Workshopping a short story that was probably (but not definitely) written with genAI is easy but demoralizing.

"The AI boom not only normalizes plagiarism, but it also entirely ignores the work it takes to produce great writing. The championing of generative AI devalues our ability to read and to think and to comprehend, to be moved by art, and to interact with and criticize it." lithub.com/when-we-deva...

It's pronounced "Doubt That."

I've fallen in love with the work of Cape Dorset printmaker Kenojuak Ashevak. One of her prints is out my reach, but I lucked into some affordable signed art cards from the late 1990s-early 2000s, via a northern Canadian Etsy shop. Here's more about the artist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenojua...

"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."

Imagine having a kid in this daycare who watches as their teacher is bodily dragged away by masked goons.

For instance:

Some really interesting flips in the South, some very local but nevertheless quite remarkable.

Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight

If you are going to American Literary Translators Association conference in Tucson, I'll be reading from Flores raras, 55 Uruguayan women poets at the off-site reading below and a panel on translating the work, New Visions, New Versions: Uruguayan Women Poets, Friday at 3:45 in Copper C.

Unhappy with my choices for mayor (I am most decidedly not in NYC, where I would be excited to be voting today), but I have a preference for an at-large City Council seat. So, yep, I'm going make time to vote today.

"As a fiction writer, Marías can make up whatever story he wishes about the events that take place within a photograph. But when he lets the reader compare the photograph to his words, he is giving us the ability to compare his ekphrastic version with what we see."

Spent the morning lost in New Orleans newspapers from 1899. (The Harlequin is not what I expected; the Mascot, more so. Both contain ads for "gonorrhea and gleet" cures "guaranteed not to cause stricture" and an "anti-fat belt" that cost $1.50.) Thanks to the phenomenal Louisiana Digital Library.

My heart is aflutter.

kinda wish Canada and the USA turned back the clocks on different days just to add to the chaos this evening

Wish my dogs understood the time change and extra innings rule.

Dang.

Show the game. Let the manager work.

Cleaning out the listserv for a literary series I've hosted for a dozen years, I found Maggie Murdoch, registered with an email service that no longer exists (sc.rr.com). I don't know if she ever attended or not. And, also sadly, several regular attendees who have passed away.

Happy Halloween! #edgarallanpoe #quilt by me

Poets! We're rolling the Deep Line Poetry Series deadline through the weekend! Now closing Sunday, Nov 2, 11:59PM. Send us your manuscript! Jennifer Chang is our editor-at-large this year. She can't wait to read your work. Guidelines at hubcity.submittable.com.

I'm delighted to announce that Percival Everett has been added to the spring 2026 lineup of the University of South Carolina's The Open Book: Ross Gay (3/18), Leif Enger (3/25), Julia Phillips (4/1), Percival Everett (4/23). Waiting on a website, but you can save the dates now!

We were doing great up to this post. Since then, just two sets sold. Booksellers, consider stocking a set. Customers will want one if they're going to take part in the great Pilgrimage read of 2026! readingpilgrimage.com

It's release day! Chance to Fade & Other Stories is officially out in the world. 14 short stories and a novella covering a range of topics from collecting teeth, drawings that come to life, and finding love. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...

This is utterly terrifying.

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says US revokes his visa reut.rs/4nsl8wC

I was a fan of (most of) Cusk’s trilogy, but I’m bailing out of Second Place at the one-third mark.

Today, a coalition of seven charitable foundations announced the launch of the Literary Arts Fund, a historic philanthropic investment of at least $50 million to strengthen the nonprofit literary arts field in the U.S.

Overwhelming indeed.

Good morning to everyone, but especially NONFICTION WRITERS because we're open for your book submissions! @athenadixon.bsky.social and her 25NF reading team are reading essay collections, memoirs, + nf/hybrid full-length book manuscripts over 125pg at splitlippress.submittable.com now through 12/1!

Thanks, Monkeybicycle, for giving this small fiction a perfect home: monkeybicycle.net/tender-fire/

If you're in Columbia, SC, I highly recommend you catch Jamie Quatro today at 6 pm, Lumpkin Auditorium, 8th floor, Close-Hipp Building, University of South Carolina. She'll speak about and read from her recent novel Two Step Devil.

There's a story story of his I think about almost every week, though I haven't re-read it for years.

Delighted to be dining with Jamie Quatro tonight. Catch her tomorrow at 6 pm, University of South Carolina, where she'll be giving the Neuffer Lecture in Southern Literature. (Auditorium, 8th floor, Close Hipp.)

Me, talking about deadlines Journaists: Can I have until midnight tonight? Academics: I require an additional 16 months

Metaphor alert.

Can't upload my lecture about societal collapse in a science fictional AI-run city built on a system of generational life debt to the sprawling Canvas site of my uber-capitalistic pro-AI university because Amazon Web Services are suffering a technical failure. (In this essay, I will...)

Falling ever more deeply in love with Benjamin Labutet's When We Cease to Understand (translated by Adrian Nathan West). Yes, it's derivative of Sebald and largely about math. These are bonus points.

This is what I'm lucky to be avoiding.

This semester in my creative writing workshops we are hand annotating and editing printed copes of the stories (plus I type up a letter to hand to each writer in person), so I'm not getting dozens of messages about Blackboard being down due to the AWS outage. Glad I went back to this.

I loved the (small amount of) time I spent in Northern Cypress and the people I met there. Pleased to see a pro-reunification candidate winning.

Unable to convey the large, dense crowd in a single photo, but enjoy the dinosaurs in front of the Ben Tillman statue. Largest crowd so far, lots of clergy in collars and even golf dudes. Columbia, SC. #NoKings

Bringing an octogenarian who made a lot of signs.

I’m writing two novels: one set in 1890s New Orleans and one set in a future New Orleans. Told a friend I needed to pick one and she blew my mind: “Maybe they’re the same book.” Contemplating a merger.

great essay by Timothy Harris on David Jones The Tribune’s Visitation — with reference to the writings of Ernst Jünger

Starting the day with Benjamin Labutet’s When We Cease to Understand the World, translated by Adrian Nathan West, which open with Nazi suicides at the end of WWII. #FridayReads

Today is also #WorldSlothBearDay! “The ursine sloth, or sloth bear. In the gardens of the Zoological Society.” 19th c. colored etching by W. Panorma (1796-1867) after W. Berthoud. Wellcome Collection commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zo...

Very happy to discover that audio of the flash fiction reading I co-curated last fall at UPenn’s Kelly Writers House is now online. Here’s the ~4-minute recording of me reading two micros — “Gathering” & “Ghost Story” media.sas.upenn.edu/writershouse...

New review: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑖𝑥𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑠 by Juvenal (tr. Peter Green (1967)) www.complete-review.com/reviews/lati...

Keeping so many opinions to my self.