It's cool that the world's only remaining superpower is run by guys whose main shared thing is that they are insanely bad at posting and homicidally desperate for a laugh. The Flop Sweat Regime

The thing is, it isn't just on these shitheads to not play Riyadh—now the ethical responsibility shifts to the audience, to not go to their shows or listen to their podcasts, to banish them from polite society

Greatest NFL quote graphic ever made

Feel like writers (like myself) who still care about third person are like that Japanese soldier in the Philippines who continued fighting for 30 years after the war was over

Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a medical bed

Wow look at this email I just received from the New Yorker

me (utterly deranged, writing on bullet casings): I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH FASCISTS

Does Tylenol cause childhood autism? We asked an elderly man dressed as Uncle Sam who drove 2100 miles to attend the Charlie Kirk memorial stadium event.

Starting a Led Zeppelin cover band with a bunch of other mediocre musicians and calling it SOSO

I black out with rage for 3 to 5 seconds every time someone rides by on one of those motorized unicycle things

Don’t yuck my yum (ELO voice)

I wonder if what we’re seeing in punditry isn’t exactly class solidarity but the outlines of a truly heinous group chat

extraordinary performance by leading media figures today in the very new field of inventing a guy to not be mad at

Not to be all JCO but can we stop with the fucking year-round yard skeletons

Sorry, this old saw is really the equivalent of people dismissing SF as dudes having sex with hot alien chicks in space. What popular or award winning--or even just existing--literary fiction books from the last 30 years fit this "trope"?

Feel like this is a strong future contender for one of those viral Worst Of threads

Me (wine tasting) : Hmm, okay. I would say liquidy? Not solid like a brick or piece of metal. Tastes okay. Uh, not very hot. The opposite of hot. But probably wouldn't drink this if I was thirsty. Can't get it out of my clothes and hair and eyes. I think it's paint

Fingies crossed

A jury of my peers? TWELVE murderers?!

Recently noticed that people on Goodreads often now rate on the basis of characters doing bad things/not behaving the way you would hope someone would act irl "Raskolnikov should have just stayed in law school and worked hard. Two stars :("

If a book has a 4.1-4.5 average on Goodreads, it's not bad. If it has a 3.1-3.4, it's actually very good and being dragged down by a bunch of 1 stars from people who can't read. It it has a 4.8-5.0, it is one of the worst books ever written.

This substack post for the University of Austin is so insanely embarrassing that I actually died while reading it and had to be resuscitated and am writing this from an ambulance

The hardest thing to do well as a fiction writer is to find a character's deep truths and push past them to something even deeper. An author needs to know more than their character/narrator, but you also shouldn't withhold character self-knowledge as a cheap source of story

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

One of the most irritating things about the current state of our culture is the way that low/middlebrow nerd taste, despite totally dominating the arts and hoovering up every last available penny from publishing houses and movie studios, must be flattered and told that it is, in fact, High Art

This thread is copebait for tons of people with bad taste who desperately want to believe the MCU will be considered Great Art one day

Lots of people won't read substack for very good reasons (I'm still in the process of getting off of it & just haven't had time, honestly) so... here is a screenshot w/ alt text of my new poem for your reading/sharing pleasure. Each line is taken from a different Dem fundraising email or text.

It's amazing to me how many of my 20 year-old students are bound and determined to keep writing about fictional realms they created when they were 8-10 years old

Name ten things that exist

A lot of mystifying things about the publishing industry become much clearer when you realize that most authors, agents, and editors were/are horrible nerds

it is 2010 and I am listening to arguments about whether social media helps sell books it is 2015 and I am listening to arguments about whether social media helps sell books it is 2020 and I am listening to arguments about whether social media helps sell books it is 2025 and I am listening to argume

whenever I learn an editor is cheering me on from the sidelines, I run out of my house hooting and hollering and banging on a pan

madness, rack, AND honey? in this economy?

They should make a separate Bluesky that's only for good posts

Hey, really good to hear from you! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back, and I'm sorry to tell you that unfortunately, I can't read your novel manuscript. The problem is that I would rather die than do that

Feels like many people's entire political understanding these of days is like at the end of a Scooby Doo episode, where the gang pulls the mask off the bad guy, and it's Capitalism

It's strange how people always regard difficult writing elements as Politically Bad. Plot? It's fascist. Good endings? Sorry, that's capitalist. And conversely, the only elements that aren't politically wrong are things like wispy lyricism—stuff that requires no chops or work. Funny old world

Me two weeks ago: Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, not to protect anyone, but because entering prison as the world's most illustrious pedophile makes that a logical decision. Conspiracy theories make less sense than the stated story. Me now: The Pee Tape was shot on Epstein Island.

I’m just an editor, standing in front of a bunch of writers, begging you to choose literally any other way to describe laughter.

A very underrated writing pleasure is the moment of pure honesty when you admit a thing you've been working on sucks shit, and you start over with a new idea that maybe does not suck shit

happy 5 year anniversary of shredded cheese sad wife to all who celebrate

Yankee Fans welcome Ted Cruz to New York. Proud of my homies!

Dave claims his bread is "killer," and yet on the logo he seems to be playing a C add #5 (muting the low E with his pinky). They should rename it Dave's Jazzy Bread imo

Working on a new novel because I hate myself, and my life/time has no value to me

The level of Dead to Me with people and publications that come out as pro-AI or even AI-curious is not really different than places being antivax or fascist, which is to say totally dead to me

Research and brainstorming are precisely where creativity, insight, and new ideas happen. Structure is what makes meaning! This is so wrongheaded.

This is one of those takedowns of a successful bad writer that is so deliciously brutal it almost makes the bad writer's success feel worth it so we can get the review lol

I would pay a considerable amount of money for some kind of streaming package that eliminated all SAS content