I don't think there's any danger of anyone mistaking my fiction for AI generated writing, but I will say, I've got "able to talk in depth about / defend editorial choices, argue productively with comments, and show changes to the story over time" covered with these comment essays I keep leaving.

It's the French release day for THE WOLF AND HIS KING! (I think? Idk, nobody tells me anything.) I intended to make a Serious Video showing you the book, but the heatwave is getting to me, so I made this incoherent mess instead. Hopefully the book speaks for itself:

Never thought I'd relate to a Middle Irish noun

It's the French release day for THE WOLF AND HIS KING! (I think? Idk, nobody tells me anything.) I intended to make a Serious Video showing you the book, but the heatwave is getting to me, so I made this incoherent mess instead. Hopefully the book speaks for itself:

The Tiffany Problem but design. Is this 1970s? Nope. 1540s.

Posts that make me miss UCC

In hindsight, thinking I could get through adding this text to my relationship terminology spreadsheet without accidentally finding a new manuscript variant to chase was probably overly optimistic, yes

It's occurred to me that my paperback should be coming out this month and I don't think I've ever posted about it. Also that this means I have the same book coming out twice during Disability Pride Month, yay (French hardback, English paperback)

Okay, so 6.30-8.50pm was probably a suboptimal time to nap.

And those ‘Boudican’ chariot wheel knives were a complete fallacy - they were actually rubber hazard warnings on the protruding hubs.

One day I'm going to write the queer Irish dance novel I've been thinking about for at least five years and it's going to be... well, incomprehensible to most people, to be honest, but also great.

Can cosign, since this is how I met Madeline. Mulvihill were very welcoming to this nonbinary dancer and I was very sorry to move away. (Sorrier still to then immediately become disabled enough that dancing isn't an option anyway, but so it goes.)

Okay, I think being back on Bluesky for the last couple of weeks (mostly because it was too hot to be on my actual computer, where it's largely blocked) has not actually been good for my mental health, so I will be taking a break again shortly once some DM conversations have wrapped up.

Sometimes I think I should do more international giveaways for my books and then I look up how much it costs to post a book internationally and I remember why I don't. How does it cost £19.50 to walk into a post office and post a book to the US?! (£13.50 if you buy postage online, somehow?)

How bad is the grass pollen where I live? I just did a COVID test, so. About that bad. They're letting it grow long and seedy on the lawn which is great and all but my throat is full of rocks about it. I need it to cool down properly so I can close all my windows forever. Alas, it's not going to.

Actually kind of really charmed by this as a concept and sort of want to write it

I did a little Tawny Owl

THE WOLF AND HIS KING comes out in paperback in less than a month, and I still have a whole bunch of UK hardbacks, US hardbacks, and trade paperbacks, so I need to free up some shelf space. How are giveaways doing on this site these days? Working? Not working? Any tips?

Copyedited what I think is my favourite chapter in THE ANIMALS WE BECAME today. If I had to do a 10-min reading from this book that really summed up the themes, I think it would be a chunk of this chapter that I chose. PLUS it's got my favourite description of the woods in it.

I haven't done any work because of the wretched heat and my copyedits are hanging over me ominously, but I HAVE read two excellent books. Hoping I can make it three, and then I'll tell you about them, because three is a better number for a list.

My author copies of the French edition of THE WOLF AND HIS KING arrived while I was in Wales! Fortunately a neighbour took the parcel in and he just dropped it round today (no card was left, so I didn't know). They're very pretty. Pictures when it's less hot and I can turn a computer on.

I understand the excitement about technology “rediscovering lost texts.” I do, & I get the media hype. But I wish people knew that there are hundreds of thousands of “lost” texts just sitting in manuscripts in libraries, which have never been published outside of those single manuscripts. 1/n

This was commissioned by a trad institution for their anniversary (very cool client tbh) but didn't get used in the end. I especially enjoy the uileann piping eagle, who's pose I had to get the experts to weigh in on

Aircon discourse misses one important thing: sometimes I want to go outside the house also (But then I guess the people telling us all this would fix everything are also people who have cars, which they drive to other places that then have aircon. This is not a life I live.)

Okay, sound off, how delayed is your train? I was meant to be in London almost two hours ago. Instead I'm in Bletchley on a train I wasn't supposed to be on after mine terminated at a station it wasn't supposed to be at. At least we have aircon.

Starting to get spam marketing emails about THE ANIMALS WE BECAME and today's one seems to think it's YA, so just to be very clear, in case they pulled that from somewhere online: this book is absolutely not YA. At all. I would say it is even more firmly an adult book than TWAHK was.

I survived my Welsh exam 🎉 I've been taking eight hours a week of classes since the autumn term and it's been ... intense, so I'm quite relieved that next year I'll be down to four, but it's also been rewarding to lay that foundation quickly so I can move on to building on it!

While I was at my publisher I did take some shots of BEEYOOTIFUL other books. @stephanieburgis.bsky.social @finnlongman.com

I'm wholeheartedly against the social media ban idea, but I'm seeing a lot of misinformation about it. People are sharing the "8.30pm" time as if that's official, but the gov website just says "The government will also be looking... at overnight curfews... and will set out more detail in July" afaik

last day of #PrideBookFair 👀 the question: which queer book has inspired you lately? my answer: YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING that's right it's @finnlongman.com's THE WOLF & HIS KING, bc this book reminded me what a book CAN BE. magical also it was chock-full of queer yearning. that's the good stuff 🤌

That they wrote a book they weren't supposed to be writing, very quickly, without really intending to, and probably while ignoring something else (at least if it's my writer friends saying it, because it has been used that way in the past). I have a reputation.

The thing about a lot of AI is that I actually really hate fawning emails that pander to my feelings all the time. Got one from a company earlier about an item return. I don't need two paragraphs telling me you understand my feelings about buying the wrong filter, just tell me if I can return it.

Ooh, the eBook of THE WOLF AND HIS KING has dropped to £2.99 just in time for Pride month! If you've been looking at buying it, now is a good time :) Affiliate Kindle link (I earn a commission from qualifying purchases): amzn.to/4o6Lgzc Normal Kobo link: www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...

The AI spam emails are now pretending to be from my own (US) publisher, who have apparently just randomly stumbled across the third book in my UK-published trilogy and love my writing style. You'd think they'd know it from the one the published, but...

Does anyone know if there's a way to appeal a Great Northern Delay Repay decision that actually lets you submit more information? The 'resubmit claim' just takes me to the same form with no additional fields or ability to explain that I had a delay AND a cancellation AND a missed connection.

Struck me as grimly amusing that the "Write To Them" tool for writing to your MP labels the button after previewing your letter as "I'm happy: send it". Well I'm quite obviously not happy, or I wouldn't be here again, but

Ooh, the eBook of THE WOLF AND HIS KING has dropped to £2.99 just in time for Pride month! If you've been looking at buying it, now is a good time :) Affiliate Kindle link (I earn a commission from qualifying purchases): amzn.to/4o6Lgzc Normal Kobo link: www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...

Also yeah I did have to rewrite part of my paper because of this, RIP

That feeling when you're looking through your manuscript images trying to find a good version of the scene you're discussing to use as the background for your conference slides, and you stumble on a variant that changes everything about how you understand this character's fate in this text.

Medieval Irish law experts: are there any law texts that discuss the status and circumstances of servants, stewards, clients, etc after the death of their lord? Do these relationships transfer and what happens when they don't?

Tá mé ar Cogar faoin ainm @/fianaigecht más mian libh mé a léanuint i nGaeilge

Temperature has hit "wishing intensely that portable air conditioners were compatible with my windows without complex custom setups". Can only assume everyone singing their praises has sash windows and not a bizarre mix of vertical and horizontal outward-opening casements...

It has been *adjusts large sign* 0 days since I last got unbearably emotional about Oidheadh Con Culainn

Given how terrible search engines are getting, and how often I have to go looking for my own resource posts to find links to things I can't find any more, I might make a static page for my website with a load of links, for my use if no one else's. Reinventing the old internet etc.

I understand that if you're not paying for a product in money, you're paying some other way, but I wish everything hadn't turned evil just in time to suddenly have to start paying for email and search engines and everything during a cost of living crisis 🥲

This used to be my pinned post on the bird site and it sums up the vibes of my posting, so I'm adding it to this thread. My YA books: not medieval, full of murderous teenagers My adult books: medieval, gay, full of shapeshifting My research: medieval, gay, murderous teenagers, shapeshifting, etc

THEN I remembered how many people had recommended me THE WOLF AND HIS KING by @finnlongman.com and it turned out they were right. 1) always a delight to read arthuriana written by an actual mediaevalist, 2) what if a sad beautiful man was a secret werewolf and his liege lord was so so so so into him

"Sgynnoch chi deulu mawr?" No I'm an ineffective king and my court is a shambles, I haven't even got a poet

The thing about being a medievalist but then also taking beginner modern language lessons is you spend a lot of your Welsh classes trying to shake the feeling that you're being asked how many people are in your warband

POV: you're in the woods. The English bagpipes and shawm aren't. Not that you'd know it...