“All authors are using AI now” Not true! A lot of us use ADHD and anxiety!!

Fucker Has Nerve To Be 22 Years Old

Watching Artemis II with the spouse and FIL (and, briefly, a kid). Only one of us existed the last time there was a moon mission.

I have reloaded the Submission Grinder page to cycle through alternate titles, so my April Fool's observance has begun and ended.

jfc stop texting me, Josh Shapiro

Countdown to Philly stealing all the robot security dogs off the street to start a robot dogfighting ring.

Things I enjoyed in 2026 (Part 1) Short Stories "Why one small American town won't stop stoning its residents to death" by Charlotte Stant (2025): On-point Shirley Jackson fanfic. Novellas The Carrying Capacity of Paradise by Deborah L. Davitt (2025): If you told me before reading that I would…

Feeling cranky today There are sixty gazillion more important things in the world, but I’m bummed that several of the folks running for office in SFWA voted in favor of AI slop last October (they reversed course in December after they finally made their position public and the internet fell on…

Reminder: if anybody starts spewing crap about how disabled writers need AI/LLMs, at least one of the following applies: 1. They fucking hate disabled people. 2. They are clueless about writing prior to 2022, often done by disabled people. 3. They are shills. 4. They are 3 GPTs in a trenchcoat.

Knowing who to be mad at is praxis.

5 years ago!

I think I may have hit "accept all" on a short story or two, when the edits (EVERY ONE OF WHICH I CHECKED) were something like comma changes or Britification of spelling. Can't imagine being able to do it on anything longer than a few pages.

I don't "feel" my work has been stolen. I know it. This kind of language use by the NYT is part of the problem. Framing it as some kind of emotional woo woo instead of a clear copyright breach...

The "everything is oil" part of the coming global disruption hasn't sunk in for people yet. The price of gasoline in your car will be one of the smallest effects.

Today what I would usually say about "hey people's place of business is not a place for you to cause chaos, people are just trying to work, you hooligans" has been replaced by "lol I mean fuck target tho"

Hey, Nebula finalists! Congratulations, everybody!

there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for

I know it's only March, but I believe that "sloppelganger" is 2026 Word of the Year

It is really hard to overstate how much damage has been done to this country on a purely institutional level, and we have three more years of this shit.

MANDATORY TIMELINE CLEANSE

Yesterday's #bookmail! My contributor copy of Animal Noir. Available from an ever-increasing number of vendors. Meet my hedgehog socialite with a secret. 🦔 books2read.com/animalnoir

This Friday at 7pm at Bold Coffee & Books in Portland, I’ll be reading about my royal silkie chicken! Come here me and other awesome authors like @meganleebees.bsky.social and @shedric.bsky.social

the two phases of writing: (1) writing and (2) wandering aimlessly like an unmoored ghost and complaining about not writing

I used Overdrive for the first time in the 5+ years I've had my Kobo. First use: smooth as silk. Picking up this hold: significantly more typing required. But I want to get in the habit of using the library more.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do currently have a story in the queue of a publisher that is making heavy use of AI, despite claims to the contrary. Plenty of other red flags, too. I am under no illusion they will ever actually publish anything (note: this is why reversion clauses matter!) 1/4

Accepting AI-written work is a hard line for me. AI art and editing are tougher to police as a submitting writer. It's not necessarily mentioned in contracts (though that's starting to change) so to a great extent you need to look at the market's track record, public statements, and general vibes.

International Women’s Day A book bundle featuring work by and about women (inclusively defined). Running from March 2–10, $32 for 32 books (including "The Relative Positions of Dead Things in the Dark").

SFWA folks, it's the last day to submit Nebula ballots. Mine is hurried and incomplete but in. (The reading list and ballot are a hot mess but I appreciate all the volunteers wrangling code and duct tape.)

I know endless wars (legally declared or otherwise) against non-white people are part of this country's entire post-WWII identity but that does not make it any less gut-wrenchingly infuriating each time it happens.

I loved in 2025 (for awards) STORIES “Through the Machine” @cornellwriter.bsky.social “Different Flames” @bethcato.bsky.social “The Mermaid Who Declined…” @aphowell.com “The Midwife in the Palace of the Forest King” @jelenawrites.bsky.social “The Cold Burning Light of Her” @swpisciotta.bsky.social

The star of my little story in Animal Noir, Ian.

PC who doesn't trip PC who can talk to people PC who speaks multiple languages PC who can open any jar without assistance

I'm constantly trying (/failing) to get this point across. If you're a trained expert in a field, then it may be worthwhile to question the scientific consensus of your peers. If you're not, the scientific consensus is absolutely the best you can do and it's arbitrary foolishness to disregard it.

Before publishing with initials, I probably should have considered potential formatting woes. (And also the fact that MS Word interprets my byline as the beginning of an outline. Perhaps that is the word processor's snide comment on my Process, or lack thereof.) 1/4

“Femme Prédatrice” Today is the official release day for Animal Noir, the anthology that includes "Femme Prédatrice" alongside other stories of anthropomorphic animals behaving badly. You can order it from the publisher or your usual source for ebooks or paperbacks. Cover art by Elizabeth…

That's a brilliant phrase-- (touches earpiece) Wait, we're getting an update.

As the guy who wrote the book on zoning abolition, I'd like to go on record as saying: if you can use zoning to stop the concentration camps, fucking go for it.

Reminder that this is happening tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

Hi! If you see a publisher publishing with a Creative Commons license it is VERY important to find out WHICH CC license. CC is a great way to standardize rights terminology! But keep in mind theres some variations that you might choose to never permit for your work.

It's my birthday week and I have some exciting new releases to talk about. Last week saw the release of NAT20 Magazine from Demagogue Press, featuring my story "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" and tomorrow, 2/24, will see the release of Animal Noir, an anthology of anthropomorphic noir mysteries.

This is truly a kind, nuanced, and insightful column.

The problem with a lot of white people's understanding of racism is they think intention, particularly malicious intention, is a necessary condition and it isnt.

Initial results of the SFWA survey on AI are in. Surprise! Authors hate it.

Sometimes the world is good. (See downthread for the Friendship and Fatality in their routine. Yes, they apparently did both.)

Today is the 3rd slopiversary of us having to temporarily close submissions. The problem of "AI"-generated submissions hasn't gone away and is still a huge waste of our time. House policy remains the same: #noAI stories, translation, art, or anything else.

...and there's a great example of "purity"="strawman" in yesterday's blog post by Cory Doctorow. (tl;dr POSSE is too hard unless you edit your work with your LLM first and anyone who disagrees must not be vaxxing because Watson was a racist. And also AI isn't a *bad* bubble like crypto.)

For those of you who grew up after 9/11, we got along just fine without a Department of Homeland Security for 212 years. The DHS was formed to try to prevent future terror attacks — now, it is orchestrating them.

Animal Noir The anthology Animal Noir is available for presale. (At least as an ebook. Print vendors can be weird.) It's full of noir stories featuring anthropomorphic characters, edited by Elizabeth Mitchell, published by Little Key Press. Meet my prickly hedgehog socialite and damaged mongoose…

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

Get a pile of friendship-oriented ebooks on sale. Still going on, from now til Half-Priced Chocolate Day! itch.io/b/3486/frien...