I have never seen a moral panic grip a country so quickly or thoroughly

Cwiar Cymru@cwiar.org · 2w ago

The Welsh Gender Service has now released a statement regarding the cancellation of all surgeries: 'We have been asked to immediately pause referrals from the WGS for gender affirming surgery and existing scheduled surgeries while further independent clinical review work is carried out.'

Yesterday the question was asked: How many times does an Emergency Alert have to go off before a west end theatre audience turns off their sodding phones? Answer: There is no limit. Still blaring during the curtain call.

I mean, @portalbookshop.bsky.social is right there!

Hi all, our lovely editor Rob is in danger of getting kicked out of the UK if he doesn't raise enough money for immigration fees by 27 Oct, so he's set up a GoFundMe. We very much want him here, making queer books, so if you're able to donate or simply share his campaign, we'd be so grateful!

Donate to Help Me Stay in the UK For Good (After 10 Years Living Here), organized by Robert Berg

Who I Am My name is Robert Berg and I’m raising funds to hel… Robert Berg needs your support for Help Me Stay in the UK For Good (After 10 Years Living Here)

gofundme.com

In desperate need of some emergency cash, so dipped into the freelance writing gig boards again and…Fucking. Hell. Just HELL The sheer number of posts looking for someone to clean up their AI slop for pennies is…the kindest thing I can say is vomit inducing? Anyone need a copy- or ghost-writer? ☠️

Rob (and his husband) are two of the most brilliant people in the world. They work incredibly hard, have done everything 'right', but are still at risk of not being able to stay in the country they've made their home, thanks to some really stupid rules. Please donate if you can.

🎃👻 Rob for Apples 👻🎃@robwillb.bsky.social · last mo.

In 2 months, I'm going to have exorbitant immigration fees to pay so I don't get kicked out of the UK, my home for the past nearly-10 years, so I've set up a GoFundMe. If you're able to either donate or share, it would be so enormously helpful, thank you! www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-st...

There probably was someone called Emily Wilson who wrote a critical review of Nolan’s Odyssey, but most of what we now think of as “Wilson’s review’ is probably the result of codifying a long tradition of anonymous Bluesky posting.

Listening to Tubular Bells whilst ploughing through some uninteresting proofreading, and I can't help but smile whenever I get to the cavemen 🤣

Corgi Puppy Awooo Howling

ALT: Corgi Puppy Awooo Howling

static.klipy.com

This is very thoughtful and reflective - and indeed touching.

Strange Horizons@strangehorizons.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Strange Horizons invites you to read administrative and poetry editor @romiesays.bsky.social thoughts on internal AI policy in the supplemental issue. "Our process does not require consensus. The submissions guidelines of each department are different." Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

And we now have an OFFICIAL HUGO AWARD FOR BEST POEM! (until at least 2029, heh) (when we get to do all of this ratification stuff AGAIN)

I warned last year that if people relied on generative AI to write, this could happen. Those who control a tool can take that tool away from you. But if you learn to write with your own mind, no one can steal that from you. 1/

Krista D Ball is Canada's Trade War Potato@kristadb1.bsky.social · 2mo ago

www.reddit.com/r/WritingWit... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHHAHAHAHAHH *wheezing sounds* HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

What *possible* point is there to this? It's not as if the defining moments of Scrooge's youth are unexamined. Jfc.

DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.net · 2mo ago

First poster for ‘EBENEZER’, a new film based on ‘A Christmas Carol’ starring Johnny Depp. “Before he was Scrooge, he was Ebenezer”

📚 Our seventh novella series crowdfund is now live 📚 Boosts appreciated!

Nothing demonstrates how completely moving house swallowed my bandwidth more than the fact that I've proactively booked a theatre ticket for the first time in, uhhhh, six months?

You asked, and we answered! ✨ Anathema is EXTENDING our submission window to July 31st! Thank you to everyone who’s submitted—we’ve had such a wonderful time reading and can’t wait to read more. If you haven’t been able to submit in time, now’s your chance! 💜

It’s the final countdown! Submissions for Issue 3 close tomorrow! We are looking for speculative fiction/poetry by queer authors. Please help us spread the word… and send us your work! 🪐 Guidelines: othersidespec.com/guidelines/ 🗡️ Pay: 8 cents/word, $50/poem 🌈 Deadline: July 21st, 11:59 pm Eastern

Submission Guidelines - OTHERSIDE

Submission guidelines for fiction and poetry submissions to OTHERSIDE, including opening dates and how to submit.

othersidespec.com

Scholarly research folk! Can anyone point me toward some solid books/papers on the audience for the Homeric epics? How, when, where, and for whom were they performed? Especially interested in non-elite/working-class access to the narratives. Signal boosts appreciated if you don't know.

This is excellent advice, but also (if you're me) potentially very expensive advice.

Litbowl@litbowl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

If you see stories about AI writing/AI scammers in publishing and feel despair, go to a bookstore. Flip open a dozen random novels and read the first paragraph. I did this last week & just marveled at the astonishing creative variety, the unique voices, even in books I might not ever choose myself.

If you see stories about AI writing/AI scammers in publishing and feel despair, go to a bookstore. Flip open a dozen random novels and read the first paragraph. I did this last week & just marveled at the astonishing creative variety, the unique voices, even in books I might not ever choose myself.

All three replacement stories for Wrath Month are in my inbox and ready for edits next week once I'm done with the house move. VERY excited. So lovely to have nice things emerge at the end of all these AI shenanigans.

Writers and editors are (mostly) on the same side. Our enemies are not each other, but the techbro billionaire fascists who stole our art and sold their plagiarism machine slop to the masses

There's this tendency in fiction that isn't written by queer people to have the disapproving parents (or other loved ones) experience some sort of shock that puts everything in perspective and makes them realize that love is all that matters and it always reads like a children's storybook to me.

Probably not a robot@relative-void.bsky.social · 2mo ago

And like the boy obviously got HIV from having gay sex but he’s so sexless. Also in the end his religious parents who have been avoiding visiting him reconcile with basically no friction

So unsurprising to see how TERFs have been completely played. Exactly what we all would said would happen. Congrats.

James Goodwin@jamesgoodwin.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My god. The Heritage Foundation, which mercilessly attacked transgender kids in order to protect the "integrity of women's sports," is now attacking the legal basis for women's sports. The transgender student decision is barely 2 weeks old.

@theguardian.com why aren't you covering JKR's threat to suppress free speech by throwing her money ay vexatious lawsuits against Amnesty International? Is it because you're transphobic too?

Huge new class action lawsuit filed by big publishers and authors against Google this week over AI training. It accuses Google of taking millions of books / articles provided to them for use only in Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar, and secretly using them to train LLMs. 🧵 1/4

LGBTQ+ Pride Month is over but it is still Pride Specifically it is Disability Pride Month The perfect time to grab a bundle of 33 sci-fi, fantasy & horror books by disabled authors for $33 - that's just a buck a book itch.io/b/3751/disab...

London is screaming something sports happened

Have found the most English pub name in the history of English pub names.

Just had my prose dragged by someone who has written fifteen Bluesky posts in total ever. She broke her almost total customary silence just to say I sound like AI. Knife to my heart 😅