The included story is from Ruby’s collection THIS PARADISE which is all bangers. One of the best short story collections I’ve read in years. Available from @boilerhouse.bsky.social!

My spine is tingling as a short from my @boilerhouse.bsky.social collection is in Ghost Box IV: a deluxe coffin of spooky/horror stories from Canadian publishers of gorgeous box sets Hingston & Olsen w/ texts selected by excellent human @pattonoswalt.bsky.social 🙏 Out today, print run very limited!

Why do people think creativity is like turning on a light and BANG, you have something new, interesting and able to be sold? I try to explain this to my beloved wife: “Every meaningful act of creativity is the sum of thousands of quiet decisions, risks, revisions, and mostly failures.”

There Is No Meant to Be" is available for preorder! My publisher promised that if I have 250 preorders that I get a case of prosecco left over from last year's Christmas party. 500 preorders before March & they'll go halfsies on a vintage George Foreman! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/ther...

For when people tell you 'oh but AI's great for coding!' secondthoughts.ai/p/ai-coding-...

Overhyped uplit in turns out to have all been lies shocker

The Short Story - Experiments In The Not Normal with the beyond brilliant @rubycowling.bsky.social is now available for booking! Saturday, 5th July 2 – 5pm Cost £49 Two reduced price spaces available for those on a low income. More info & booking: www.hastingswritersworkshop.com/courses/p/th...

I'm very much looking forward to this workshop in Hastings on 5 July for @hastingswrites.bsky.social - might you come along? Bring your abnormality!

Politicians During Mental Health Awareness Month

Here to report the first two swifts 🐧🐧

In addition to tutoring their Writing Short Fiction course, I’m giving 2 workshops for @grantabooks.bsky.social Writers’ Workshop on translation + writing about art Translating Literature for Beginners tixoom.app/pwalecturer/... Writing Creatively About Art tixoom.app/pwalecturer/...

Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, London - in spring r/brutalism

I suspected I'd love this, so pre-ordered. I was right. So good. Nice one Claire Baglin, Jordan Stump and @dauntbookspub.bsky.social

Aaaaand we just hit 2,000 followers on Bluesky! 🫶 Help spread the word to fellow writers!

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING??

I was at USIP tonight to conduct congressional oversight over DOGE’s break in. I spoke with Acting President & CEO Moose. USIP is an independent, non-profit entity and I will work to stop DOGE’s illegal power grab.

Once again I am fruitlessly and pitifully calling for us (England) to boycott the men's World Cup finals. We never have (Russia?! Qatar?!) and we never will but I have to make my small squeak into the dark. (Yep still on about the football, sorry)

Might've missed something but I think that's the first-ever set of Premier League fixtures (i.e. a weekend or long weekend when all teams play) in which no goals were scored before the 30-minute mark.

We need to stop lumping together technologies, none of which are actually intelligent, under the name "AI". Machine Learning can be useful when properly trained. GANs and LLMs are just bullshit-creating plagiarism machines.

Discuss & explore a range of approaches & practical tasks. Some reading before the sessions & a reading list provided at the end. £110 (max. 12 participants, min. 6 participants) or £135 to also have a 1hr feedback meeting over zoom on up to 3,000 words. jenniferannecalleja [at] gmail [dot] com

Recommendations? Great retreat for writing - with food - ideally in UK? (no teaching, just quiet space to write)

Who's heading to the @edgehillprize.bsky.social do this Thursday? 👀

Dear #BookSky can you help us find our lost audience? We left 140,00 people behind on X and we want to reconnect!

Hello, all. Because of the entry system screw up last night and we're a little low on entries, we'll reopen for 24 hours as soon as we can make it happen on Monday morning, so you have the weekend to get your entry ready, and we'll announce Monday when we're open! Share?! bssp.blogs.bristol.ac.uk

The light is on for Ian Critchley! 💡 @iancritchley.bsky.social! Ian's "Hillman's Imp" is a gorgeously eerie story where the past definitely comes back to haunt. Sink into this short story right now!

The good news is that next week sees the return of A Personal Anthology - the weekly mailout in which a guest writer, critic of otherwise well-read person picks and introduces a dozen favourite short stories. Sign up here to get it in your inbox next Friday: apersonalanthology.substack.com/about

My first ever non-zero PLR statement - six years after publication 👀

Darwiiiiiiiin!

Having a whole year above 1.5C of warming means we need to work *much harder* to reduce climate pollution and adapt to inevitable impacts…not give up or say it’s too late to act.

Watched Juror #2. Terrible.

🕊️

What are we DOING here? We're just meant to sit and act like this insane plagiarism and climate threat that requires more money than anything has ever cost is worth it? Are we meant to pretend that ChatGPT is worth this aimless, meaningless destruction of capital and our environment? For what?

Never in my life have I seen a technology that creates such anguish and anger in people as generative AI. I have never seen a technology revolt people like this. The tech industry is playing with fire. People are angry, they hate this, they hate the tech industry for doing this.

🎅Ho ho hi! ‼️We won’t be processing orders placed between December 20th and January 2nd as this is our closure period. Our social media accounts will also not be monitored during this time. We hope you have a restful holiday! Thank you to those who've supported us this year.

Aaaooowww (that is a wolf howl, for some reason; I'm just going with it) after a hiatus, my book is back in stock at www.boilerhouse.press/product-page... Too late for Christmas but wouldn't you be pleased to get a little package in the new year? What with all the bleak? £10. Just saying

Another box of books returned from Ireland due to Brexit Bolleaux. So @teamlabouruk.bsky.social what are you doing to help small businesses trade with our European partners? Because at the moment it is absolutely killing @thebookseller.bsky.social @lisanandymp.bsky.social

This was good

It’s my birthday - once again I am offering to read / give notes / edits on 5 short stories (one per person) No payment to me - but a £40 donation to Laburnum Boatclub DM me if you are interested www.laburnumboatclub.com

New Florida Law Requires All Women To Produce 3 Healthy White Sons By 22nd Birthday theonion.com/new-florida-...

Have just read a long and reasoned blog post in which the writer calls the novel-in-stories a "nonsensical genre" and my rage at this is at an irrational level

In @britishlibrary.bsky.social shop! Basically the Magna Carter, if the Magna Carta were a torrid tale of young love, adult suffering, dark academia, coercion queerness power motherhood and Greek Tragedy. #Wife

I just want to see ONE realistic protest/demo/picket line in a TV drama. So embarrassing when the signs have obviously been made in the same studio on the same day with the same materials. Protestors bouncing their signs up & down and shouting *constantly* at nobody. Can you imagine how exhausting

Quoting for public service. *Please* be wary of this grift pattern: -assert obvious opinion on Bad Thing -get validation/RTs -claim behind-scenes activity against Bad Thing while subtly mentioning own struggles -channel fundraising -attract "here's a bit for you, such a good egg" donations

Getting people to rent out music for an ongoing monthly fee that returns basically fuck all for the actual musicians. Streaming is the greatest swindle since the privatisation of public utilities. What a world.

Readers (both of them?) who've read my novel THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY will know how much the remnant heaths of Surrey mean to me. They could become a home to beavers & other rare beasts - if the Surrey Wildlife Trust can raise £100k by Christmas. Please chip in if you can.

I know we are all busy, but let’s stop making ghosting acceptable in professional settings. Reply to other professionals, whose time is just as important as yours, ok? My nan used to say that ‘manners maketh the man,’ and certainly being polite is just much more pleasant and human.

HOWS YOUR BOOK GOING?! HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED WRITING SOMETHING PEOPLE READ? Good luck in the trenches out there today. And remember, all you have to do is self publish a bestseller that becomes a movie and write the newspaper about it

As various notorious Twitter grifters arrive saying what a relief it is to be here among such nice people, may I respectfully repeat that the enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend. Especially if they post personal/emotional stuff and you start feeling the urge to give them money. Sorry

Going to open up submissions for Short Story, Long in December. Have a longer (~3k-8k words) story you think I'd like. Get it ready to send my way! ashortstorylong.substack.com

Scaling up to $250bn a year by 2035 is NOT $1.3trn or even the $500bn lowball estimate of initial needs by some LDCs. However, even Mary Robinson of The Elders has recommended acceptance rather than delaying until Trump is in power.