A poster for the launch of Not All Dragons. There is an image of the book cover, along with headshots of David Ly, Jen Sookfong Lee, and Adèle Barclay. The details of the launch read: Wednesday, May 27, Doors at 6:30 PM, 261 E. Hastings St.

VANCOUVER: Not All Dragons will have its launch Iron Dog Books on MAY 27, generously hosted by @jensookfonglee.bsky.social with a reading by the always-magical @adelebarclay.bsky.social.
⚡️
RSVP 🔗: irondogbooks.com/events/49345... (not mandatory, but will help Iron Dog know how many to expect!)

The Jackson estate can't hide Leaving Neverland from those who've already seen it A suppressive legal battle turned the moving Sundance documentary Leaving Neverland into a ghost haunting the Michael Jackson biopic.

I will never forget the experience of seeing LEAVING NEVERLAND at its Sundance premiere. For @avclub.com I wrote about a devastating, definitive documentary about surviving sexual abuse that cannot be erased.

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay

Opens slush pile.
Reads generated story... Bans.
Reads generated story... Bans.
Reads generated story... Bans...
Screams.
Closes computer.
Screams again.
Runs off into the woods.
Sees squirrel.
Hmmm... Squirrels have never submitted a generated story.
Squirrel gets treat.

Why is it that the most vocal cheerleaders of generative A.I. are always the hackiest motherfreakers around? You expect studio executives to say things like “it’s going to revolutionize content,” and “from a bottom-line standpoint it’s inevitable,” and “I’ve finally found an instrument as cold and empty as myself,” but you’d hope that an artist would have more self-respect.

of course you CAN use AI to "write" your book but you run the risk of a lethally derisive colson whitehead materializing in your office to call you a hacky motherfreaker
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

Journalist plans to create new archive of residential school survivor stories — before it's too late | CBC News A new project from award-winning journalist Connie Walker aims to create an archive of testimonies of abuse at residential schools before the accounts are destroyed in September 2027.

an incredibly important project by Connie Walker — most Canadians don't know that the government has an archive of 38,000 residential school survivor testimonies, which are slated to be destroyed next year www.cbc.ca/news/indigen...

Amazing news, Erika! Congratulations!!!

A tale of two book contracts After years of work, not one, but two offers arrived in my inbox in a matter of weeks

And then something so amazing happened, I needed to write a whole substack to explain.

just remembering the time a student told me they disliked an essay i assigned because the author was "bragging that she has so many friends." and i had to be like, the author is 70 and the essay is about how most of her friends are dead.

Gen X collectively reliving Challenger, Columbia and Cold War nuclear holocaust anxiety all in the same week is a fucking lot, y'all.

"I don't want to happen but it probably will" is classic abuser language: "look what you made me do." Except it's not on the scale of a household, but of a nation of 90 million and millennia of civilization.....

Millions of American voters wanted to be villains. They came to believe it’s the key to success, while goodness is weak, woke, loser stuff, done only to signal.

Offered the option of unvarnished villainy, they enthusiastically took it. Seeing others suffer more made them feel big.

And here we are.

I need writers to stop writing flop-sweat articles claiming “everyone” uses AI. Like baby you give away your artistic soul if you want, no one’s stopping you, but you don’t get to self-soothe on a lie. You’re not an artist anymore and other people still are, and that’s the price of your laziness

Generative AI is a tool of fascism. If you use it, you better be prepared to be shamed by people who actually like thinking.

These AI writing zealots have real Pickup Artist energy.

Rebirth for this little book. From Open Road Integrated Media, eBook on July 14th, POD Oct 20th. Not used to the new cover…

You don’t have to be civil to AI users. They know that AI is stealing your work and then using what it scrapes to scam you. It’s God-tier capitalism—a machine that lets you “be an artist” without doing or learning a thing. We’re right to call these people losers. They suck. They’re boring vampires.

i have the privilege of knowing an above-average number of writers and editors. all of them would spit in their own grandmother's face before they chatgpt-ed their art. my information is anecdotal, but so is the majority of this reporting.

WRITE IT IN THE FUCKING STARS. THIS LIFE WAS NOT MEANT FOR YOU. DO LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.

15 Canadian books to celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility | CBC Books March 31 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. To celebrate, CBC Books is sharing a list of Canadian authors who identify as two-spirit, transgender or non-binary.

www.cbc.ca/books/15-can...

it pisses me off when the AI crowd goes “it’s just another tool” like a word processor. it’s not for many reasons but the two reasons that piss me off as a writer: 1) it’s built on large-scale plagiarism and 2) it robs you of the chance to actually be creative.

if you’re trying to “save time” as a writer by using AI, i suggest you find another profession. it takes time to write well, time to write exciting books. it takes time to write one good poem. i’ve spent years on a single poem. the time spent learning one’s craft is everything

if Wikipedia, an org with a shoestring budget and volunteer workforce can ban use of llms, what excuse do large orgs and universities have

Kémy Adé was shocked by the immigration refusal letter she received. In rejecting her permanent residence application, the Immigration Department cited her current job duties, which included wiring and assembling control circuits, building control and robot panels, programming and troubleshooting. The department said these duties didn’t match the Canadian work experience she claimed. Well, no, they didn’t. Adé is a post-doctoral research fellow and guest teacher at McMaster University — and those skills are not part of her repertoire. Nor are they what she submitted in her immigration application a year ago. “I saw this language about this job description that has nothing to do with me,” said the health scientist from France, who has a PhD from Sorbonne University in the immunology of aging. “I was disoriented how this could happen.” But a disclaimer at the bottom of the refusal letter might provide a hint. It’s believed to be the first time that the department explicitly referred to the use of generative AI to support application processing in immigration refusals. The disclaimer also noted that all generated content was verified by an officer and that generative AI was not used to make or recommend a decision.

Today in AI:

Canada rejected the PR application of a McMaster postdoc from the Sorbonne who works in the immunology of aging because the generative AI being used to process applications (😱) entirely hallucinated her credentials.

Everyone involved should be fired.

archive.is/ELrCI#select...

Search Jobs - University Affairs

Really interesting 3 year term position in both creative writing and disability studies at U of T: universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

My new novel “Gary’s New Novel Was This Result Helpful to You?” is in big trouble.

A couple tangential thoughts 1) Embarrassing for blurbers and I wonder if authors will become even less free w/ blurbs 2) I’ve heard agents are swamped with queries that seem AI generated even when the book itself seems human and rejecting them. Be careful to not use LLMs at all, if you’re querying.

People shouldn't feel bad about previously admiring someone when they didn't know about the terrible harms that person committed, but we should challenge ourselves to consider how pedestalizing and prioritizing the legacies of charismatic leaders can create harmful dynamics. That can be addressed.

To all of these men in particular who cannot understand why sexual assault that occurred decades ago still matters.

I was sexually assaulted twenty six years ago.

I am closer to fifty than forty.

I still will not get on elevator with men if I am by myself.

That's why it matters.