YOUTUBE AND MY 100-BOOK CHALLENGE

It’s been more than a month since I posted my most recent video at the Fantasy Author’s Handbook YouTube channel, the 41st episode showcasing books I’ve been reading as I progress on my 100-book challenge journey. Over the course of that month I’ve finished…

Authors Guild Addresses Publishers’ AI Use The Guild has proposed the industry implement an AI consent clause in author contracts following reports that some publishing professionals have been using consumer-facing LLMs to evaluate and edit ma...

This is just…

What fifth-rate asshole would use ChatGPT in any part of the publishing business?

Authors Guild Addresses Publishers’ AI Use
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

Well, #WritingSky we can choose to find this depressing or comforting… or both…

The Profession That Does Not Exist
Writing won’t make you a living

thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...

Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. Here’s how we avoid a disaster. We’ve populated low-Earth orbit with satellites in record time — now we have to figure out how to keep it safe.

In case you're looking for something else to worry about…

"The most dire consequence of having so many satellites in LEO would be Kessler syndrome: a runaway chain reaction of collisions that renders the environment above our planet an impassable hazard zone."

bigthink.com/starts-with-...

The Guide to Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction
amzn.to/3jFg2lq

Issue 1 — Duress Press cargo.site

You can read my poem "This Unsaid" at Unendurable…

duresspress.org/issue-1

#Poetry

Five of Our Greatest Novelists on What It Takes to Write Something True Margaret Atwood, Jesmyn Ward, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ottessa Moshfegh spoke to Bazaar about art, process, and why storytelling still matters

Writing Through It

Five of our greatest novelists on what it takes to write something true

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-...

PERRY RHODAN’S “BENIGN” FASCISM

Every novel ever written, from the most ancient epic poems to today’s new releases, is as much a historical document as it is a work of fiction. Because novels are written by humans, and humans—all humans—are in various ways products of their time and cultures, the…

Read “Firefly Ars Poetica,” a Poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil “Firefly Ars Poetica” It’s no secret I’m a summer gal. I adore the bevy & bounty of stone fruit & sun-drenched gardens, pool-plashes from my teen sons, & so much green &…

“Firefly Ars Poetica,” a Poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

lithub.com/read-firefly...

THE MINDWARPERS—The 100-Book Challenge, Episode 30 Join me for a look at a randomly chosen sci-fi book that turns out to be a forgotten classic! The Mindwarpers https://amzn.to/484kjpj Norman Conquest: 2066 https://amzn.to/48CFRth …and Prologue put…

THE MINDWARPERS—The 100-Book Challenge, Episode 30

NICK PETRIE: THE JOYS AND CHALLENGES OF WRITING A LONG-RUNNING SERIES

Certainly also applies to series SF/F…

crimereads.com/nick-petrie-...

#WritingSky

MISTER JUSTICE AND HIERARCHIES—THE 100-BOOK CHALLENGE, EPISODE 24 An Ace Double published in May of 1973 featuring… Mister Justice by Doris Piserchia and Hierarchies by John T. Phillifent The Ace Double: https://amzn.to/4gjVKqV The current Kindle edition of…

MISTER JUSTICE AND HIERARCHIES—THE 100-BOOK CHALLENGE, EPISODE 24

youtu.be/uYBI-E4IbUs?...

The first homes on Mars may be alive Instead of hauling heavy building materials across space, future astronauts may grow fungal shelters from spores, waste, and local regolith.

At least an SF short story or two in this, eh?

The first homes on Mars may be alive

bigthink.com/science-tech...

Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks

Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)

poets.org/poem/dulce-e...

Writing Monsters
amzn.to/3Q5l9r8

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

I promise you I will improve; I will no longer, as has ever been my habit, continue to ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense; I will enjoy the present, and the past shall be for me the past. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of…

Writers Who Use AI Are Not Real Writers Dorothy Parker famously (but probably not really) said, “I hate to write, but I love having written,” which is a sentiment I don’t largely understand or agree with in the broader …

It is absolutely true that…

WRITERS WHO USE AI ARE NOT REAL WRITERS

terribleminds.com/ramble/2026/...

#WritingSky #BookSky

What Are the Routines of So-Called Super-Readers? They read laps around the rest of us, wearing out their library cards and overflowing their bookshelves. They stack up hundreds of finished books each year. They are super-readers: people who read …

"I excluded people who read for a living, such as editors and literary agents."

If I counted the books I edit, my total for 2025 would have been around 100…

What Are the Routines of So-Called Super-Readers?

lithub.com/what-are-the...

What does it mean to be human in a sci-fi world? Great sci-fi stories impact the way we think about the world by engaging with philosophical discourse and influence the way we make decisions in a wide range of areas from science, health, technology,...

A good question, well answered:

What does it mean to be human in a sci-fi world?

www.grimdarkmagazine.com/what-does-it...

Readers just want good stories, regardless of character’s gender | Cornell Chronicle In the first large-scale study of its kind, men were equally willing to continue reading a story that featured a woman as the main character as one with a man. Women, however, showed a slight preferen...

“This supposed preference among men for reading about men as characters just isn’t true."

Well, I could have told you that.

news.cornell.edu/stories/2026...

I add this to every bit of writing I send out into the world and it is 100% true:

Absolutely not one word of this poem was in any way generated by version of an “AI” or Large Language Model.

I don't (at least knowingly--it's getting sneaky) use AI for ANYTHING--especially writing.

READING AS AN AUTHOR In Every Man for Himself and God Against All, filmmaker Werner Herzog wrote: Then in one of the Dr. Fu Manchu films, I noticed something the others hadn’t seen. In an exchange between goodies and b…

Oh--absolutely yes. How can you write without reading?

fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/2026/03/24/r...

INDEX AN INDEX TO FANTASY AUTHOR’S HANDBOOK   First, chronologically…   June 2009 June 15, 2009 Who is Philip Athans? I should probably update this—my autobiography. * * * July 2009 July…

No foolin'… this is your monthly reminder that Fantasy Author's Handbook comes with a handy INDEX…

fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/index/

Happy birthday Anne McCaffrey, the Dragonrider herself, April 1, 1926.

WRITING THROUGH TIME

One is frequently asked whether the process becomes easier with the passage of time, and the reply is obvious—Nothing gets easier with the passage of time, not even the passing of time. —Joyce Carol Oates True… at least to a certain extent. It’s long been held as a truism that…

Text is king read on, queen

Truth on display… there is no "reading crisis"!

Text is king
read on, queen

www.experimental-history.com/p/text-is-king

#BookSky

tpj67 Tipton Poetry Journal, located in the heartland of the Midwest, publishes quality poetry from Indiana and around the world. Statistics: This issue features 36 poets from the United States (19 unique

You can read my poem "A Specific Voice" in Tipton Poetry Journal No. 67…

issuu.com/tiptonpoetry...

‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books US release of horror novel Shy Girl cancelled and UK book discontinued after suspected AI use, as publishers feel ‘cold shiver’

“The bond between reader and writer is likewise based on trust; the engagement can operate on many levels, but most of all, it must be meaningful.”

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

And I Never Looked Back | Los Angeles Review of Books Tracing the California lineage of Charles Bukowski’s publisher, Black Sparrow Press, and its passionate founder, John Martin.

“I realized I didn’t want to publish books—I wanted to publish authors.”

lareviewofbooks.org/article/blac...

SFF’s Big Fat Problem - Reactor This is going to be a Jeremiad, not a hopeful essay. If you want the good news about fat protagonists in SFF, look at this lovely piece from Meg Elison. If you need education about fatphobia and the w...

Don't just read this, start THINKING…

SFF’s Big Fat Problem

reactormag.com/sffs-big-fat...