In light of some magazines pulling scummy things on creators lately, I’m doing a little thread on short story rights. I don't want anybody getting taken advantage of. Also, if you're new, this stuff can be confusing!

I LOVED this book and everything I've read by Mary G. Thompson.

Yes, great point!!!

I hope so! In my view it would be wonderful if her dissatisfaction with the stories out there led her to try her hand at writing ones that are truly her own and building her skills instead of just modifying stolen works from others

And in the meantime, I guess I'm still grateful she's not contacting authors and telling them all the things she thinks they did incorrectly??

It's making meaning between the author and the reader, creating space for thought and conversation, and so much more that can't be replaced with one human sitting alone with an LLM chat window

My arguments about the theft of creative work have not persuaded her yet. But I hope someday she realizes that encountering things different than what she would have done is a feature, not a bug

This reminds me of my friend's teen daughter, who only reads stories she "co-writes" with ChatGPT because she doesn't like that real books sometimes go a different direction from what she wants. She said now she can give everything perfect characters, perfect endings, and everything to her taste...

Especially since I switched from Kindle to Kobo ages ago, it's interesting how many of my reading preferences are still locked in on Amazon

I feel called out

I'm really curious how they would know and why it would matter that my kettle is electric (it is!) 😂

Ahahaha there was a scene like this in an early draft of WICKHILLS - Ferec the spy goes through the pockets in a quick, desultory fashion (there's nothing) and Velasco is like "But 😢 there's supposed to be 😢" (because he's obsessed with a fictional Sherlockian-style detective)

Creating an "AI" avatar of your dead loved one w/o their input or consent, & saying that it counts "the same" as the dead loved one— ESPECIALLY as evidence in a MURDER TRIAL— is both a massive misunderstanding of what "AI" is & how it works, & a hugely dehumanizing insult to said dearly departed.

Ouch!! Hope it feels better soon 😞

Found the email I sent when I got accidentally added to the faculty listserv of an orthopedic surgery clinic and nobody would remove me so I sent this email to all faculty/staff/med students and they removed me almost immediately

Have you read Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit? He's a Harvard professor who makes a very compelling argument for merit lottery admissions like you described

I really enjoyed this! Great way to start my day and put a smile on my face

There are some news articles going around about sexual violence reporting rates at different universities. Let’s talk about why some schools have higher reporting rates than others:

If you see this, recommend a short book. One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson