I've just figured out how I should rewrite my query letter!

Too bad I've already sent it to a dozen agents.

And they all explain why the ways all the other publications do it are wrong.

A big part of being a writer is reformatting manuscripts to meet the specs of different publications.

Can't wait!

Pleased to have served on the editorial committee of the Casebook on Advocacy in Public Health, vol. 2, published today by the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) at the Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva.

www.wfpha.org/casebook-on-...

Yesterday, a spontaneous, international network of 11 and 12-year-old girls conspired on both sides of the Atlantic, by word of mouth, to perplex the boys in their classes by all showing up to school in braids and seeing if they'd notice. I feel like there's movement-building potential here.

Which is why learning that publishers use comps to set advances really surprised me. 2/2

I get why comp titles are useful for agents and publishers. But reading other people's query letters suggests that a lot of comparisons are...random at best. For myself, I'll change my story if it reminds me too much of something else, only to have to say what it's similar to when I'm done. 1/2

"Evil is bad."

"Why are you getting political?"

I'd love to see more human-made art and less AI art in my feed.

Just finished There Is No Antimemetics Division by Qntm, which I picked up entirely based on the title. It's fun and brilliant. Although they're very different books, it reminded me of Gideon the Ninth or Piranesi in that I kept pausing to think about how cool it was.

Called my Reps to ask Congress to oppose war crimes, which doesn't seem like something that should even be coming up.

Godspeed to anyone traveling to the moon today. #Artemis

I just read the Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. The emotional authenticity and judicious use of scientific detail made a dark and intimate story about clones feel real.

Project Hail Mary is my favorite kind of adaptation. It's faithful to the book while highlighting the emotional beats. The book and movie tell the same story optimized for their own mediums, so if you like one, it's worth checking out the other.

Just finished S. A. Cosby's All The Sinners Bleed. One of the things I liked about it was that despite being fiction, it felt personal, like a story Cosby wanted to get off his chest.

...and on that basis, almost nothing is more important than our stories. (2/2)

People keep apologizing for sharing their art while the world is burning. But we have enough food for everyone; we know how to help more kids live longer; we've made huge improvements in generating energy. Whether or not we act on them depends on the stories we tell ourselves... (1/2)

This whole concept in LOTR is one of my favourite parts of the whole book. “Evil fucks up because evil people fundamentally cannot imagine that others are not motivated by the same things as them” is another theme that feels relevant right now

These temperatures should not be happening in the same day.

I came to AwesomeCon for the books and art and speakers like George Takei and Adam Savage, but it turns out what I really needed was to be surrounded by creative people supporting other creative people.

I'm pleased to share that I'll have a new fantasy story coming out in the Soo Generis anthology Realm Weavers.

If R2P had been credibly invoked, the war would have had humanitarian objectives, would have been brought to the UN, and would have followed the Geneva Conventions.

Contrary to this @nytimes.com op-ed, the Responsibility to Protect was not a "loophole" leading to the Iran war, any more than legitimate law enforcement was a loophole for DC to be occupied by the National Guard or border security was a loophole allowing Americans to be harassed in Minnesota. (1/2)

Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course? The human subconscious is such an interesting thing. No matter how much you think you’ve got it figured out, it’ll always spit out the most random stuff. Take me, for example. After coming home from a...

Commentary: Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course?

Georgetown is one of the universities the Defense Department just barred military students from attending.

When I studied national security at Georgetown, there were service members in most of my classes, and professors insisted that future policymakers should hear from the people risking their lives in defense of those policies. (1/2)

The people who want to flee South Africa because they feel discriminated against are exactly the people who are going to regret coming here. Most of them are going to have to figure out lives without housekeepers, or gated communities, or poorer people automatically deferring to them.

I'd like to see Iron Maiden stop playing rock for a while, and maybe try out pop or new wave, so that they can finally appeal to whoever it is who votes to induct people into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, 22 years after they became eligible.

There's a scene in King Rat where a half-starved prisoner of war is watching someone fry an egg. I'm not sure how many years ago I read it, but it was so viscerally evocative that I think of it every time I cook an egg.