Tessera

Margaret Owen

@what-eats-owls.bsky.social

doodler, demi, USA Today, Sunday Times, and NYT #1 bestselling author of LITTLE THIEVES, THE MERCIFUL CROW, ROOTBOUND & more ✨ She/her. Rep: Victoria Marini

1780 Posts3021 Follower 511 Folgt

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · yesterday

Every time this rears its head I am reminded that if entities *actually* cared about what they say they care about here, they’d be lobbying for a PLR program in the US

Library Lagomorph@bunnyjadwiga.bsky.social · 4d ago

Publishers have gotten the Authors' Guild to back up their anti-Library ebook rhetoric again. Authors, please come get your gal: www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Matt Bell @mdbell79.bsky.social · 5d ago

The very first entry in my commonplace book.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 6d ago

so "this is going to ruin the tour" was not a complaint, but a prophecy

Bits @bitshammer.bsky.social · 7d ago

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 2w ago

Poe the day he came home

An itty bitty black kitten with big golden eyes peering up through a flap in a play pen. He has a makeshift blue collar and is surrounded by towels and bedding.

Jared Pechaček@vandroidhelsing.bsky.social · 2w ago

Fuchsia the day she came home

daryl "dino-damage" b 🏳️‍⚧️@hypercubexl.bsky.social · 2w ago

GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...

reddit comment:

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply:

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.

Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…

Meg @meganroseruiz.bsky.social · 2w ago

I tried designing a character on a three hour flight, let’s see how I did

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 2w ago

Also a situation complicated by publishers that play coy with the actual age category because they want the perceived benefits of YA without forfeiting the perceived prestige of adult books

Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them)@bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 2w ago

Like, you could make the case that YA in its current form as both an age category and marketing term didn't exist when we Millennials were kids. But YA itself - as in books written for teens - absolutely was a thing...it was just often shelved in the Children's section.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 2w ago

Caught the game trailer end of the Nintendo Live and.... I mean, whatever is happening there, I'm still gonna play the hell out of it on day 1

caroline cash @cashbrowns.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nancy 9/7/26 … Happy Labor Day 🛠️

8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will. Based on a screenprint by Ricardo Levins Morales after the organizing work done by Robert Owen.

Dimension 20 @dimension20.dropout.tv · 2w ago

every job deserves comfort, dignity and safety! 🫡

Katherine Locke @katherinelocke.bsky.social · 2w ago

One day, this publisher's name will be a distant memory that no longer brings me intense frustration. That day is not today. If you're an Albert Whitman author who has a book in the Anthropic case, you should go check your email in case they're trying to claim 100% of the $$ for your books too.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

My first order of business today as a newly-minted 40-year-old is going to be, very maturely, buying a Switch 2

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

It's the cat's expression that absolutely makes this

Cats of Yore@catsofyore.bsky.social · 3w ago

A gem at the county fair art show. 🎨

Acrylic painting of an angry looking white cat staring at the viewer with one paw on a blue vase, about to push it off a mantle.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

I did spend a not-insignificant amount of time this weekend clarifying that the lodestar was like a Hugo, but not a Hugo, but it’s just for YA, but…. Etc etc etc

Larisa@thelolrus.bsky.social · 3w ago

It also seems kind of unfair to authors, because the Hugo Awards are better known outside the SFF bubble than the Lodestar. If you win a Lodestar, you can’t put Hugo on the book cover even though it was all the same award process.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

I think the spirit is there, the institutional knowledge is not, at least on my part. So if someone can point me to the How To on this, I’d be happy to take it on!

Els@geekingthething.bsky.social · 3w ago

Do you think you could get some people together to draft a proposal to change the constitution?

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

For all my bellyaching I do love that lodestar gets its own trophy because this is dope as hell. I am planning a heist as we speak

H. Emiko Ogasawara (she/her)@emiko-ogasawara.bsky.social · 3w ago

Since the sideshow didn't work last night, here's the Lodestar Award: youtu.be/JxdhADo7QZo

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

As one of this year's Lodestar nominees, I would love to see this too! I don't think we have to change the name or invent a new category; the Lodestar just would need to be recognized as a Hugo the way the Andre Norton award is a Nebula.

Sarah Rees Brennan@sarahreesbrennan.bsky.social · 3w ago

While I’m on one the Lodestar should be a Hugo. Young adult counts just like poetry & non-fiction. They are books! & often vital gateways which bring new readers. I don’t write YA anymore, I have no skin in the game & do not control horizontal or vertical, I just think this. @laworldcon.bsky.social

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

“Margaret are you sure you don’t want to stick around for the final day of Worldcon”

Screenshot of the weather app readout for Seattle, which is about 20° cooler than Anaheim and forecasted for three straight days of rain

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

Since I got a *few* questions about my jacket for the Hugos last night, a brief thread for bsky about the project I dubbed Jacketquest

A picture of me, a white woman with dark blonde hair, in a hotel room, wearing a black sequined dress and a cropped black jacket over it that is heavily embellished, featuring a sequined patch depicting an evil eye in a nest of gold and silver rays.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

A rowdy and rousing time!!!

Caitlin Rozakis@caitlinrozakis.bsky.social · 3w ago

I think my favorite bit of Worldcon this year was getting to be on the Oh No It's a TV Trope panel with an incredible lineup - Ronald D Moore, @what-eats-owls.bsky.social @scalzi.com and Laura Antiniou. Thanks for a great panel, folks!

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

Here we go 🫠 I’M FINE

Photo of screen showing the title card for the Hugo Awards

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

Heads up for folks headed to our Purple and Windowpane Prose panel at Worldcon in an hour: there was a room change! It is now in ACC 258, and the online program guide has been updated as well!

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

Also, if you spot me wandering around Worldcon, I am carrying some very silly ribbons that are up for grabs:

Photo of a badge ribbon lying on a white table. The ribbon is deep red and has gold text that reads “VANJA YES”. Taking no questions at this time.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thank you to everyone who made the Demisexuality and Asexuality in Fantasy panel standing-room only! We had an absolute blast and I hope you did too!!

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 4w ago

Reminder for worldcon folks: my only scheduled signing is in half an hour at the Autographing area in ACC North!

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 4w ago

I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 4w ago

can someone turn on the grim reaper’s aim assist

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 4w ago

CAN WE HAVE LIKE FIVE MINUTES

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 4w ago

Actor Tim Curry has died at 80, TMZ reports

Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 4w ago

I feel like a big part of why Dolly was so aspirational to people in creative work is, she wasn't always as respected as she is now. I was born in 86 and I *acutely* recall how her body, her demeanor, her voice, they were all ridiculed by people with personal stakes in Serious Thought looking a way.