker to politician.

I share that with permission and a few grave concerns. This kind of fear and insecurity for academics excites a lot of people. It feels like punishment. They like that feeling. That is seductive, especially in a media life world where most affect is derivative and boring.

My soror shared this note from a university hiring manager. The market isn’t just wrecked. I don’t think this is just a recessionary pullback. 2,000 applications for one higherEd job is 100% a sign of a structural failure. It’s so horrible. I’m sorry.

Do you like strong women leads w/ multiple sapphic love interests? Do you want a story where men SINK INTO the background (literally)? Then stay tuned for my sapphic horrormance, SWIM WITH ME, DARLING. sylviehelstaff.itch.io Here we ask the question: is it gay to eat a man with your crush(es)?

i keep forgetting i have an account here but everyone should watch k-pop demon hunters okay bye!

WorldCon panels dropped and I guess they've decided to jump on the right wing's train of strawmen about the gay agenda? Please, if anyone in their life has encountered a bookstore giving them half a dozen sapphic recs with 'strong women leads' let me know so I can shop there

Can confirm this email is authentic — and about nothing in it is true. Social Security income is still taxed. This bill does nothing to change that. It’s willful disinformation on the part of SSA. It’s a lie.

Wonderful piece from @zeeshanaleem.bsky.social “In the political arena, first-generation Americans and racial minorities are celebrated under certain terms and conditions, but if they violate them, their status can just as quickly be used to stigmatize them as alien and un-American.”

This is a season of trench warfare and we have to continue to fight because a law passed is NOT the end and I think we all know this. There will be implementation fight opportunities, there will be constant organizing and pushback. Nothing is permanent. Onwards.

Popping in for a minute to say that it really sucks that the murder bill passed Congress and ALSO to thank every single person who tried to stop the bill from passing. What you did matters. Finally, I wrote a few words: open.substack.com/pub/prisoncu... - I hope they might offer some encouragement.

Back offline for me, I remain in the fight and will continue. I know that many of you are too because this is a fight for our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and the lives of strangers. Each of those lives matters. Take care of yourselves and I will be back online later next week. Peace to you.

A big reason Dems don't control the House right now—and this murderous spending bill is possible—is Andrew Cuomo, who fucked New York's congressional redistricting as governor and helped lose us seats in Congress. www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/06...

True story.

I keep thinking about how charities talk about how Mackenzie Scott gives large unrestricted gifts, and how that lets them just do the good thing they’re supposed to be doing, instead of trying to generate proposals and reports saying they did what they did.

NEW from me: The GOP megabill will add $171 billion to immigration enforcement and ICE, a gigantic sum that'll pour funds into a vast network of detention + hire thousands of ICE agents and fund sheriffs. I talked to an expert on just what to expect: boltsmag.org/how-the-gop-...

🇨🇱 In Chile, where AI data centers threaten the country’s precious water resources, Karen Hao makes the case that AI firms are building their wealth off resource extraction and labor exploitation reut.rs/3GmhZPy

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.