HERE'S YOUR REMINDER to review your recent reads! Indie authors rely on your reviews to connect with new readers. You can just go give a star rating! Every little bit helps. Thank you @sambeawesome.bsky.social for the idea! #5Star5th #Writing #IndieAuthor #Books #BookReview #Booksky

Everyone is STILL excited about #Gilgamesh & #Enkidu after thousands of years, #ICYMI! This fun episode is just under an hour. 🔊

The Ur-Pisode, ft. Julian Gunn

darmok, david l. clink, grief, julian gunn, mythology, rachel a. rosen, rage, Sîn-lēqi-unninni, the epic of gilgamesh, theology, wizards & spaceships

wizardsandspaceships.ca

It’s OK to be gay. It’s also OK to be trans. It’s OK to be a lesbian, bi, ace, nonbinary, genderqueer, still working it out, or something you haven’t found a word for yet and might never bother looking for. All of it. Fine. Ordinary, even. medium.com/prismnpen/it... #LGBTQ #Encouragement #Identity

It’s OK to Be Trans

And in case nobody’s said it out loud lately, it’s OK to be the rest of it too

medium.com

And I can't help but wonder if it's tied into the whole culture war thing. Like of course we've all heard the RFK types talking about the liberal "war on protein"* and Steak and Shake talking about their patriotic tallow fries, so yes on that level, <8/9>

"I don't understand why you, a fantasy writer, don't appreciate the value of making bargains with the fae."

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude

How I know I'm a real writer: My IngramSpark earnings! Four! 4️⃣! Four! May the force be with you.

Support Carey here, if able: www.gofundme.com/f/back-our-s...

Donate to Help us keep living while I sew, organized by Carey Means

We started this business with money that Carey got from conventions and used a sewing mach… Carey Means needs your support for Help us keep living while I sew

gofundme.com

Dr. Damien P. Williams has to go the way his blood beats@wolven.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

…Are you kidding me? This country's treatment of voice actors is fucking abysmal. Aqua Teen Hunger Force essentially built Adult Swim, & if there were any justice, Carey Means shouldn't have to work another day in his life. Between this & Andy Merrill's trouble, i just… what the fuck. What the fuck.

Pretty much all I'm looking for in a cover letter is something like "Hi, my name is This, I'm from Here, and I'm submitting a story called 'This.' I can totally act like a normal human being, and here's a couple other places where my stories have appeared hopefully as proof. Thank you." 😀

I guess I should have a formal 🦋 intro post. My name’s Nick. I’m a community journalist and aspiring fiction writer. I’m big into paleontology and the natural world. I have a scicomm blog I haven’t updated in a long time (rexmachinablog.com). I love to write and talk about big ideas.

This misogynist is trolling. I don't usually hate-share stuff, however, I'm struck by his expressed desire to collect beautiful women as if for a museum, curate them in a discothèque and "put them on the turntables once in a while to make them spin." [1/2] medium.com/@sirlovegent...

1. Kafur al-Ikhshidi 2. al-Mutanabbi from a musical stageplay 3. al-Amin and Kawthar

"...it is painful to see writers—especially writers in speculative genres—simply acquiesce...We can do better than acknowledging. We can imagine, we can organize, and we can resist." — Rachel A. Rosen @darkerthanvanta.bsky.social

The Land Acknowledgment Model of LLM Use: Guest Blog by Rachel A. Rosen ⋆ BrightFlame

A brilliant framing of LLMs and AI as colonizers: a guest blog by author and activist Rachel A. Rosen.

brightflame.com

I want to take her up on the challenge to read the one with "a twist so goddamn goofy and bold that you literally will not be able to guess it." the-line-up.com/scary-books-... #reading #horror

Books With Unreliable Narrators That’ll Have You Questioning Everything

Horror Books With Unreliable Narrators and Unpredictable Twists That’ll Have You Questioning Everything. Includes authors Bret Easton Ellis, Shirley Jackson, Jason Pargin, Sarah Pinborough, Meredith H

the-line-up.com

You can back the crowdfund here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/dav...

The Neon Hemlock Novella Series | Volume Seven

Novellas and a short story collection from “the apex of queer speculative fiction publishing” —Publishers Weekly

kickstarter.com

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the GLA! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Squirrel Girl or Flatman: Ye may be Immortal, but come on Ye urnae Batman. (1/6)

submissions for fiction, essays and experimental texts open tomorrow ... general info here: minorliteratures.com/submissions/

submission[s]

We are open for submissions of reviews, interviews, extracts, beefs, and textos en español/textes en français year round. Please read submissions requirements carefully before sending your work. Fi…

minorliteratures.com

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

🧵It's the last day of July, and perhaps your summer writing goals are starting to feel unachievable. What to do? 🌻 Don't panic. Remember that you are not alone. Almost every academic feels this way in the middle of the summer. And guess what? They still publish and get tenure. (1/3)

Update: Google just sent me a statement saying it is “rolling back” this AI feature that let anyone make completely bullshit satellite images. Comes after our demos of the tool and those from OSINT researchers. One of the worst AI tools I’ve ever seen bsky.app/profile/jose...

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 5d ago

New from 404 Media: Google Earth has introduced an AI feature that lets anyone fabricate completely bullshit satellite images. In our own tests, we added a “bomb blast and crater” to an area of Los Angeles. This is a misinformation time bomb, will 100% be abused www.404media.co/google-earth...

Our Lord of the Rings close read continues, and it's all getting a bit epic now. I go a little quote-mad, and get a bit too into Denethor, in this episode.

A Close Reading of LotR – Episode 18 – Bangers Akimbo

This is the closest I could find to the image I had in my head of the Púkel-men It continues. This time, we covered III – The Muster of Rohan and IV – The Siege of Gondor. Seems pretty …

readerofelse.wordpress.com

"...what they do is not extremism. It is care. It is exactly what decent people are supposed to do when their government comes for the most vulnerable people they know." — Beverly 🏳️‍⚧️ #awareness #truth

Turns Out “Enemy Within” Includes Me…. Ugh… <eyeroll><sigh>

For visibility, a fact-check, a breakdown, and a very uncomfortable reckoning with where we actually are.

medium.com

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

Kevin Bacon Scared in Tremors

Alt: Kevin Bacon scared of sandworm rushing toward him in Tremors

static.klipy.com

The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter the whale up until a couple was found having sex inside it. Now the whale’s jaws are opened only for special occasions, such as Swedish election days.

Woohoo!!! 🎉 Fantastic list. Many I’ve read and many more that I need to read.

I doubt CNN is paying attention to what "the president" is truly "in office" to "accomplish"

The on demand video replay of Doctor Who Saved My Life is now available for a $5 donation. All tickets allow you to watch the play any time day or night up to and including 8/31/26. Thank you for your support! #DoctorWho #TheatreSky DoctorWhoSavedMyLifeReplay.eventbrite.com

Doctor Who Saved My Life - VIDEO REPLAY

Video Replay of a virtual play about the Healing Power of Doctor Who.

doctorwhosavedmylifereplay.eventbrite.com

30,000 followers! Prism & Pen publishes #LGBTQ voices on Medium. @james-finn.bsky.social @thewordartist.net

Come Help P&P Celebrate! A Big Milestone & a Sampling of Great Stories.

We just passed a goal that seemed impossible, thanks to YOU

medium.com

I am very excited to put out this poetry book that I've been researching for what feels like infinity years. If you have not signed up for updates, please do! (type email, press "count me in") #poetry #gender #trans 🏳️‍⚧️

Attis & Aleph

Get notified when Attis & Aleph launches on BackerKit!

backerkit.com

Squished in the middle of this story was this heartbreaking paragraph. Unconscionable.

Brian Lyman@brianlyman.bsky.social · last wk.

A lot of what-the-hell moments in this story, but building a data center in a floodplain in Louisiana is inviting the wrath of Poseidon.

The actual harsh truth about MAHA is that it is an anti-vaxx, anti-science, pro-diarrhea conspiracy movement. It cloaks its arguments in abstractions about "big pharma" and "free speech" to generate *the exact op-ed The Atlantic keeps publishing*. Movements like this need to be fought, not placated.