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💙 Rachel Bolton 👀

@raebolt.bsky.social

Be the deranged vintage housewife they fear. Stoker Nom’d. Apex Magazine, WWAC, Scriptophobic, and more. HWA Affiliate. rachelmbolton.wordpress.com She/Her

2443 Posts3321 Follower2684 Folgt
💙 Rachel Bolton 👀@raebolt.bsky.social · 8h ago

Took a wee break from the novel to outline and write a big chunk of new short story! I've enjoyed focusing on longer forms, but short stories are forever my first love. I'm using my own huge fear of heights in this.

Christopher Golden@cgolden.bsky.social · 11h ago

Regarding the HWA op-ed on cozying up to AI: each month, the world discovers new reasons to object to the attempted ubiquity of AI. For anyone doing creative work, the first is obviously the fundamental theft involved. But when it comes to the employment of AI in "creating"... 1/?

Delilah S. Dawson@delilahsdawson.bsky.social · 11h ago

Getting real sick of slop midwives pleading for a 'respectful discussion' of AI as relates to the arts. Your use of AI to 'make art' is not respectful. It benefits from stolen art, destroys the planet, and does not make you an artist any more than someone driving 26.2 miles is a marathoner.

Tiffany Morris@tiffmorris.bsky.social · 11h ago

I read the whole newsletter; the author invokes Wild West imagery later in this fatuous screed. Relevant that data colonialism includes proposed expansions of AI data centres onto Indigenous lands / sacred sites, bastardization of our knowledges, infringement on data sovereignty & ICE surveillance.

Tiffany Morris@tiffmorris.bsky.social · 22h ago

So apparently that HWA pro-AI newsletter also uses Indigenous water rights issues as a prop, trivializing the activism by Indigenous peoples to protect our water including specific anti-data centre actions. I guess they figured why not alienate Indigenous horror writers while they’re at it?

“Sure. Sure. Yes, we know AI is using up resources. So does driving a car or a planes so does building a new home. So do a lot of things. Humans have always used up Earth’s resources and usually not nicely. There are reservations and other Indigenous communities in Canada that have never had clean water and have been ravaged by pipeline construction. But somehow that’s been okay for the past fifty or a hundred years, and very few people scream about that. But suddenly, AI is the enemy, not everything else we’ve been doing all along. Suddenly YOUR water might not be clean, so it’s a Big Deal”.
👻Michael J. Riser𖤐🧊❌👑@michaeljriser.com · 11h ago

How anyone at the HWA let that pro-AI essay be published is beyond me. It's not just the stance or the tired argument about "gatekeeping" so much as the fact that it reads like the worst kind of angry Facebook post your parents ever embarrassed you with. The editor should be ashamed they let ... 1/?

💙 Rachel Bolton 👀@raebolt.bsky.social · 10h ago

My response to the HWA in full: Dear Admin and Trustees of the Horror Writers Association, I was disappointed and baffled by the inclusion of Sèphera Girón’s essay on Gatekeepers in the most recent HWA Member Newsletter.

TC Parker (she/her)@tcparker.bsky.social · 12h ago

Hi Sephera! I understand how commercialised LLM-based text/image extruders (the "AI" you're talking about) work, and how they're trained I assume that means I'm alright to call you out for this particular bit of bad-faith grifting? P.S. other people also understand them. Might be a you problem

Malda Marlys 🍉@aardwyrm.bsky.social · 12h ago

i don't have anything clever to add about the hwa mess but i did peek over at the facebook wasteland where the author posted this, uh, defense. we're all bullies, because it's the wild west, and see we're all proving her point, and who really understands ai, fuckin magnets how do they work amirite?

sephera giron I think it's pretty funny that my point was to stop bullying each other while we all try to figure out and understand AI. There are many levels of AI and we have barely begun to understand any of it. So I question who are the gatekeepers that magically know more than the rest of us? But no one wants to think about bullying with regard to AI since everyone thinks they know what's best for everyone else. As I said in the article, we're in the Wild West where no one knows anything.
Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin@miseryvulture.bsky.social · 18h ago

The last Magdalene laundry closed in my lifetime. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland in my lifetime. Access to condoms without a prescription in Ireland only came in 1985. We repealed the 8th. There's a lot of ways in which Ireland is still bad, but it is an entirely different country.

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 23h ago

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

dorian @doriantaylor.com air travel is one of those experiences that has gotten monotonically worse over my entire lifetime question though: has *anything* in the last 40+ years genuinely gotten *better*? like, there's *more* stuff, sure, but is any of it *better*? 2:58 PM Aug 4, 2026
The Midnight Society@midnightpals.bsky.social · 19h ago

Sèphera Girón: so i hear some of you writers don't like ai Girón: well, i'm tired of all you writers not liking ai! Girón: and i'm gonna let you all know it! Girón: i'm mad as hell! Girón: put that in the newspaper! Girón: or better yet Girón: put it in the HWA newsletter!

Tanya D. || Writer || Narrative Designer@cypheroftyr.bsky.social · 17h ago

Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...

thenerve.news

nuclear family hater@androgynyfiend.bsky.social · yesterday

not to be pop culture brained but it is kind of crazy how libfem shit is being weaponized against ppl who are like holy shit Ariana Grande is about to die. fellas is it anti-woman to express concern about the health of a woman and the high mortality rates of eating disorders

🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈@haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 22h ago

I love how there's "what, are we in grade school?" preceded and followed by juvenile raving to stop being divisive by caving to slop. The author who wrote this also has a slop "writing coach" she developed, so this is just use the newsletter as advertising for her grift. Waste of email space.

Holly Lyn Walrath@hollylynwalrath.bsky.social · yesterday

There is a lengthy pro-AI screed in the latest HWA newsletter and it is . . . a mood.

The real enemy isn’t your buddy who is using AI to make a book cover; the enemy is the Powers-That-Be who thrive on dividing everyone, especially in the United States. Look at how divided everyone in the US got over politics over the past ten years, and it’s now trickled to other countries. No more, are you a fellow human? Nope, it’s who did you vote for? Well, then you must be a hateful asshole. Instant block. But who’s the asshole? Every week, the gatekeepers of horror writers have some new witch hunt. Sometimes it’s a good thing to suss out shitty publishers, editors, and agents. Yet, not ALL shitty ones are sussed out because, you know, there are consequences to getting all the shitty people shut down. Some people still like the opportunities to get published or represented even if it means going with the most despicable people because the gatekeepers didn’t get them shut down, or sometimes, don’t even notice. It all depends on who is buttering the toast.
Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin@miseryvulture.bsky.social · 2d ago

Reminder that this ships early next month! Get yer pre-orders in at filthyloot.com (US only)

Misfit Fictions - filthy loot press

Filthy Loot is a boutique press specializing in existential horror, transgressive lit, subversive art, and all things underground. Read our mission statement. We love working directly with indie books...

filthyloot.com

Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin@miseryvulture.bsky.social · last mo.

Coming soon from @filthyloot.bsky.social 9 stories collected from 2020-2025.

An old anatomical illustration showing a woman in 19th century dress, her back to the viewer and unclothed to reveal some manner of pox. A single blue eye, wide as a shoulder, looks out from her upper back. Below the illustration reads the title "Cráite"