blergh, I HATE having to ask coz I know it’s super hard for everyone especially around this time of year… but I’m also about to hit negative balances and I don’t get paid til next Friday :/ been a real f’ing hard eight months tbh and I’m sorry everything is so awful ko-fi.com/mercwolfmoor

Great new research for those of us at a certain stage in life: across disciplines, exceptional early-career performance and exceptional late-career performance are unrelated. The things that make you great early don't make you great later. www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...

My short story, "Recognition, Memory" is out in the latest issue of @analogsf.bsky.social! analogsf.com/current-issue/ It's science fiction about technological immortality, brain-printing, and becoming the person everyone expects you to be. In Peter Vanler's case, the person he was before he died.

Psst! If you'd like a gift idea for an SFF fan -- or if you'd like to read a scifantasy that's basically THE WITCHER meets Trinbagonian folklore & Caribbean mythology -- there's a $1.99 Ebook sale now for my book, THE NIGHTWARD! www.harpercollins.com/products/the... www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSXFBWRN

you've been waiting and it's finally HERE!! AFTERLIVES curated by @shereereneethomas.bsky.social ✨🖤💀 get your ebook here! psychopomp.com/product/afte...

New Book Day! Please tell the world. Read a comic about it here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sawyer... Or if you just want to buy it: us.macmillan.com/books/978037... Thanks everyone! It took me over a year to write, but I think you and/or your kid(s) will have many laughs together.

(I mean also a good day to educate yourself about both histories of the holiday, and Lincoln's actual views and actions as regard to slavery and racial equality—but Lincoln can neither vote nor call the cops because he's super dead. We've gotta fix the hearts that are still beating)

Thankfully, later history gives Thanksgiving a second origin story, more worth celebrating than its sordid start: As a day of unity in the battle against white supremacist separatism, exactly as Abraham Lincoln intended when he made it a national holiday.

As a neuroscientist I agree with this 100% - but *also*, there's evidence that language contributes to some specific mental functions: regulation and executive function. Telling yourself a story is one way you shape & organize your brain's operations.

There are situations where SF can communicate science - but to be effective that science must be part of the underlayer. You can improve the audience's understanding at an implicit level. My favorite example: Lab B-15 by Nick Wolven. escapepod.org/2019/08/01/e...

Yooo! Someone You Can Build A Nest In was picked as a Kindle Gold Box Deal! For today only, get it for just $4.99. A shapeshifting monster *accidentally* falls in love with the woman who's hunting her. We've all been there, right?

It's been a long time since I sent out my Callosal Bridge newsletter, but I have enough writing news to be worth sharing! Out tonight with 1 new publication, 2 sales, & instructions for how to get a free best-of-the-year anthology. eepurl.com/bTeJIv

Eeee somehow I missed this, you too can join me in belated excitement over this shiny cover and awesome anthology - and a way to get it free when it comes out this month!

The Sunday Morning Transport treks through the cold today with a story from Benjamin C. Kinney (@benjaminckinney.com) about hard situations and harder choices, making its internet debut! As the first story of the month, it's free for everyone to read! www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/here-at-th...

Do you like science fiction with search-and-rescue teams doing triage in cold alien woods full of metal wolves? You should! @morningtransport.bsky.social is giving "Here at the Freezing End" its first online publication (originally at @analogsf.bsky.social), free to read!

If you missed it in @analogsf.bsky.social, @benjaminckinney.com's enjoyably grim "Here at the Freezing End" reappears this month in @morningtransport.bsky.social www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/here-at-th... #playlist

Change one(ish) letter, ruin a candy Nepo Wafers

Writers, help me track down a classic (to me) example of character voice? A hardboiled/noir novel with a line like "He drew a gun. I took it." Showing a POV so inured to violence that an entire fight contains nothing worth remembering. Anyone know the source? If there even is one?

Our website is up and running: roguestarmag.com

Loam, iron, and a blue-green algae smoothie.

New neuroscience short story forthcoming in @analogsf.bsky.social! Which also means a story of - ultimately successful - negotiations with their new publisher. Includes full final text of my contract for all to use while they finish rewriting their boilerplate. benjaminckinney.com/analog-negot...

New neuroscience short story forthcoming in @analogsf.bsky.social! Which also means a story of - ultimately successful - negotiations with their new publisher. Includes full final text of my contract for all to use while they finish rewriting their boilerplate. benjaminckinney.com/analog-negot...

p = 0.051

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

Very excited to offer the internet this novelette about dirtbags, privatization, heavy weather, and a beagle named Henry.

To cite a really simple example — I think I first heard this one from @lydy.bsky.social — it’s obviously useful to any band of humans to have a few members who can’t sleep at night or stay awake during the day.

If you're not a supporter of Escape Pod and you're looking to be, lock in your subscription before October 1st, lest you hear the ads crackling against the cosmic microwave background. More details here! www.patreon.com/posts/lock-i...

i challenge you to find cooler news today than “despite all odds against American scientific research rn, a CO researcher developed a temperature-stable, single dose rabies vaccine that works bc of particles coated in CANDY & SAPPHIRE, & it could help reduce rabies deaths in places w/o electricity”

Subtly downgrade a band: A 1975.

IT IS A NATIONAL DAY OF POKEY!!!

… and then you delete that sentence because it’s not really serving the story, actually

Had fun today setting @inkfoundry.bsky.social as a hub to find my stories - including some previously unavailable online! I could describe "For Every Bee a Hive," "A Living Planet," "The Successors" & more - but Inkfoundry's tagging system does the job so well 😎 inkfoundry.net/writer/benja...

Had fun today setting @inkfoundry.bsky.social as a hub to find my stories - including some previously unavailable online! I could describe "For Every Bee a Hive," "A Living Planet," "The Successors" & more - but Inkfoundry's tagging system does the job so well 😎 inkfoundry.net/writer/benja...

Unveiling the cover for THE DRAGON HAS SOME COMPLAINTS! Garrodigh is a curmudgeonly three-headed dragon who pretends to be tame so he can eat for free at the local dragon-riding academy. Unfortunately, the rider he's assigned to is... a lot. Coming Summer 2026 from DAW (US) and Arcadia (UK)!

Every time there’s litfic vs genre discourse I remember that writing was invented by Sumerians to track beer inventory and I head to the fridge.

‘Litfic is just sad academics.’ Is ‘all science fiction is ray guns and Doctor Who’ in a hat. It’s the weapon of the enemy. And the enemy isn’t litfic, it’s a cultural space that’s conditioned creatives to hate each other for centuries.

On the one hand, good, and I sure hope that I get my money owed, and that we all do. On the other hand, if anyone had actually, you know, ASKED ME whether they could use any of my books in this way, I would not have said "yes you can do it for $3,000." You know, for the record.

There are also annotated model contracts on SFWA 's website explaining various clauses, and as DP says, many established writers will tell you what they think of a contract term. My former students know I have an open door if any of them ever have contract questions.

I'm very happy to be one of this year's Guests of Honour, alongside Sheree Renée Thomas, Anna Martino, and Trick Weeks! Flights of Foundry is free, online, and a good time. You should totally come

ICYMI: (This time with the correct release date!) Weston Wei's delightful cover for my novel The Subtle Art of Folding Space, animated! Repairing physics that has gone awry! Delicious food! Choices no one should ever have to make! Release date: 4/7/2026

Our little Merlin was hit by an SUV this past weekend and spent a few days in critical care. He's home now, but has a long recovery ahead. We plan on paying for part of it, but any help would be greatly appreciated. www.gofundme.com/f/help-merli... #gofundme

To be fair, if I was named "Dill Pickle," I too would lounge around with two nametags.

Who could've foretold that the part of the Minnesota State Fair we'd spend most time in was the parking lot? 90 minutes of family friendly/miserable entertainment! 🙃

Sharing my own fiction this Labour Day: "Deepster Punks", my story about workers sticking together and falling apart, first appeared in the the anthology A PUNK ROCK FUTURE and was later reprinted in Escape Pod, narrated S. Kay Nash. escapepod.org/2020/11/26/e...

Hey friends! I'd like to update my post (collecting 2nd POV short fiction) here, since it's been, uh, a few years since I made it! Could you link/recommend #stories in second person POV (any genre, though the focus is #SFFH), especially if available online? Cheers! medium.com/@Merc_Wolfmo...

That feeling that you're behind on your work and haven't gotten enough done? That's a personality trait. No amount of extra work will make it go away.

Focus your dissertation on your second favorite research topic. Because whatever your dissertation is on, you'll get burned out on it by the end. Which is a lie (albeit a revealing one). Dive in and burn out on your favorite topic! You'll find new favorites.

Stories that were the Best of the Best It was hard enough each year choosing the best stories from that year. It was much harder narrowing the field to the very best of the best of Metaphorosis. Here are the 20 stories I felt most closely matched my initial ideal for the magazine. “Heard” — Elise…