out on the road today, I saw a Yang Gang sticker on a cybertruck

If you're in the Haddonfield, NJ area, Inkwood Books will be having a Pride Month Reading and Open Mic on June 13th at 7pm EDT with @livesinpages.bsky.social, Kathy Anderson, and Heather Bowlan! buff.ly/SqdCq5E Treat yourself to I'M NOT HUNGRY BUT I COULD EAT: buff.ly/I7fSjYo

Missed this before the reading last week but I pulled together some short excerpts from ALIENS ATTACK for the @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social. I guess this is what I think it might be like to realize you're at the end of the world?https://pghrev.com/dave-housley-at-hemingways/

sniveling weak-jawed scheming little creeps who have no muscle definition despite abusing steroids, and who spend all day whining on the computer about how soda commercials are too woke these days, the ultimate model of manhood

I'm reading an early Colson Whitehead novel that I got from the library and in which someone has made extensive notes in pencil. Every time racism occurs or is mentioned, this poor innocent reader has left a large double exclamation in the margin

everyone correctly mad at this, but this is the funniest bit to me. Imagining all these middle grade books that could be just filled with detailed discussions of a Travis Kelce taunting penalty, and they're stealing them from us

Thanks to @jhiggy.bsky.social for including MAN OVERBOARD! on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's list of 38 New Books for Summer Reading! www.jsonline.com/story/entert...

Saving myself the trouble of looking for parking by creating a situation in which I have to double park and pry up a minimum of 12 nails from the asphalt every evening

canonically Grogu is from Port Richmond

really sucks, man bsky.app/profile/the-...

full guidelines for Barrelhouse NF subs below. We'll be open till 6/28 or 500 subs, whichever comes first

They’re real and they’re spectacular. (And available for preorder!)

a lot of social media behavior reads as extra credit for a class that doesn't exist

Hey Morgantown, Pittsburgh, and Columbus friends, @aaronburch.bsky.social and I are doing a little tour June 10, 11, 12. Here's a great little flyer for Pittsburgh on June 10 at Stay Gold Books! Hope to see you good weirdos there. More soon.

Vanity plates are good again

After we moved to our first house in NJ, our neighbor, who was a contractor & a big drinker, invited us over. He offered me a beer. In the fridge: two 30 packs of Busch, and one bottle of Molson, which he called "import beer." I picked the Busch, and he lit up like: oh, this guy is gonna be okay

I read this, curious if it tries to say anything interesting at all. It's basically a low-stakes blog post about getting older, would be perfectly fine as a lighthearted substack post, but it's instead featured by The Atlantic and framed as a class critique

I restarted my Substack IN THE ABSENCE OF, mostly about writing craft. The first one is about how to not be made obsolete by Claude open.substack.com/pub/intheabs...

Ahead of our next episode, we sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter to ask 3 writers about truth in memoir: @tmcallister.bsky.social, author of "Bury Me in My Jersey"; @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social, author of "Live Nude Girl"; and Meredith Clark, author of "Lyrebird." www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXnZ...

was not at all prepared for the logo on the plumbing truck that just drove past my house

Issue 58 of @storyquarterly.bsky.social is live today! It's the final issue under Paul Lisicky's leadership, and I am very excited to dig into it. Also: starting with Issue 59 I'm taking over as the Editor of SQ, a role I'm very excited about. More on that soon. www.storyquarterly.org

Issue 58 of @storyquarterly.bsky.social is live today! It's the final issue under Paul Lisicky's leadership, and I am very excited to dig into it. Also: starting with Issue 59 I'm taking over as the Editor of SQ, a role I'm very excited about. More on that soon. www.storyquarterly.org

#bookcover #coverart

I think in the long run it's probably good that we're finally moving back to thinking of comedians as silly dumbasses instead of being courageous, all-seeing oracles or whatever

Sorry for being sincere here, but this kind of infantilizing stuff (from Lorenz) is rampant, and treats young people as completely helpless, and as a professor I have found students consistently respond well to being met w/ high expectations, and held to real standards vs. being babied...

asking Grok to evaluate whether Claude is right about this, and then cross-referencing the answer with Gemini and co-pilot, and then just sitting here with my mouth wide open for the remainder of the day in hopes that some pre-chewed food lands in it somehow

I like when the broadcast shows any Knicks fan in the lower bowl like "here's a real New Yorker" and you know anyone who can afford those seats is wealthy enough to have strong opinions about the declining quality of service on yachts these days

now, in my mid-40s, very seriously considering reinventing myself as a guy who sits like this

Denvis

Thunder should simply block Wemby's shot every time he puts it up

Over at the Next Best Book Blog I answered some fun questions about ALIENS ATTACK!, hippies, Bowie songs, and how writing funny is so difficult! thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-...

Hi, friends. Some news! My debut chapbook, “Ghost in the Rain,” is out now from Bottlecap Press! It’s got 12 micro & flash stories: lost ghosts, immortal siblings & haunted lovers. I poured years of my heart into this book. So proud & thrilled to see it in the world! bottlecap.press/products/gho...

hereby alerting The New Yorker that I've decided they do not have permission to publish my story

Stan Van Gundy: "Tobias Harris, one of my favorite players in the league." Drag this man off to an asylum, criminally insane comment

Touching tribute by the Pistons offense to the 04 championship squad

Guy with visible stink lines: the birth rate,

Big drama in town lately because there are too many geese. Some people are blaming it on the governor. One woman keeps talking about "gassing" the geese, asking if there's a safe way to do it. Others volunteering to load the geese in their cars and drive them to a different neighborhood

tfw you’ve been partying with REO Speedwagon

You will live a much richer and happier life if you embrace the idea that people are not just pretending to have different tastes than you out of spite

Stanley Elkin, from "A Poetics for Bullies"

A seductive lie a lot of people on here tell themselves is that "everyone hates" AI. I don't like it, you don't like it, but like 70% of the people I interact with irl are using LLMs and/or AI art tools on a daily basis.

Discovering there's a tier below "As Seen on TV"

Have accidentally convinced Instagram to exclusively serve me ads for bad self published books

Can't believe I'm already too late to get in on all the good jokes on the gorilla trade

I talked with Rosa Lyster about literary agents for THE PARIS REVIEW.

Since Bluesky is the Philly Sports App™, here's Ukee Washington and Lou Tilley singing in a Channel 3 commercial from the 80s. Michael Barkann is somewhere in this, too.

Nobody has to form an opinion about a celebrity roast. They can't make you do that

Deep Vellum will be partnering with the Texas Book Festival to launch a new publishing imprint! This June, we will be seeking submissions from debut literary authors with deep Texas ties. Details below!