So much this. I got my first (and second!) starred review for a queer hi-lo and I was so excited to write my third, feeling so good about finding a new thing to explore—and the publisher rejected the premise outright. The goal posts never stop moving. Ever. (I’m doing game writing next.)

Tomorrow!!!

Read a romance written by a real person, not some Mad Libs–style Crap-o-matic®. Need suggestions? Here, I’ll start: XENI by @rdotspoon.bsky.social. It's sexy, sweet, and funny as hell. And it features a hot Scotsman. (Redundant; all Scotsmen are hot.)

EVERY HOUSE SHOULD HAVE A DEMON SUCKING BOWL

Remember how earlier I mentioned this month is a great month to skip articles about romance written by people who don’t understand Romancelandia—especially if they reference Fabio? TA-DA! (No, I’m not going to read it.)

Everything has a risk. Assessing which ones you’re prepared to deal with is part of being an adult. The anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers were never serious people.

Who Dat Whodunnit by @scottynola.bsky.social is @boldstrokesbooks.bsky.social's $3.99 deal of the day. If you’ve never read Greg’s Scotty Bradley mysteries, they’re a delight. Check it out!

Imagine if we’d spent $700B on clean energy and heat pumps instead of chatbots and art plagiarizers?

It’s Black History Month in the US and LGBTQ+ History Month in the UK. I’m a citizen of both, and I have a book that’s both Black and queer, like me.

DogTM*. *(Tendi-Made)

Repost with a photo of yours that would make a good album cover.

This is beyond reprehensible

Me, creating probably a dozen times as many starships as I might need for my #StarTrekAdventures campaigns: This is productive, and absolutely might come into play at some point in the future. Me: ... Me: I could write a paragraph background for all the command crew of each ship, just in case…

SHE’S FINISHED! My 5-foot-long Enterprise D oil painting is complete after nearly 100 hours of work! I remember being 13 years old or so and trying to draw her and it was so hard, and all I wanted was to be able to do something like this. Truly a dream come true. 🥰🖖

Other SFF publications include @asimovssfmag.bsky.social @tordotcom.bsky.social @lightspeedmagazine.com. The OG Dark Matter anthology is here. Some records link to what I presume are pirating sites for download?? Here's an example from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction:

SFF markets are not lucrative. We’re on the wrong side of an impossible margin. This shit does not get us exposure nor help us pay authors. Shitty summaries do a disservice to authors’ work (of course there’s a subscription tier.)

(IDK if I can't download just bc I don't have a site account.) The Writing Atlas is (or has a framework in place for) stealing authors’ work. There’s a fucking FIYAH collection on the site. Shame on whoever is contributing w/o author consent, and on the site for allowing it in the first place.

Distraught, enraged, and tired. An author cc’d @fiyahlitmag on an email to The Writing Atlas, a site dedicated to “cataloging short stories.” There are 130 FIYAH stories listed with (presumably) AI summaries. Some have LINKS to a Dropbox folder. Our issues aren’t publicly available for scraping.

I'd really love for you to take a look at this thread. I think you'll really enjoy the stories... and I just had to replace my catalytic converter which, alas, costs about 1000 times what one of these stories does. :) (Repost, if you don't mind. It helps. Thank you.)

It’s #StarTrekAdventures Saturday, which means viewing a TOS episode mining it for scenario ideas for @modiphius.bsky.social's awesome Trek #TTRPG. Today’s episode is the Silver Fox in the Dark—sorry, Devil. DEVIL in the dark. Let’s talk non-carbon lifeforms and rare resources. (Hi, Giotto.)

It is once again time to bless your skyline with pics and video of my dogs eating tiny pancakes #PancakesTime

o rly

I’m remembering when mass markets got taller (and publishers *said* it was for comfort for readers) and the price ~just happened~ to go up a couple of bucks, and how customers at the bookstore *lost their shit* over it. But they lost their shit at *us*. While buying the more expensive MM book. So…

This is how I find out beloved author Andy Weir uses the eco-disaster slop plagiarism box.

OBAMA: “People make excuses for him. They say he’s not serious. Everything a president says is serious!”🔥

This is fine.

Democratizing the arts looks like universal income, low-barrier grants for both emerging and working artists, well-funded municipal arts & recreation programs, vibrant third spaces, and a well-funded public school system with progressive curriculum. Not a free pass for corporate-owned slop engines.

if you believe that you have to have talent to be successful I hope you believe in ghosts and vampires and the friendzone because none of those things are real

all talent really is? It's one thing that you have a knack for right away. That's all it is. it is a single pea buried in the mattresses of practice. You don't even have to have that one thing. Harping on talent is how they keep you from trusting you can do it. it's a grift.

I don't know what to tell you. You can't sit at a piano for the first time ever and play a sonata. You can't pick up a tennis racket for the first time and serve a 110MPH Ace. You have to fuck up. You have to be able to handle failing. You have to love it enough to not get it right and keep on.

I'm going to say this again in case you haven't heard this one: I was a talented writer and it did *nothing whatsoever* because I hadn't put in the work, and I put in the work for ten years (subtracting the bit where I had to quit for my mental health) to write Witchmark talent alone could *never*

It’s #StarTrekAdventures Saturday, which means viewing a TOS episode mining it for scenario ideas for @modiphius.bsky.social's awesome Trek #TTRPG. Today’s episode is the Silver Fox in the Dark—sorry, Devil. DEVIL in the dark. Let’s talk non-carbon lifeforms and rare resources. (Hi, Giotto.)

“If it’s too cold for you…” “Linda? Shut it.”

Guile... Guinan... Guilenan

Also you know what AI can’t even pretend to democratize? Physical arts. Live dance. Figure skating. Gymnastics. No prompt in the world is gonna make you able to do that shit. It’s just hours and hours of mental and physical labor. Stop pretending illustration, painting, and writing is any different

Media promises to only fall for the ‘maybe Poilievre has changed’ story 4-5 more times (podcast)

The Wright Museums Instagram page is HILARIOUS. Think The Office but it's the staff at a Museum for Black History. Better believe this is on my list of places to visit. Gentle Spades "I'm a veteran"

it's called FOR NEVER & ALWAYS and it SLAPS

Every instance of "AI democratizes the arts, you're classist and ableist and a gatekeeper for trying to stop it" is a slap in the face to the literally centuries of poor, disabled people making art on the margins and a crass lie in service of a machine that strips down and regurgitates dreams

So... …we all met this guy at the gay bar, right? It’s not just me?

Putting out into the world for Black History Month and also in general that an iPad would be incredibly beneficial both for work and recreational accessibility reasons and as much as I have been waiting for a stable moment to focus on that, I do not know when/if that moment will arrive so $0/$700

There are people who will tell you that using heavy black inks and a monochrome pallete to capture a bright sunny day at a gay nude beach is a bad idea. I'm not one of them. ko-fi.com/s/e17cc4f587 #gayart #gayartist

What do you call a magician who's lost his magic? lan 😂

Never had a gun pulled on me but I’ve had several and always terrible interactions with police, from rude to cruel. And if they’re treating a dorky white gay guy like that, I don’t doubt any awful story from people of colour. You can’t reform any of that with training, they need to be reined in.

Tomorrow! Last minute notice that I'll be at Indigo Kanata from 11 am to 2 pm signing copies of Catalyst and Castoff*. Hope to see you there! *You know, the book that's up for two awards and was a finalist for another 🤯

OKAY GANG BUCKLE UP we are PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE OFFICIAL for WICKHILLS Thank you to @mkcurry.bsky.social and @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social and @torbooks.bsky.social for making it happen! Prepare for me to NOT SHUT UP ABOUT THIS MOTHERFUPPIN BOOK (when I am less busy)

It's not just the women and girls we know of. It's all their future work, and everything they could have been, and how we build structures that shelter their abusers. It's how a man's future has always been worth more than my past, present, and future combined.

I mean, we all know why. It's still a part of every conversation and every discussion of systemic sexism. But this keeps happening, in every industry, in every setting, and we keep siding with the men. "Oh she was too pretty, she was a temptation." "Oh she made him do it." "Oh she was at fault."

"We would have lost so much if we'd driven him away" is the justification. But we lost all those girls. We lost the women they would have become. We lost the work they would have done. Why was his future work so much more valuable than theirs?

And when people tried to make this part of the conversation, they were told "don't speak ill of the dead" and "we're walking on foundations he built, give the man his grace." But all those girls--dozens, based on confirmed accounts, maybe hundreds, based on the time scale at play--didn't come back.