How come social media bots almost always have numbers at the end of their name? It seems like such an easily avoidable tell. Are they trying to look like bots? Even if they appended a few random characters rather than numbers I'd be slightly less instantly suspicious.

This is what makes finding good project managers extremely difficult. There are a lot of tools, processes, certifications, etc., but it's not something that can be easily automated because the humanity of it is not just important but the entire point.

Sometimes in the morning I get a coffee and write in One Girl Cookies in Brooklyn and they have a large family tree on the wall that is very helpful for coming up with character names. #amwriting

oh now we are talking about writing salaries? My contribution: No one* has ever made money from it. Don't romanticize the past. There are zillions of examples of destitution in the archives of your faves! *except a couple, here and there, randomly

J G Ballard is the DeLillo of the empty swimming pool.

Re-reading - DeLillo hits some kind of high pitch of perfection in the first fifty pages of this. But he could write about anything. Look at how deep he goes in this description of the day you go to the supermarket and they’ve re-arranged the shelves.

Can I ask a dumb BlueSky question? I don't understand the etiquette on when to comment vs quote-post. I generally quote-post if I'm going on a tangent and comment if directly engaging on the topic. But it doesn't seem consistent. And I think the rules might shift for more "popular" accounts?

I often get pulled in when the discourse focuses its anti-snobbery cannons on literary fiction, so I'm always intrigued to see other inter-genre drama. It turns out lots of people circle their wagons around perceived genre rules. I suppose every genre must deal with this. Part of the book world.

I don't understand people.

This is a very comforting quote. Life affirming, even. Sometimes as a writer I just want to know I'm not alone.

Very astute observation. AI investment is propped up by a kind of inverse imposter syndrome, a job-solipsism, where it makes sense if you assume no one else cares about anything even though you do.

Kind of funny, kind of sad, kind of hopeless, kind of hopeful, with such a clear, fully imagined voice that you can't help but love.

No matter how meticulous I am with the rubber spatula, I'm always able to use my finger to remove some leftover batter from the bowl. This tells us they should make rubber spatulas in the shape of a finger.

had the enormous pleasure of collaborating with my colleagues at The Sewanee Review on a full-issue tribute to the life & work of Brad Watson, which we built around the complete text of his final, unfinished novel thesewaneereview.com

Great news! All ELJ Editions books published after March 2025 are now available on Amazon, BN.com, and Bookshop.org, as well as ELJ’s website! Pick yourself up a book this Holiday season!

If you ever become a famous author and someone asks you this question in an interview... Do Not Answer It! It is a trap! It will just make people mad at you! (This has happened multiple times and made otherwise nice and thoughtful writers the center of angry social media discourse.)

When I called my appliance guy he answered the phone with a boisterous "Ashley from Chase, you bitch!" and I said, "Uh... this is Jeff?" and with no hesitation or apology he said, "Jeff! What's up?" and then we discussed my fridge. I am astounded and amazed by his confidence. I would have died.

I am paying $35 for a $5 replacement part on my compost tumbler because of tariffs.

I get the pricey GE water filters for my refrigerator every six months rather than an after-market one because I don't want to damage my fridge. This morning the new GE filter had a defect that pinched the line and now the water in my house is shut off until the repair guy can get here.

I will not fight with people on Threads about Makaton. I will not fight with people on Threads about Makaton. I will not thebaffler.com/outbursts/si...

Hey hey! Do you love Elden Ring, Bloodborne, or Dark Souls and wish someone would write a weird quiet horror story paying homage to the occult in said videogames??? If that’s the case, you need to check out my new story over at @3lobedmag.com!!! www.3lobedmag.com/issue46/3lbe...

Go vote for us for best litmag award from chill subs! https://www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag-awards

If you’d like to come dig with us and share your reflections on recovery from trauma, here are the guidelines: Creative non-fiction only. Essays must be no longer than 1500 words. #submissions open 1/1/26 Edited by Diane Gottlieb

BlueSky, this is a funny bit and deserves more recognition and/or no one gets my humor.

Woody’s death in Toy Story 4 is causing a nightmare for the next film. Writers are stuck because Woody “was blown to pieces.” Buzz Lightyear, author of three Toy Story novels, says: “You can't have him wake up in shower and saying it was all a dream."

Someone needs to take that article about the James Bond writers not knowing how to bring Bond back from the dead and do a mashup version about the Toy Story 5 writers with Woody.

The most interesting part of this article comes near the end, where Google outright lies to the journalist by claiming they fixed the problem immediately, and then the journalist does one Google search and confirms that, no, they did not. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/b...

What I've learned from the "Good at Math/Words/Visuals" discourse is that many who consider themselves "Good at X" look down on all the others. That includes you too, Good at Word people. Holding lifelong primary-school grudges and looking down on everyone else isn't unique to Good at Math.

I think in D&D this is called a chimera.

Coming soon: the DADA issue!

Apparently all this time I've been watching James Bond wrong.

A non-religious photo you think of as holy. Lots of musicians and movie stills with this prompt. But I've always thought of Falling Water as a holy site. Even a photograph takes my breath away.

Gotta be honest, I'm not going to watch an hour and a half YouTube video on a topic I'm mildly interested in even if you tell me it's really good.

The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife is on sale. It's a poetry collection that should be on your shelves. Plus, it's a great opportunity to splurge for the hardback, which is gorgeous and has a comforting weight.

The translation of my book "Puns and Idioms" is not going well.

Check it out! My poem "This Is Where We Split" was nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize by the wonderful people at January House Lit!!!

I'm just a few pages into the new Helen DeWitt and it does NOT disappoint.

I've got a flash fiction coming out in @foofarawpress.bsky.social in January! I'm very excited! I think @foofarawpress.bsky.social is publishing some fabulous, impressive stuff and I'm proud that my possibly-humorous meditation on life/accidentally shoving old women to the ground will be part of it.

My top books of 1859: I'm declaring a tie between: fromtheheartofeurope.eu/september-bo... A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens and The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, by Edward Fitzgerald and fromtheheartofeurope.eu/january-book... On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

I've been reading some books with meta-books inside of them lately: Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot and Jason Mott's Hell of a Book. Also Percival Everett's Erasure. Plus I'm always thinking about Nabokov's Pale Fire. I love a good book-in-a-book meta-narrative, though it's always risky. #booksky

One more thing about this review. My issue with saying "its aesthetic decisions seem designed to stimulate seminars rather than enjoyment" is how it takes for granted that no one, including the writer, might enjoy the kind of aesthetic decisions that stimulate seminars. Have they read any MZD book?

Lake of Urine was one of the most important (and funniest) (and most important) (and funniest) books of the last decade. I am very excited for The Coast of Everything. #booksky

"In the end, Tom’s Crossing feels as though it’s been written with at least one eye on the literary immortality bestowed by academic study." Okay? Good. That's good. We have lots of fun books. I want more like this. It's okay if occasionally a writer wants to do it the hard way.

I'm roasting two different types of squash.

There are not so many places willing to consider work in these in-between spaces, so it's always reassuring when there's a call for the oxymoronic category of long short fiction.

I'm a little insulted that I haven't gotten any of these scam publishing emails everyone is talking about. It's like I'm not even a successful enough writer to be worth scamming 😭🥺😂

Reading Allison Whittenberg's "Depths" at @foofarawpress.bsky.social and it's strange and unsettling and it doesn't seem like I'm supposed to feel good after reading it yet these days there's a kind of hope in the idea of awe-inspiring terror winning out over wealth. foofaraw.press/depths/

OH NO I submitted a story to a prestigious lit journal and the story itself is a pristine work of art but I put "it's" instead of "its" in the cover letter due to an ill-advised last moment edit done directly in the online form. I am now going to crawl in a hole forever. #amwriting #amcrying