Enjoy this fungus.

Gernot Segelbacher 🪶 🧬@gsegelbacher.bsky.social · 14h ago

Forest foraging. No other mushrooms with the drought, but this one is perfect for lunch.

#amreading The Fires That Lie by A R Hardy. A young English woman escapes from the rumours around her mother's death and ends up at a California alternative hamlet/commune. In the background, wildfires. Only 100 pages in, well written atmosphere, and no idea where going! #books #writing

If anyone is wondering, I don't use generative AI. It offers me nothing useful creatively and nothing trustworthy as research. The environmental impact is appalling and the companies who developed it stole copyright intellectual property knowing that is illegal. GenAI is dishonest at every level.

Sending my biggest love to all my trans friends today. I’ll be here for you and will keep fighting for as long as it takes. You are my siblings and my community, and my world is a better place with you all in it. ❤️🏳️‍⚧️❤️

Rewatched Casablanca last night - which I saw for the first time in my thirties and probably seen it by choice ten times or so. It kicks! Romance, adventure, politics, humour and drama in one coherent story. For no particular Nazi-despising reason. Fully across its faults, thanks in advance

I'm fascinated by this new form of PR that's emerged with LLM companies where they leak stories like 'our product spontaneously assembled an army of domestic appliances & announced it would exterminate the lowly hairless apes - we barely managed to pull the plug' to imply it's really powerful

I just saw a piece in @thebookseller.com about this fundraiser - to protect and share a collection of over one million Black books in the UK, a labour of love by one collector, Baba Pepukayi, but a vital resource for the nation. www.gofundme.com/f/save-1-mil... Please share, and donate if you can.

Donate to Save 1 Million Black Books, organized by Black British Book Festival

Save 1 Million Black Books One of Britain's Largest Collections of Black Books… Black British Book Festival needs your support for Save 1 Million Black Books

gofundme.com

Tubbs from Roston Vasey voice; "This is LOCAL nazism for LOCAL people"

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 12h ago

Conservatives challenged for selecting a man who formed a far right group + was jailed for serious antisemitic harassment of former MP Luciana Berger.Badenoch says he has reformed sufficiently to have a local candidacy, but should not have a national platform www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kemi-b...

I think probably the scientific ones. (It's only a hypothesis that the universe is comprehendable to humans at every scale)

G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · 6d ago

What's your personal great white whale of an unsolved mystery? The thing you desperately hope is solved before you die because you need to know the answer? Mine is the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum heist. Where the hell are the Rembrandts. I need the full story

Use the force, look you.

@stephencoxauthor.bsky.social another serial writer with his next book due later this year. A break from the thread as beautiful fiction and a fantasy tinge one can fall into at leisure.

I am absolutely stoked that Star Wars is being dubbed in Welsh, and also, yes, it is funny.

Stephen Cox (new books coming Sept and TBA)@stephencoxauthor.bsky.social · 24h ago

"These are not the Lloyds you are looking for."

"These aren't the druids you're looking for"

Yet again, in the name of the reality check I feel everybody needs regarding the Red Planet, read this:

Phil Hare's Ghost@mrlepus.bsky.social · yesterday

*sɪɢʜs* spacedaily.com/t-mars-is-us...

French forces held a fierce defensive perimeter around Dunkirk and lost 18,000 souls. 40,000 became POWs. Without their resolve we wouldn’t have our nation’s story. It’s estimated 20-60k French resistance fighters died during the war. These fuckers really are vile bastards 😡😡

Life licenses are already used for murder in all cases. And for rape in most (almost all) cases. And recall on such licences can come from merely "failure to be of good behaviour" which is a VERY low threshold.

Heartstopper, but they're sharks

weinberg@weinbergs.bsky.social · 7mo ago

let's pretend: Universal announces a screenwriting contest for Jaws 5. What's your pitch?

I saw something about this over on Threads and, uh, yeah, I'm not sure where that nonsense came from, you can't get us authors to shut up about what's going on with us and our industry, that gate's right off the hinges if you ask me

Antony Johnston@antonyjohnston.bsky.social · 2d ago

Seeing complaints online that authors 'gatekeep' information…! Absolute nonsense. There is no industry or craft in the world which is so comprehensively written about, studied, and discussed as fiction writing, and every author I know welcomes new writers who are serious about giving it a go.

Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.

i personally don't think child molestetion should be required to play volleyball

Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 2d ago

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play

Top Author Tip When sending 19 shiny proof copies out to eager reviewers, don't photo them so you can read two addresses #careergoals #GDPR (I caught this) #authorlife #indieauthor #reviews interested? Got a platform? Read the first one. Hit me up

Many American people on here are lovely.

Gabby HC@scriblit.bsky.social · 3d ago

Hello I have made this due to a mutual having issues with some folks on here forgetting this fact and shouting at him for it. Feel free to use it as a handy PSA x

So stoked by the Libraryjournal review of The Killing of a Chestnut Tree. Can't wait for Havelock and Sebastian to be out in the world! 🌳 Full review is here: www.libraryjournal.com/review/the-k... @tordotcompub.bsky.social

I reckon pretty soon they knew the harmful side of what they had kicked off, hence that sign, but it’s hard to kill a popular project. It’s nice having a popular project.

Oh my god a trope is not a cliche. Get this into your heads, people. Underdog battles natural disaster but wins through is a trope. Boy meets girl (etc) but their parents (society) disapprove is a trope. It is how it is done that is a cliche.

The downfall was TV Tropes (and YouTubers lifting from it). It's a fascinating website yet, it's encouraged millions to scream at the telly, when they spot a recognisable thing, "TROPE!" You don't want stories without tropes, like you don't want music without a key, except as arty experiments.

Alasdair Stuart@alasdairstuart.com · 2d ago

And the point: 'Because to be able to identify the mechanism does not invalidate the mechanism.' That resonates with me because of my weird training. One part growing up with an English teacher parent, one part Radio 4 audio drama, one part close up magic

#91 The Crooked Medium's Guide to Terror by @stephencoxauthor.bsky.social This is the sequel to The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder and follows the not-exactly-above-board-but-also-actually-psychic medium Mrs Ashton and her secretary/bodyguard/lover Braddie. It's a year after the events of /1

Lockdown people are so funny. They pull out their hair at the fact that schools were closed for five minutes, and then you ask them if they actually want to educate poor and minority children and they’re like of course not

Downplay a book or film (or both) The OK, the Meh and the Maybe Not

Well, I have final text eBooks (worldwide) and lovely very close to final text print ARCs (UK only) of the Crooked Medium's Guide to Terror, published 14th Sept. Some high quality spooky sapphic shenanigans for the beach (or cool cave?) Chat open. #books #reading #VictorianMurderMystery #indie