Michimaru-kun, a dog who’s obsessed with road safety and carries a car purse, is the mascot for the Central Nippon Expressway Company (NEXCO Central).
Jean Schwab
@jeanschwab.bsky.social
Avid reader, aspiring writer, excellent knitter, okay crocheter. Writing center person. I'm the kind of person who reads about book design for fun.
NEW ESSAY on last week's deluge of Dems embracing anti-trans positions. let's stop fixating on trans ppl & instead recognize that Dems have a cisgender problem. pls share! Medium (friend link): juliaserano.medium.com/on-democrats... & Substack (no paywall): juliaserano.substack.com/p/on-democra...
On Democrats Who Cave in Response to Anti-Trans Attack Ads
and more importantly: a response to all the cis people responding to the way that trans people are responding to said Democrats’ responses
juliaserano.medium.com
I came within a few hours of dying last Thanksgiving. It’s taken these last eleven months to get back to writing. The previous project, the Neon Church, was both 1) undiscoverable and 2) a reminder of what was different before the blood clot almost killed me.
You spend time with your kids because you love them and it’s fun
Dive into our October reading list with An Impossibility of Crows by Kirsten Kaschock! A Frankenstein retelling centered around a mother's mission to make a monstrous crow for her daughter, where her experimentations don't go quite as she planned. 1/2
Oh my: LibreOffice just made "no AI" one of their official features: blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/09...
Yes, no AI is now a feature - TDF Community Blog
One of the comments on the announcement of LibreOffice 26.8 was a simple question: “So, no AI is now a feature?” LibreOffice does not reject artificial intelligence out of hand, but an office suite us...
blog.documentfoundation.org
***NEW EPISODE!!!*** Sam Field and Tiffanie Drayton talk with @mcrane12.bsky.social, author of Perverts, about challenging the concept of perversion, finding connection, and exploring parenthood & the creative process. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:
Mac Crane: Embracing the Chaos of Perversion We All Have
Sam Field and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Mac Crane, author of Perverts, about challenging the definition of perversion, finding connection, and exploring how parenthood affects the creative process.
literarymama.substack.com
We're sharing 12 October new releases in history that we can't wait to read! And boy, was it tough to stop at twelve: www.draftingthepast.com/12-new-books... 🗃️ #booksky #skystorians What are you looking forward to reading?
12 New Books We Want to Read This October
A few of the new histories that caught our eye this month...
draftingthepast.com
I’ve had multiple negative interactions with colleagues at work this academic year about AI use vs. AI refusal. And not interactions that I’ve started. I dunno, I just don’t remember people getting pissed off at me for not wanting to sign up for a MOOC or not using clickers in class.
If you are interested in knowing the "beat for beat" way a romance is built, you should check out this book by Gwen Hayes.
Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels: How to Write Kissing Books, #1
What makes a romance novel a romance? How do you write a kissing book? Writing a well-structured romance isn't the same as writing any other genre—something the popular novel and screenwriting guides ...
bookshop.org
that chatbot doing that unsafe/violative thing is not it 'going rogue' or an 'unfortunate incident of unintended consequences,' it’s the logical and devastating consequences of an unsafe product put out by irresponsible companies that have been conditioned to believe consequences dont exist for them
I've talked about some of my issues with AI detection tools being deployed by genre markets in the replies of this thread. But I didn't address there (b/c it's a much broader point) is that one issue in publishing is an effect of bias in, bias out. Both in terms of datasets and markets. ->
Diabolical Plots@diabolicalplots.com · 2w ago"AI detector" programs like Pangram use the same technology they claim to detect, right? When publishers put submissions thru these, what do people think of that? (these are genuine questions not rhetorical. I am not considering using it for DP, I am thinking about its effect on Grinder listings)
After years of amazing editing, our audio editor, @joannagarbutt.bsky.social, is stepping away from This Mama Is Lit!, and we're looking for a new team member:
Opportunities
Literary Mama is an all-volunteer organization that brings mamas and mama supporters together through literature. Over the years, our staff has included mamas of all sorts, reaching across identities ...
literarymama.com
Taking a walk outside entails a fair amount of effort, so I've decided to optimize my enjoyment of nature by dispatching a robot to walk for me and present me with a summary of the weather, the terrain, and a list of which flowers are in bloom
John Warner@biblioracle.bsky.social · 2w agoTo my mind, it’s all about optimizing v. experiencing. The optimizers firmly believe that they can improve or even perfect life processes. Experiencers don’t see life this way. Culture pushes us towards optimization, but this is just not consistent with how we act or what makes us happy.
Omg, yes. Having the to-do list doesn't actually help me much. Making the to-do is what helps me. I can make the list and then never refer to it again, and still do the tasks that need to be done. I might double-check the list at the end, too. Using AI to make the list is actually detrimental to me.
suse anderson@shineslike.bsky.social · 2w agoThe important part of a to-do list (for me) is organising my thoughts… it’s less about what needs to be done—it’s about creating a framework for action. It’s yet another cognition task that I have no interest in eschewing responsibility for. It’s meaningful because it’s mine.
I’m excited to officially announce our forthcoming book—and reveal the cover! "The Collaborative Editor: How to Build Trust with Writers Through Queries and Other Communications" is cowritten with Lourdes Venard (Spring 2027, Chicago Press). Pre-order now! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
The Collaborative Editor
Discover the techniques and tools for building a successful editor-writer relationship.Becoming an effective editor involves not only working proficiently with words but also learning to forge success...
press.uchicago.edu
"Critically inspecting the impact of mommy influencers allows us to consider how twenty-first-century motherhood can be reduced to snapshots designed to appease the algorithm." @katherinemurray.bsky.social reviews Caro Claire Burke's Yesteryear in our Sept/Oct issue:
“Motherhood is Its Own Kind of Curation”: A Review of Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear, scrutinizes and satirizes the phenomenon of the tradwife influencer—a married woman who shares her chosen traditional wife lifestyle online. The novel’s po...
literarymama.com
New from 404 Media: when you upload images to Copilot, they're not private. Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users' prompts/images, according to internal docs we got And they're horrified at what they're seeing. Bombarded with requests to make sexual AI images www.404media.co/humans-readi...
Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They're Horrified
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI...
404media.co
That said, the fact that there is so much interest makes me feel like I should mention them at least a little. This thread in no way can stand in place of working with a sensitivity consultant with lived experience! Here is a brief, nonexhaustive list of harmful disability tropes in fiction.
Anna Holmes@annabookwriter.bsky.social · 2w agoI have been asked often the last few weeks to name specific ableist stereotypes to avoid in writing, and I get why. People worry they’ll trip and fall into offending a reader. The thing is, you can absolutely do that even if you are fully aware of the tropes. You can’t DIY a sensitivity read.
New #WriterBeware blog post: If you're a writer, you've probably gotten one (or more) of those AI-generated scam marketing emails or book club invites that make it seem like the sender really read your book. Here's a little peek at how it's done. writerbeware.blog/2026/09/25/h...
How Those Personalized Generative AI Scam Emails Are Built - Writer Beware
One of the things I often hear from writers whose inboxes are crammed with incredibly personalized marketing or book club or editor impersonation emails–you know, the ones that make it seem the sender...
writerbeware.blog
I think the "debate" about bringing iced coffee to job interviews is effective at distracting people from the really bad job market, the high unemployment rate for Black women, ongoing mass layoffs in tech and media, and how Gen Z workers are refusing to adopt many toxic aspects of corp work culture
Romance is by far the largest genre for book sales. I will likely not be writing a romance. It's a skill set and I would have to start from square one with an uncertain result. I'll stick to science fiction. I still very much enjoy writing it.
@krazycolin.bsky.social · 2w agoYou should try Romance. That’s, by far, the biggest, no?
Why doesn’t English have a standard plural for “you”?
You can also do this activity without generative AI. Just sayin'!
Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 2w agoBy turning AI output into an object of collective enquiry, educators can teach a valuable habit: rather than simply asking whether an answer is correct, asking what makes it credible, writes Mert Can Atar: https://ow.ly/Vh9K50ZRmxP #Highered #GenAI
“Do you think your gambling machines are giving people a gambling problem?” Gambling CEO, who you should obviously take at face value: “I wouldn’t call it a problem. I gamble all the time.”
Matt Ford@mford.bsky.social · 2w agoEzra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
Have you ever tried to read a scientific journal article and been told “you don’t have access, pay to download this article?” Did you know that the author of that article gets $0 if you pay? Instead, you can email the author and ask for a free copy! I’d be delighted to help and answer questions!
Sounds like a dude who has also never had to learn to do his own laundry.
Matt Ford@mford.bsky.social · 2w agoEzra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.
My 7yo decided Gatorade is now called “Grenade Shark” and holy shit is that a way better name Like cmon sports drink people, your game is busted
Still sort of flabbergasted that so many folks in higher ed who built careers & professional reputations on research interrogating power structures & questioning the status quo have just simply agreed with ed tech companies that AI is something we absolutely need to use in college classrooms