I continue to be fascinated by the phenomenon whereby an expert engages with any of the LLMs on their field of expertise and is instantly horrified by the wrong answers, and then goes on to use it for things they are not experts in as though it won’t be just as bad for those.

So, wow, nearly 13 years after publication HILD is finally reviewed in @nytimes.com. Thank you, Sadie Stein! (It seems to be one of those days 🤩)

Newly released: the latest critical companion in our series "Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon," this time Graham J. Murphy on Marvel's Squadron Supreme: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Why are we restructuring the entire world around this technology, again?

I missed that the latest book in the series of critical companions I edit for Palgrave has already reached print, Joseph Rex Young on George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones: link.springer.com/book/10.1007... . Feel free to pitch us on a potential project if you'd like to write one of your own!

I'm really thrilled to share an article that I co-wrote with one of my students, Arwen Paredes: "The First Queer Unicorn?: Reading Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn as Trans Narrative." www.mdpi.com/2410-9789/6/...

EXTRAPOLATION seeks a reviewer for Mayurika Chakravorty’s FANTASY AND THE POLITICS OF SUBVERSION: SPECULATIVE WRITING IN COLONIAL INDIA. Please send queries to [email protected]. www.bloomsbury.com/us/fantasy-a... @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social (2026)

A bio of Charles R. Saunders, an important but sadly too often forgotten Black writer of sword and sorcery fantasy (which he called sword and soul), early critic of racism in fantasy, and journalist is coming out in January. The author, Jon Tattrie, will be on @mealofthorns.bsky.social, too!

So delighted to learn that my middle schooler's English teacher has started using ChatGPT to grade writing assignments. She received a near failing grade based in part on a diagnosis of specific grammatical errors that were not in fact in the assignment.

Here's a new one from graduate school recommendation systems: rating the "Clarity of career goals" of the applicant, and on a percentile basis. How do you distinguish applicants of the top 2% versus top 5% career goal clarity?

New issue of Science Fiction Film and Television ⬇️⬇️⬇️ liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/sfftv/18/3

Quick reminder that, not only is Christmas around the corner, the deadline for this year's Peter Nicholls Essay Prize is only six weeks away - 11 January. call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/06/...

Surreal experience: a quarter century or so after I'd always be asking my parents to buy me more Magic: The Gathering cards all the time, here I am saying "No, I'm not buying you more Magic: The Gathering cards" to my own twelve-year-old...

Somehow back down in the unicorn hole once again

Proud to be sponsoring this event next summer.

I have no idea what governs the price changes for my books even though I now co-edit the series they're published in, but for whatever reason the Beagle book is sitting at a much more affordable price at the moment: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Very disturbing to see that Grammarly itself now offers an "AI Humanizer" as one of its core services. Our university provides Grammarly subscriptions to students...

"Anyone with perfect posture was faking it, overcompensating for entrenched trauma."

Did kids these days still know about CliffsNotes? When I say "It's like the Cliffsnotes version of X," should I be saying something like "It's like the AI summary version of X"?

This is such a huge problem: I'm googling a quotation to find a page number, and the AI overview confidently produces total nonsense that would mislead students and others. (This is of course a quotation from noted Jung distiller China Miéville speaking to the subject of "Marxism and Fantasy.")

It was possibly a mistake to assign the entire Tales of Nevèrÿon, because now I just want to spend the entire semester talking about the series.

What is going on in the world?

I would give a copy of this book to everyone in my neighborhood but I think they already hate us enough: www.bloomsbury.com/us/lawn-9798...

A new experience: an undergraduate sending me a request for an article I never wrote based off a fake AI citation.

Beautiful new medieval-themed issue of our UoM undergrad English Literature journal, with a foreword by me (doing my best to explain why medieval literature is worth studying): www.polyphonyjournal.com

After the brutal reality of dealing with student papers in the ChatGPT era finally hit me, here are a few tactics that I've found at least somewhat effective in getting students to do their own writing: 🧵

Classes are done: we're closing so many browser tabs today.

The latest issue of EXTRAPOLATION has a bunch of great reviews, including my review of Matthew Sanger's AN INTRODUCTION TO FANTASY. Check it out (or, if you don't have access, DM me for a copy!). www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

Can it be true that the audiobook of @alexpheby.bsky.social 's Mordew doesn't include the glossary? Unconscionable! I almost want to write a journal article on the glossary by itself.

Thanks to our contributors @grmorgan.bsky.social @timothysmiller.bsky.social @dretaylorpirie.bsky.social @nomad93.bsky.social @larsschmeink.bsky.social and many others. You can see the full table of contents here: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edi...

You have two weeks left to nominate books for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! Nominations close March 31st. Which books will join those shortlisted the last three years? (Yes, we fit them all in this picture.) www.ursulakleguin.com/prize-nomina...

"...it was less that they were two separate people and more that they were a single person with two different ways of being in the world, each of which both knew."

As a consequence of my desire to avoid doomscrolling lately, I feel I've only really been using this site when I'm self-promoting. So, to counter that trend, here is an out-of-context passage from a novel, which is how I used to post in the good old days of social media...

My Chaucer course just had a lovely visit with author Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com. What better way to talk about interactive fiction than interacting with the author?

I don't really know why (and when) my Wizard of Earthsea book sometimes costs much less, but the ebook version appears to be only $16.99 right now: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Very excited to be part of the launch issue of the new journal UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies, with an article on her 1980 novel The Beginning Place: scholarworks.uni.edu/ukl/vol1/iss...

/postmedieval/ is launching a new mentorship programme to facilitate publication for scholars whose first language is not English. 👇 find all the details here 👇 sites.google.com/view/postmed...

New publication: "Speculative Fiction and the Contemporary Novel" in The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants: www.cambridge.org/core/books/a....

That time in the semester when you have a to-do list with the item "make a real to-do list" on it.

You have to admire just the complete confidence of large language models in themselves.

I think I'm teaching Chaucer's Merchant's Tale for the first time since having seen The VVitch, and now I can't help but visualize the character who determines to "live ful deliciously" as follows:

Found a certificate declaring me the Papa John's Pizza Student of the Month, January 1999. Should I put this honor on my CV for the tenure file? They tell you to include everything, after all...

"As part of the order, the use of pronouns will be forbidden across the defence department." 🤔

Does anyone know why the Middle English Dictionary website has been spotty lately?

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As promised, my essay on Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. It's a long one and was great fun to write, not to mention thoroughly energizing. And it's got me really excited to take a closer look at the rest of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Huge shout out to @timothysmiller.bsky.social.

I still cannot fathom why search engines have intentionally ruined their product like this.

Just a reminder that the deadline for submissions for the 2025 ASLE Book Awards in Ecocriticism and Creative Writing is fast approaching! #envhum Get your books in by January 17, full information on criteria and how to submit is at www.asle.org/stay-informe...

The thing my past self would be most disappointed to learn about my future self is how often I allow library books to become extremely overdue.