please do this and also commission a new cover that can also be used for the ebook edition b/c that cover is terrible

Paul Kincaid challenges/revises Updike’s “Rules for Review”: ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2025/12/24/r...

bigger rivers, bigger cities

I graduated from SF State in 2002. “Tenure density” (what a term) was lower than would be ideal even back then given the mandate of the CSU system, which was not only to provide degree/training to build CA’s professional-level workforce but also to provide tenured employment to UC/CSU PhD graduates.

“You are here because we let death ride the night,” the Host said. “Yes,” Dagard replied. “I will make no secret of that—nor have I been asked to, although, I am, I will admit, a rather low-level representative of the Ministry.” (from Death, Full Clamor) wmhenrymorris.com/fiction/oddi...

The fragmentary > the complete

Dear publishers and awards bodies: please feed our cravings.

“You are here because we let death ride the night,” the Host said. “Yes,” Dagard replied. “I will make no secret of that—nor have I been asked to, although, I am, I will admit, a rather low-level representative of the Ministry.” (from Death, Full Clamor) wmhenrymorris.com/fiction/oddi...

Finished it in less than an hour. It’s, as expected, many universes in 41 squat* pages *the book is not normal size—it’s maybe 4x5?

Finished it in less than an hour. It’s, as expected, many universes in 41 squat* pages *the book is not normal size—it’s maybe 4x5?

The Gladmania continues in the Morris household:

The whole thread, but this especially. Please. Just value translation. It is creative work, especially if it's literary translation. It can be incredibly hard and challenging work. It is deeply rewarding work. It deserves to be valued and cherished.

IS IT PROOFREADING?

_I am a philosopher howler. My ideas, if ideas they are, bark; they explain nothing, they explode_ (from Cioran's notebooks: dustyhope.com/translation/...)

_I am a philosopher howler. My ideas, if ideas they are, bark; they explain nothing, they explode_ (from Cioran's notebooks: dustyhope.com/translation/...)

I read the first three Ravicka books in November, and they broke then reshaped my brain in the best ways.

Did deciding my ancestral ties to London meant it was a good idea to become a fan of Tottenham bring me happiness & fulfillment? No, not really. But it did bring me into contact with fans who I feel a kinship with even though I don't know them. (make sure you also check the replies/quotes)

On leaving academia: The second best thing that happened to me in college was taking a class senior year in Censorship in Romania and meeting the grad student who I soon realized would be (rightfully) getting the one position I was aiming for with a Ph.D. in comp lit.

It’s Midwinter’s Eve, and the Walker is abroad. This night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.

I grew up in an era of “colour capitalism”. Back then, everything was designed to catch the eye. To be as vibrant, vivid, and distinct as possible. We’re now in a time of “monochrome capitalism”. Beiges and greys reign supreme. Everything must appeal to everyone. It’s indifferent to individuality.

This is something I've begun to come to in my own thinking, realizing that I'd focused too much of my sense of American academia on the generation of academics before me. (People I could talk to who told many tales of The Market.) Aaron has crystallized it here better than I ever could.

here is my awards eligibility post: buy stuff artists make, esp. if they offer it direct read/watch/listen outside your normal genres/comfort zones use your local library tell people whose work you admire that you enjoy their work

I've been following the "annual pleasures" roundups on the Aqueduct Press blog since they started, almost twenty years ago now (!!!), so it was a treat to be asked to contribute an entry this year: aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Same! And I’m worried that the AI demand for RAM and GPUs sucking up all the chips and causing prices to skyrocket is going to kill off Microcenter and other consumer-facing computer parts retailers that serve the build your own PC market.

Yeah, I feel that. Alas, it seems like for every one of us who walked away from these shitheads there are ten who made them their whole personality.

On leaving academia: The second best thing that happened to me in college was taking a class senior year in Censorship in Romania and meeting the grad student who I soon realized would be (rightfully) getting the one position I was aiming for with a Ph.D. in comp lit.

The turn from sentence one to sentence two says everything that needs to be said about the state of literature today.

everyone go get A Stranger in Olondria + Tender and also Earth Logic + Air Logic and then go get Fire Logic + Water Logic at full price; I PROMISE they're worth it and At the Mouth of the River of Bees while you're at it!

Yeah, I am.

“Writing on the open internet, in long form and from a place of trying to connect with people, is now a radical act.”

Oh! I didn't notice the date! Here's my new story--it's DEFINITELY NOT about AI! Go check it out--free to read in text and audio! It's about a ten minute read, so you have nothing to lose except, um, ten minutes! www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/hagi...

on the bus stuck behind a snowplow but also very happy to not be driving in this light(ish) blizzard

Criticism is literature!

Criticism is literature!

This is like me saying: What if I took a break from writing new fiction in 2026 in favor of focusing on revising older projects so I actually can have something come out in 2027 It might be a good idea but is it a fun/realistic/likely one?

I must admit—Ekman got me w/the modernity mention: “Urban fantasy is a genre in the fantastic mode, whose cognitive model comprises a relationship between modernity and the fantastic, a core concern with the unseen, and a combination of traits from other genres.” wmhenrymorris.com/nonfiction/M...

I see this in fiction: a passage where perfect tense would be useful but either the author or editor decided against using it or didn’t know to use it. Also run into it professionally where folks seem to think proximity of clauses establishes causality & don’t know how to grammatically indicate it

Here are my favourite books of 2025. It was another wonderful year or reading! readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/m...

_Rationale is always the sound of the stuffing falling out_

writing fiction as a refusal of my own rebuke of my refusal to stop writing a fiction of refusal

This turned into a note for my work in progress. In making that note on the text file scratchpad I use on my phone I find: “Jean was beloved of the gods” I recognize it as a wake up during the night note, but the detail that would’ve made it interesting didn’t make it through the sleepy haze.

I see this in fiction: a passage where perfect tense would be useful but either the author or editor decided against using it or didn’t know to use it. Also run into it professionally where folks seem to think proximity of clauses establishes causality & don’t know how to grammatically indicate it

long shot here, and a vague idea, but: scholarly folks, do you have any reading suggestions for work looking at conceptions (pop, psych, or phil) of time re: grammatical usage? Things like the present-tense fiction trend, lit discussions as present vs past, dif between simple past & past perfect use

The short version is that Fellman writes people and especially their relationships brilliantly, he understands how to infuse them and their world with a wonder beyond reason, and at the same time is willing and able to put on page the physicality of embodiment in a deeply compelling way. Also prose.

writing fiction as a refusal of my own rebuke of my refusal to stop writing a fiction of refusal

On the third day of Hanukkah, I am kicking off a new project on my blog: a series of short critical essays as I read - for the who-knows-how-many-th time - The Lord of the Rings. Today's essay is an introduction, and new posts will go up every two weeks. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

The paradox of our times: everybody in software talks about how “AI” ramps up productivity by an order of magnitude Meanwhile the software I follow, the platforms I keep track of, and the releases I follow keep the same pace as before except buggier, less usable, and more prone to catastrophe

The people (well, four people) have spoken and it was in the direction I was leaning anyway so:

The people (well, four people) have spoken and it was in the direction I was leaning anyway so:

1989 or 2025? "The real problem...is that a cybernetic editor had been in the works for many years, a helpful gift from the scientists to the writers. Actually, the robotic editor himself has already been created, and now they're just using our manuscripts to train him. And when that machine...