So pleased and excited to judge the 2026 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection!

Congratulations to all these longlisters!

Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.

“There is no place for political violence in this country” say the politicians using legislation and rhetoric to attack trans people, immigrants, women and BIPOC daily. Just because it’s done with a pen and not a gun doesn’t mean it’s not political violence. Hypocrites. Not that they care.

“Your uterus,” she announces, “is not happy.”
“I know,” I admit. “I have been sensing its unhappiness.”

New @kathyfish.bsky.social is always a delight. I love this one, especially the use of dialogue and humour. SO GOOD AS ALWAYS! A must read.

Wow so Earthlings. Read it in one sitting. I have to say I liked it leagues better than Convenience Store Woman, but I could see the thematic throughline between them easily.

This enormously pernicious and no one should still be on Substack - not just because of the Nazis, but for sheer practical business reasons.

All Your Fragile History - SmokeLong Quarterly I got this DNA test for my dog because he looks like a cloud and he looks like a luckdragon and he looks like something your lint roller picked up when you banged it around under the couch for the fir...

"All Your Fragile History" by @sawers.bsky.social won second place in The Smokey in 2020, went on to be a finalist for Best of the Net and was included in Flash Fiction America. The 2025 Smokey deadline is May 10! www.smokelong.com/stories/all-...

For anyone aware of the tragedy at Vancouver Lapu Lapu festival, here's a thread of GoFundMe's available to help support the many victims. (copy pasted from my friend 'J' in the Vancouver Filipino community)

🧵

Long have the people cried out for this justice, “when, when, o god,” they ask “when will men be allowed to write books?”

Tomorrow, a certain online mega-retailer launches a book sale, just days before Indie Bookstore Day on 4/26. This is no coincidence; Bookstore Day is one of the largest revenue drivers for indies.

Indies need our support to thrive & build community spaces for all...mega-retailers do not.

Meta's Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know  - The Authors Guild Today, The Atlantic published a search tool that allows authors to check if their works are in LibGen, an illegal pirate site AI companies copied for their AI systems. This is a similar tool to the on...

authorsguild.org/news/meta-li...

A class action lawsuit is underway. If your work was pirated to train AI, you are included in the lawsuit without having to take any action.

Tell AI Companies They Do Not Have the Right to Use Your Work I just sent a letter telling AI companies they do not not have the right to use my work. Use the Authors Guild's letter template to send your own.

Send a formal notice: If your books are in the LibGen dataset, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books.

Here is a template you can use. actionnetwork.org/letters/auth...

Search for an author in LibGen or instance, Stephen King, Min Jin Lee, or Eyodor Dostoevsky. Note that different spellings of the same name— "JK Rowling" versus "J. K. Rowling" —may produce different results. • Jasmine Sawers 3 Results The Anchored World: Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore Jasmine Sawers Delicate Fairy Tale Review Jasmine Sawers The Culling Ploughshares

Mine is, as well as two short stories

Is your book on the LibGen list? Let us know.

Search for an author in LibGen or instance, Stephen King, Min Jin Lee, or Eyodor Dostoevsky. Note that different spellings of the same name— "JK Rowling" versus "J. K. Rowling" —may produce different results. • Jasmine Sawers 3 Results The Anchored World: Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore Jasmine Sawers Delicate Fairy Tale Review Jasmine Sawers The Culling Ploughshares

Like so many others, my work has been illegally uploaded into Meta’s LibGen to train AI. Does anyone know if there has been a class action lawsuit filed yet? What can be done?

Search for an author in LibGen or instance, Stephen King, Min Jin Lee, or Eyodor Dostoevsky. Note that different spellings of the same name— "JK Rowling" versus "J. K. Rowling" —may produce different results. • Jasmine Sawers 3 Results The Anchored World: Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore Jasmine Sawers Delicate Fairy Tale Review Jasmine Sawers The Culling Ploughshares

Like so many others, my work has been illegally uploaded into Meta’s LibGen to train AI. Does anyone know if there has been a class action lawsuit filed yet? What can be done?

Oh cool thank you

Thanks for these recs! I loooove Monster Portraits and had forgotten that it has NF elements.

Thanks so much!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Genie in Pieces | Fairy Tale Review A literary journal of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

Love this one by Claire Hero we published back when Fairy Tale Review had an online portion

www.fairytalereview.com/genie-when-s...

Does anyone have any recommendations for speculative nonfiction books or essays?

The most horrifying slide from today’s National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) organization grant webinar, imo

When ordered by Nazis to give lists of disabled people by disability severity, some doctors sent back exaggerated data to protect patients from forced work

They didn't know that the "most disabled" were to be killed first

The moral here isn't to tell the truth

It's to never co-operate with Nazis

Yeah I figure I’m walking talking DEI

A stupid moment we are living through

Me too, Kathy.

It’s beyond infuriating