2026-01-21 06:09:27
To Those Who Fired or Didn't Hire Tech Writers Because of AI
https://passo.uno/reconsider/
To Those Who Fired or Didn't Hire Tech Writers Because of AI
https://passo.uno/reconsider/
Would you use AI to break writer’s block? We asked 5 experts https://theconversation.com/would-you-use-ai-to-break-writers-block-we-asked-5-experts-271627
Beehiiv expects to nearly double its annual revenue to $50M in 2026; it has 40K MAUs, including 15K paying subscribers; 1 in 7 new writers come from Substack (Jaspreet Singh/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/substack-
Nostrshire panel talking about Adam Curry's podcast2.0 , more tags in your podcast rss for payments, in the hope it can fund producers. Did you know besos takes 75 percent of all Audible money? Actors and writers sharing scraps from Amazon's table.
Hot news is that keysend tags are out of fashion and the bolt11 lnurl invoices are taking over.
Podcast platforms can be bridged through nostr to enable cross platform comments and discovery but making users create key pairs is to complex the fountainfm guy reckons. Wants to hide and shatter l abstract away that complexity.
#nostr #nostrshire #podcasting2.0
Write The Darn Book! | Beat Writer's Block, Procrastination, Overwhelm And Self-Doubt, To Confidently Finish Writing Your Novel With Maddison Michaels
A mindset-first, neuroscience-supported, spiritually aligned podcast that helps writers break through blocks, reconnect with their creativity, and finally finish their novel...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory:
NFL Week 16 picks: Our experts face off on Steelers against Lions, Patriots at Ravens and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-16-expert-picks-head-t…
Gastrulation of the blastulation
The blastulation of the morula gives the blastula.
The morula is like a mulberry of cells;
the blastula has a liquid-filled center...
-- Tom Sharp,
A tiny quote from Tom Sharp's (poet, scientist, and, and, and...) excellent web site:
https://sharpgiving.com/index.html
Cowboys guard Tyler Booker named to PFWA All-Rookie team https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/cowboys-guard-tyler-booker-named-to-pfwa-all-rookie-team
Adelaide Festival board resigns and Adelaide Writers’ Week cancelled after 180 authors pull out in protest of Zionist board decision to disinvite Palestinian author.
Remember this, if you’re a Zionist: like the Nazis before you, you are committing genocide, you are on the wrong side of history, and – as long as there are people of good moral character and conscience to oppose you – you will not succeed. Your only allies are the MAGAs of the world and those too spineless to stand up to …
dbpedia_writer: DBpedia writer network (2014)
A bipartite network of writers and the written works they created, as extracted from Wikipedia by the DBpedia project.
This network has 135569 nodes and 144340 edges.
Tags: Economic, Production, Unweighted
https://networks.skewed.de/net/dbpedia
Good.
Never submit to #Racisn, or to the apologists of #Genocide.
#GazaGenocide
More than 500 writers, actors, and technologists launch the Creators Coalition on AI to push standards for how AI is trained and used across creative industries (Chris Gardner/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gen
Jacinda Ardern quits Adelaide Festival's Writers Week appearance
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/01/12/jacinda-ardern-quits-adelaide-festical-writers-week-boycott-randa-abdel-fattah/
Cowboys guard Tyler Booker named to PFWA All-Rookie team https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/cowboys-guard-tyler-booker-named-to-pfwa-all-rookie-team
»In the old days, technical writers produced documentation in near isolation, surrounded by complex and similarly isolated corporate cultures. From an anthropological perspective, old manuals are like tribal artefacts. The resulting docs show surprisingly rich design and content patterns, more refreshing than we’re used to in the age of googling for Stack Exchange questions and of bowing to Stripe docs.«
Drinks At Work With Sam Bygrave
Talks to those who have built — or are building — rewarding and creative careers in the drinks industry, from bar owners to spirits marketers, brand ambassadors, distillers, writers and more...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/drinks<…
Every post you write is first read by a machine. Should the nature of writing change to accommodate that? I look at the pros and cons of adopting an AI-friendly grammar https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonippolito_writing-journali…
Has anyone heard of this #writing #software before - Ellipsus?
I saw them in a YouTube sponsorship and was intrigued by their anti-AI stance. Seems like it could be a reasonable non-big-tech alternative to Google Docs with the same collaboration features.
#writingSoftware #writers
James Bond writers can't find a way to resurrect fictional guy who has an agent for over 60 years, mostly getting younger, except in the early 80s
Stop Paying Rent on Your Own Words!
Stop paying rent on your own words. For decades, writers were taught that “real” authors have representation, an agent, sometimes even a manager, as if legitimacy were a credential issued by an industry gatekeeper. That belief was formed in an older media economy: fewer publishers, fewer channels, slower production cycles, and a cultural aura around scarcity. In 2026, the belief is not merely old fashioned.
More than 500 writers, actors, and technologists launch the Creators Coalition on AI to push standards for how AI is trained and used across creative industries (Chris Gardner/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gen
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #MaryAnneHobbs
Nas & DJ Premier:
🎵 Writers
#Nas #DJPremier
#newRelease 🆕 album
https://open.spotify.com/track/6Ed2tQssajTrylEPfUBOgi
NFL Week 16 picks: Our experts face off on Rams vs. Seahawks, Steelers at Lions, Patriots against Ravens, more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-16-exp…
From 1977 to 1979,
June Jordan and Toni Morrison were both a part of "The Sisterhood",
a group of Black women writers who met in a New York City apartment to eat and drink together while discussing liberation.
Whether addressing genocide, imperialism or the American literary establishment,
the writers in the group,
which included Alice Walker and Ntozake Shange,
saw their work as a means to make interventions against dominant narratives of colon…
Laurie Penny is very near the top of my list of favorite living writers. She has started a how-to-write-well series, entitled (for obvious reasons) “How to Write Like A Person”; intro here: https://open.substack.com/pub/lauriepenny/p/ho…
Writers Advice Podcast
A weekly podcast that dives into the creative process of authors from around the globe and provides an insight into the industry of publishing with interviews from publishers and agents...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/writer
Sources: Forbes has cut ties with dozens of contributing writers; one exec said Forbes needs to ensure the contributor model is "financially sound" (Alexandra Steigrad/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2025/12/05/me…
#WritersCoffeeClub
10. What have you recently learned which will have a big impact on your work?
11. How accessible is your work?
12. How can writers ensure the focus is on the work and not the writer? Or should they?
---
10. That's a hard question.
I fear I've reached a plateau where nothing freshly learned can do that.
11. It consists of words.
“Ow” Isn’t Enough: Writers, We Can Do Better #CrimeFiction
https://www.bobmuellerwriter.com/ow-isnt-enough-writers-we-can-do-better/
https://www.techmeme.com/251104/p19#a251104p19
The rise of artificial intelligence has produced serial writers to science and medical journals, most likely using chatbots to boost the number of citations they’ve published.
Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of Scholars and Creative Writers, 5/28 - 5/29/2026, East Lansing, MI https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/10/30/writing-the-midwest-a-symposium-of-scholars-and-creative…
NFL divisional round picks: Our experts face off on Bills at Broncos, 49ers vs. Seahawks and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-divisional-round-expert-picks-…
As humans, we •all• live our lives with our heads up our butts — including but not limited to the Britannica writers. If we’re lucky, someone will help us see what we’re missing. If we’re wise, we listen. At its best, that’s what Wikipedia can do — and in public, at scale, for everyone.
7/
Hamish McKenzie says Substack is starting to test native sponsorships with some writers but won't take a cut for now (Emily Sundberg/Feed Me)
https://www.readfeedme.com/p/substack-is-launching-native-sponsorships
"In the early twentieth century,
Mecklenburgh Square,
a hidden architectural gem in the heart of London,
was a radical address.
On the outskirts of Bloomsbury
known for the eponymous group who "lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles,"
the square was home to students, struggling artists, and revolutionaries.
In the pivotal era between the two world wars, the lives of five remarkable women intertwined at this one…
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
The Obsessed:
🎵 Freedom
#TheObsessed
https://blessed2.bandcamp.com/album/freedom-writers
https://open.spotify.com/track/6RM7D3Hq8lt56PujNsCGYV
OMG my The Bear opinion isn't fringe 🥲
I LOVE S1. I've made SO many ppl watch it.
I also liked S2.
I absolutely HATED S3. It felt like the writers got too much artistic freedom after their (well-deserved!) success & I had to watch them artistically jerking-off on TV.
https://
I decided it was time for another go at explaining Special Relativity.
I remain annoyed at how few people really get it, even amongst avid SF consumers, who have gotten entirely too accustomed to generations of SF writers papering over the FTL issues with technobabble, 'cause we need that galactic empire, don'tcha know.
The idea is to do this with basic geometry you knew or could have learned about in 6th grade plus a bit of algebra (up to Pythagorean Theorem, which I *d…
Letters to the editor from writers using AI chatbots are flooding scientific journals, likely written by writers seeking to boost their number of citations (Gina Kolata/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/science/letters-to-the-editor-ai-chatb…
Why the Rams and the Seahawks are The Athletic staff's most popular Super Bowl picks https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6957534/2026/01/10/nfl-playoff-super-bowl-picks-rams-seahawks-bills/
RE: https://mastodon.ie/@padraig/115201931194443499
So I have found out they have "GAU Writers" which are AI composed articles which are posted to a number of Reach publications.
Disgusting.
🎜 Also needed: document writers, come on, now, don't be shy!
🎝 AsciiDoc syntax, what? Well, you'll never know if you never try.
🎜 1st of January. Have I got bored yet, tapping my ZBook keys?
🎝 No. This is endless, I will keep posting for as long as I please.
https://docs.asci…
West Wing fan? Here's 3hrs & 10min of deleted scenes & off camera interviews with the cast, directors, writers & producers.
▶️ "The West Wing" Ultimate Fan Experience : 4 Hours of Bonus Content
https://youtube.com/watch?v=I7_vCcL6OKc&si=Zvj…
I endorse this newsletter post from Molly White (of Web3IsGoingJustGreat fame):
Curate your own newspaper with RSS
#noalgorithms
I was cleaning up my desktop and I found this image. I had forgotten about it. It is a Brenna Quinlan image and comes from David Holmgren's 'Retrosuburbia'. I'm happy to see my position - towards the rational end of the rational/intuitive spectrum (I always think you need to thoroughly, skeptically question your own beliefs, lest you find wishful thinking or prejudices amongst them), and midway along the "leave nature do it's thing/use design to keep your elbows in&…
Sonnet 082 - LXXXII
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,
What strained touches rh…
Migrating a large accretion of complex blog post content between platforms is a draining & thoroughly demoralising experience. It turns out that we, as web developers, are capable of creating byzantine platforms which give diligent blog writers the ability to create hours and hours of unrewarding work that is so cryptically & diversely broken that no script can be written to make sense of the mess.
Enjoy your holidays if you're in a cultural context where that sort of thin…
Can art enhance your life? Here’s what I learned from Ali Smith, Tracey Emin, Claudia Winkleman and more https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/nov/10/…
A look at The Stranger, an influential Seattle alt-weekly newspaper whose endorsements have become a must-have for some progressive politicians (Karen Weise/New York Times)
https://www.
Okay, here's the promised follow-up with more authors I respect who didn't make it onto this list. I won't do deep dives but I'll list at least one work per author:
YA novelists:
- Randi Pink ("Girls Like Us")
- Louisa Onomé ("Twice as Perfect")
- Emery Lee ("Meet Cute Diary")
- Robin Benway ("Far from the Tree")
- Angela Velez ("Lulu and Milagro's Search for Clarity")
Children's book authors:
- Jacqueline Davies ("Bubbles Up")
- Freya Hartas ("Slow Down in the Park")
Novelists:
- Rimma Onoseta ("How You Grow Wings")
Graphic novelists:
- Linda Medley ("Castle Waiting")
- 🖋️Magsalene Visaggio 🖌️Paulina Ganucheau ("Girlmode")
- Ursula Vernon ("Digger")
- SJ Sindu ("Tall Water" w/ Dion MBD)
- Hope Larson ("Be That Way"; "Salt Magic" w/ Rebecca Mock)
- Lily Williams Karen Schneemann ("Go With the Flow")
- Maia Kobabe ("Gender Queer")
- Kay O'Neill ("Tea Dragon Society")
- Marjane Satrapi ("Persepolis")
Mangaka:
- Kaoru Mori ("Young Bride's Stories")
- Ryoko Kui ("Delicious in Dungeon")
- Natsuki Takaya ("Fruits Basket")
Anime writers/directors and/or Japanese light/fantasy/SF novelists:
- Nahoko Uehashi ("Moribito")
- Sayo Yamamoto ("Michiko & Hatchin"; "Yuri!!! On Ice")
- Mari Okada ("Ano Hana: The Flower we Saw That Day"; "Toradora!")
Game designers/programmers:
(Upon review I was pretty remiss in skipping over a few of these people, some of whom I wasn't aware of but most of whom I just didn't remember when writing my short list. Subconscious misogyny in action. Short & Thorson probably would have squeezed out some of the YA authors I included, although I have no real regrets.)
- Junko Kawano ("Suikoden")
- Elizabeth LaPensée ("When Rivers Were Trails")
- Momo Pixel ("Hair Nah")
- Zoë Quinn ("Depression Quest"; narrative designer on "Solar Ash")
- Kellee Santiago ("Cloud"; "Flower")
- Tanya X. Short ("Moon Hunters")
- Kim Swift ("Portal")
- Maddy Thorson ("Celeste")
- Andi McClure @… ("Jumpman")
Note: I haven't included composers or artists here, but there's a deep bench.
Games journalists/steamers:
- Tanya DePass @… (#/INeedDiverseGames; twitch streams)
- Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist Frequency)
Game/play scholars:
- Mary Flanagan ("Critical Play")
- Tracy Fullerton ("Game Design Workshop")
- Brenda Laurel ("Toward the Design of a Computer-Based Interactive Fantasy System")
- Janet Murray ("Hamlet on the Holodeck"l
- Susana Tosca ("A Pragmatics of Links")
- Jichen Zhu ("Agency Play: Dimensions of Agency for Interactive Narrative Design")
- Magy Seif El Nasr ("Design patterns to guide player movement in 3D games")
- Kate Compton ("Causal Creators"; also "Spore")
P.S. upon consideration I've decided not to include any authors who are men in this coda.
There are definitely others who probably deserve to be here that I'm forgetting...
#GsmeDesign #Authors
NFL divisional round picks: Our experts face off on Bills at Broncos, 49ers vs. Seahawks and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-divisional-round-expert-picks-…
Man, #Netflix writers really like to have their characters stand around and preach. #theresidence #strangerthings
The wheel keeps turning
SciComm academics
↙️ ↖️
despise despise
Tech & Biz ➡️ "Serious"
Writers despise Academia
Finished “People Like Us” by Jason Mott.
I will admit that there were moments early where I struggled, trying to puzzle out the dual narratives. You have to accept it as experimental writing with a plurality in scope. When I surrendered and just READ, I absolutely loved it!
What is it about? So much. Gun violence. Where home is. America. Race. Writers. Trauma & coping. Time travel. Peacocks.
So much to say, but for spoilers 🤐
5/5 ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
dbpedia_writer: DBpedia writer network (2014)
A bipartite network of writers and the written works they created, as extracted from Wikipedia by the DBpedia project.
This network has 135569 nodes and 144340 edges.
Tags: Economic, Production, Unweighted
https://networks.skewed.de/net/dbpedia
NFL Week 11 roundtable: Giants coaching job, Seahawks vs. Rams, Bills' woes https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6808663/2025/11/15/nfl-week-11-giants-coach-seahawks-rams-bills/
Nathan FIllion & Alan Tudyk were once spacemen. Since co-starring on #Firefly, they have also been aliens, mystery writers, veterinarians, superheroes, chickens, robots & policemen.
▶️ Once We Were Spaceman Podcast - feat. #NathanFillion &
So I've read a lot of both academic and "popular" criticism of AI; spanning decades from the 1940s to now.
I think both things are good and proper and needed.
And further than that I posit that you actually need at least some bombastic and "flashy" writers in order to reach more people
What's kind of funny is that in many of the academic critiques of AI the authors comment on how their colleagues came belligerent and hostile towards them because "they aren't writing seriously"—this is found all over Weizenbaum, Dreyfus, Anders, etc.
Anyway, READ MORE OLD BOOKS :)
In a message to members, the WGA says Disney's licensing deal with OpenAI "appears to sanction" OpenAI's "theft of our work", and it plans to meet with Disney (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/…
In which I talk about pet peeves in TV shows and how they pull you out of a story. Sorry the post is late today. Website problems.
https://www.bobmuellerwriter.com/ow-isnt-enough-writers-we-can-do-better/
dbpedia_writer: DBpedia writer network (2014)
A bipartite network of writers and the written works they created, as extracted from Wikipedia by the DBpedia project.
This network has 135569 nodes and 144340 edges.
Tags: Economic, Production, Unweighted
https://networks.skewed.de/net/dbpedia
Sonnet 082 - LXXXII
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,
What strained touches rh…
NFL Week 15 roundtable: Philip Rivers returns, Shedeur Sanders rises, Packers-Broncos showdown https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6885548/2025/12/13/nfl-week-15-philip-rivers-colts-broncos-packers/
Why the Rams and the Seahawks are The Athletic staff's most popular Super Bowl picks https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6957534/2026/01/10/nfl-playoff-super-bowl-picks-rams-seahawks-bills/
The New Yorker adds Jason Zengerle and Ruby Cramer as staff writers for politics and Jon Allsop as a contributing writer; Emily Nussbaum will be theater critic (Michael Luo/@michaelluo)
https://x.com/michaelluo/status/1998423522524426421
Always, always, ALWAYS check out the "source" of any promotional offers you get. Don't click links in the message. Go to your favorite search engine, look up the organization, and verify from there.
And if they ask for money? Run. #writingcommunity #writers
Hamish McKenzie says Substack is starting to test native sponsorships with some writers but won't take a cut for now (Emily Sundberg/Feed Me)
https://www.readfeedme.com/p/substack-is-launching-native-sponsorships
NFL wild card round picks: Our experts face off on Packers vs. Bears, Bills at Jaguars and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-playoff-wild-card-round-expert-picks/
Why the Rams and the Seahawks are The Athletic staff's most popular Super Bowl picks https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6957534/2026/01/10/nfl-playoff-super-bowl-picks-rams-seahawks-bills/
The WGA, which routinely opposes media mergers, says the Netflix-WBD deal must be blocked, and the Producers and Directors guilds express concern over the deal (Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/wga-opposes-netflix-warner-b…
I posted this today at the Mystery Writers Forum at http://mwf.ravensbeak.com. It's been a good run.
NFL wild card round picks: Our experts face off on Packers vs. Bears, Bills at Jaguars and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-playoff-wild-card-round-expert-picks/
How newsletter platforms attracted a wave of writers, comedians, publications, and brands, as publishers and creators relied less on Facebook and Google traffic (Alexandra Bruell/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/the-yea
Gut Feeling: Cowboys-Cardinals staff predictions https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/gut-feeling-cowboys-cardinals-staff-predictions
What did LA cop Stephen Downing have in common with TV writers Michael Donovan, Sean Baine, and Adrian Leeds and the War On (Some) Drugs? The answer in a 5-minute read:
https://honoraryunsubscribe.com/stephen-downing/
Gut Feeling: Cowboys-Cardinals staff predictions https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/gut-feeling-cowboys-cardinals-staff-predictions
NFL Week 10 picks: Our experts face off on Steelers vs. Chargers, Patriots vs. Buccaneers and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-10-bet…
NFL Week 18 picks: Our experts face off on Saints vs. Falcons, Ravens at Steelers and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-18-expert-picks-panthers-b…
NFL Week 14 picks: Our experts face off on Cowboys at Lions, Joe Burrow vs. Josh Allen, other crucial matchups
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-14-expert-picks-predictions-a…
NYT reporter John Carreyrou and five other writers sue xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Perplexity, accusing them of pirating their books to train AI (Blake Brittain/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/n
NFL Week 18 roundtable: Myles Garrett's last shot, Ravens-Steelers hot seat, title clashes https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6936707/2026/01/03/nfl-week-18-garrett-harbaugh-tomlin-division-title-clash/
Press Engine: 1,200 video game journalists left the industry in the past two years; including amateur, part-time, and freelance writers, 4,000 left since 2023 (Andy Robinson/Video Games Chronicle)
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/m
The WGA says a deal combining Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery would be "a disaster" and that it will press regulators to block any such deal (Hannah Miller/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20
NFL Week 13 picks: Our experts face off on Shedeur Sanders' second start, Bills against Steelers and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-13-picks-dueling-expert-predict…
NFL Week 17 picks: Our experts face off on Cowboys vs. Commanders, Lions at Vikings and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-17-…
NFL Week 8 picks: Our experts face off on Giants vs. Eagles, Cowboys at Broncos and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-8-betting-picks-predic…
NFL Week 8 roundtable: Cowboys-Broncos, Aaron Rodgers meets Packers, Eagles upset alert https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6747019/2025/10/25/nfl-week-8-predictions-cowboys-broncos-rodgers-packers/
NFL Week 8 picks: Our experts face off on Vikings vs. Chargers, Cowboys at Broncos and more
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-8-betting-picks-pre…