Roy Kesey

@roykesey.bsky.social

Some things I do: write (Sarabande, Jonathan Cape/Random House, Dzanc), translate (Soho Press, Serpent’s Tail), teach, read, bind, photograph. Ideal job: walking around looking at stuff. Photos mine unless otherwise noted, e.g. profile tintype by Amy Güth.

Initially I was frustrated with the rise of self-checkout but I appreciated how stores passed the savings on to me rather than pocket the money, fire armies of workers & make me do a job I suck at. It’s also why I’m optimistic about AI! I have been kicked in the head by several horses.

Humans are pattern-seeking and pattern-building creatures. We tend to anthropomorphize the things we deal with regularly, both as a way to vocalize the qualities of a thing we subconsciously intuit, and to have a sense of control. I think that's part of why coders are weird about AI.

Woke from a dream where SpaceAI hacked & emptied all US bank accounts & put all the $ in their own. & because EM had funded the president's re-election, he had the support of the DoJ & Supreme Court, so. & anyone who complained was sent to a data center gulag. I'm sure everything's fine tho.

The Rock and Roll Reading kicks off at 6 p.m. September 11, 2026, at Chicago's Rainbo Club. About a dozen readers will read work about or inspired by Rock and Roll (or any of its offshoots or precursors) for three minutes or less each (the length of a song). Super fun times. No cover.

Flyer for the Rock and Roll Reading at 6 p.m. September 11, 2026 at Chicago's Rainbo Club. The flyer lists the readers and includes images from Rainbo's Club's distinctive sign.

Truly crazy how many people mocked the idea that students outsourcing their work to LLMs would degrade their capabilities. Imagine arguing that about a student who paid a friend to do all their homework. Why would it be any different with a computer program?

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · last mo.

Anybody who’s still advocating putting these tools anywhere near a school is not doing so despite the cognitive collapse they cause, but because of it. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

"All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake." —Jean Rhys