Do you anticipate needing an editor or indexer next year? I'm currently booking for most months in 2026. I work with cookbooks and the academic social sciences and humanities--history, anthropology, gender studies, ethnic studies, polisci/IR, LIS, communications/media studies, religion, etc.

I've heard reports of 2 scholarly presses using AI to index and copyedit books. Both reports from authors who were deeply dissatisfied with the quality of the work. Both authors paid to have the work redone by humans. Authors need to demand human copyeditors and indexers! Their work deserves it.

Schedules slip, but that means I have room this month to index your book! (Or edit your book/articles, but this time of year has a lot of indexing deadlines). You can contact me via my website (rudyleon.com). Let's get your book to press! #academicsky #academia #indexing #editing #publishing

Writers: what's your advice against perfectionism? How have you gotten yourself to just write, write without judgement, get your thoughts and flow and shape onto paper, no editing until it's drafted (mostly)? What advice do you give? (and what advice didn't work at all?) #academicsky #writing

I'm winding up an index on the damages of borders, both physical and existential. I have space for another project before my next arrives (on Golden Gate Park) and space for one more this year after that. Be in touch if you're looking for an indexer or an editor for your work #academicsky #indexing

I just opened a @washingtonpost.com story in my browser and it is riddled with AI interference. That's a hard hell no from me. Is there a good AI blocker out there in the world? I'll be cancelling my subscription, but WaPo isn't the malaprop demanding I allow AI to interact with my data.

I feel like I'm a million years old when I say I believe any time my country decides to pull staff from a country because of its ongoing collapse, this should be front page news. Mali is falling to Al-Qaeda. The US pulled staff out weeks ago. Where was the coverage?? www.bbc.com/news/article...

I've been wondering if the pogroms were a genocide. I realized I don't know why/who. Went searching for a history of the pogroms, but don't see a history of the 40 year period in general, just specific ranges. Can anyone rec a good book on the movement? #academicsky #jewishhistory

My indexing society's directory has glitched, and I have an unusual number of openings for the rest of 2025. If you're in need of indexing for your book before the end of the year, this is a great opportunity! I'm usually overbooked at this point, so get in touch, via rudyleon.com. #academicsky

What do y'all think a "technocratic governing body" might be?

L'Shana Tovah all. May your 5786 be happy and healthy.

I have cancelled all my streaming channels as a way to boycott the actors signed on to the antisemitic pledge (I'll watch media again when the same actors all sign on to end complicity with the Uyghur genocide). Tell me all your favorite books and music and podcasts please.

It is suddenly unarguably fall, and to kick it off, I have an outdoors concert tonight. Can someone remind me what a high of 70 is going to feel like outside for 5 hours, until 11pm? At this point in the year, a tee shirt feels like heavy clothing...

📚Skybrarians! There used to be a database that included transcripts of radio programs and news shows. Along with newspaper articles, I think. Is this still around? What's it called? (I just scanned through a list of databases at UIUC and none of them are ringing my bell for this.) #librarians

I'm looking for a history of early Islam. Like 620-1200 (or whatever a logical breaking point is before the Inquisition/expulsion), earliest expansion and growth. Your recommendations? #academicSky #history #islamichistory

I have just spent an hour #editing one short paragraph. It's not just students who lose the thread in the final section of their writing. Deadlines can be motivating, but they do lead to some bad words on page. (This isn't a comment on this project. It's about the universality of the thing)

The cicadas are so much louder this year than I've ever heard! And *definitely* louder than two years ago when the broods failed to hatch in town.

I will pay real $$ for the longtime free computing tools I use all the time if they would come with ZERO AI. Email. Project Management. Browser. Word Processing. Search tools. Any of it. I am infuriated every time some "upgrade" forces AI down my throat. I want its existence to be opt-in.

Seeking #shortstory recs. So I'm suddenly teaching high-school/college dual enrollment classes: SHORT STORIES and WOMEN'S LIT So let's hear some recs. WHAT WILL TODAY'S TEENS IN SAN JOSE FIND RELATABLE AND ENJOYABLE? Thanks! #booksky #academicsky #literatureclass #recommendedreads #collegelit

My summer has been so incredibly busy and hard, and I've decided to take the last week of August off. I'm so glad inquiries for fall have started appearing, but even more grateful they aren't forcing me to challenge that decision. #AcademicSky, Do you have any editing and indexing needs for Fall

#Edibuddies: I'm wondering if there is a technical term for the error of a word that is actually a typo? Like is instead of if? Fits instead of first? Or the famous public/pubic? @grammargirl.bsky.social Do you know? #Editorsofwords

I've been thinking about intersections of #GratefulDead and #BurningMan communities, and one of the most obvious is both have founding members who were involved with the earliest days of The Well. Creation of community is baked into the origin stories of all three in fascinating ways. #academicsky

FYI. It's all about the 💲💲💲.

I wish substack would declare itself "build your own magazine" and allow you to pick up to X writers you could receive up to X number of articles a month for $8/month. While I love many substackers, no single one of you is a full monthly magazine. And the mass of you are unsustainable.

I am both and academic and an editor, and this is why I am absolutely squeeing with excitement that Chicago 18 is now in Zotero, and has THREE styles: author-date, notes-bib, and **notes without bib**!!! Notes without bibliography is now a style option in Zotero!!! #amediting #academicsky #zotero

Underdiscussed editorial peeve: "like" and "such as" aren't interchangeable. "Like" is used for comparisons "Such as" is used for lists or examples. I feel as though every article I edit misuses these at every opportunity.... #amediting

Buying music...I've defaulted to Spotify/Pandora since my 160G iPod went irreplaceable. Before that, I kept 120-150 CDs in the car. I want aaallll my music with me. Not split between services, or only a tiny subset on my phone. How do all y'all buy music and move it from place to place?

I'm wondering about the (bad) practice of a note for full paragraphs (I call it a stacked note). CMOS 13.31/.61 does not indicate this is how it should be done, but grad students in history seem to use it quite a lot. Which implies faculty in history do too, but I never see it in books. #amediting

I'm now calling predictive large language models what they are and no longer imbuing them falsely with intelligence and impossible expectations by calling them by the wrong titles. Please join my one-person crusade and start using PLLMs when discussing things like Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT.

How are there not a score of songs every decade about the damage and risks and costs and opportunities about being a constantly distracted high-achieving woman, especially a high-achieving middle aged woman?? Is there even one such song?

Friends in the LISverse: I'd like to talk to someone about building me a small searchable database. At this point, a quick conversation to set me up to plan and budget for hiring someone to do the project. Any recommendations welcome! #LIS #Librarywork #GLAM #LibrarySky

I'm excited about the projects I have for the rest of summer--article edits, a dissertation revision, three indexes, and a uni textbook edit on a topic I love. My next long opening is 8/26 (I do have short spots). What do you plan to have ready to hand over to an editor before the semester starts?

I was about to subscribe to @zapier.bsky.social until I realized every single bit of it is infused with AI. Nope. Not gonna happen. I need companies to understand that me/my business (and many many others) don't want that taint. Sell an AI-free version, see your costs drop and your sales rise!

I'm starting to realize that not everyone orients to holidays through food. While I am not celebrating anything tomorrow, I will still need to make and serve corn on the cob, potato salad, melon, and hot dogs (Field Roast). And ice cream. This is just me? Or maybe it's a Jewish thing?

Companies need a tickbox at the start for willingness to provide credit card information for free trials. It would save so much time and aggravation for all.= I will literally never provide credit card info for a free trial. And , I translate the request to mean your company thinks we're suckers.

Cold brew coffee through a straw on a deadline morning after being up too late devouring We Were The Lucky Ones may be as close as I get to intravenous caffeine absorption.

Researchers ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ NIH Will Restore Grants A judge ruled last week that the NIH unlawfully terminated hundreds of research grants and ordered the agency to restore them. Internal rumblings suggest the NIH will comply, but researchers... #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/40t3ZtT

For anyone who knows military terminology: Is there a good gender-neutral alt for "servicemen"? I think "soldier" might work, but I'm not familiar enough with military terminology to know if servicemen includes other staff (like medical), or if soldier in/excludes Marines. #amediting

most transparent(ly evil) administration in history

In eight years as a professional editor, I think I can count one one hand (with fingers left over) the times I have seen "W. E. B. Du Bois" spelled correctly.

I need someone to explain to me why everyone thinks we are now at war with Iran, when no one thought for a second we were at war two weeks ago when we bombed Iranian militants. I mean this time the US didn't bomb people, just facilities. What am I missing?

I want to use duckduckgo, and have had it as default for several years. Starting a few weeks ago though, that duck has waterlogged. It's pure crap anymore. Simply unusable. I give up. Is there a *good* privacy-safe search engine out there? No AI, just good old fashioned web searching protocols?

@medium Please tell me how you know who I am when, by your statement here, I am not logged in? And do tell, why the f&!k are you spying on us?

Halie Soifer in the @nytimes.com: “What we’ve seen these last few months is a shocking pattern of anti-Israel sentiment manifesting itself in antisemitic violence.” Read more:

Whatever marketing guru tells businesses to send daily freaking emails should be forced into a tiny room where they are required to read every single daily marketing email from companies every single day. Once a week is too much. Just stop.

AI for scholarly book acquisitions. I truly wish we'd keep AI out of the fun stuff and train the damn robots to do the dishes and scrub the toilets.

I'm obsessed with my FitBit sleep data. Nights like last, with 6.5 hours of sleep, but only 3 min of Deep. Why? Why only 3 min? Is that why I'm tired? Isn't 1hr 49 of REM enough? If I could get as much time in Deep sleep as I spend worrying about my lack of Deep sleep, I would be so well rested...

It’s not every day I get to index a book about Wolof poetry #amindexing #academicsky

It’s hard to imagine a less usable reader than Adobe Digital Editions. Since I bought this f$cking book though, can anyone tell me how to jailbreak it into some reader with reliably legible text? (Truly. One page has text, the next 20 have random specks. I can only get text directly from TOC)