Karen Yin (The Conscious Style Guide)

The Supreme Court doesn't care if you want to copyright your AI-generated art The highest court in the US declined to review a case about copyrighting artwork created with the help of AI.

It’s so rare to get a decision like this. I hate to be grateful for the bare minimum but I’m grateful to the work of everyone involved in obtaining this victory. www.engadget.com/ai/the-supre...

How Book Bans Led to the Postponement of the Diversity Baseline Survey Jason Low is publisher and co-owner of Lee & Low Books, the largest multicultural children’s book publisher in the U.S. and the force behind the Diversity Baseline Survey. Here, Low issues a call to…

In honor of Read Across America Day and Call Your Governor Day, publisher Jason Low shares a call to action to fight book banning buff.ly/Jc7UGNu

This month’s Conscious Language Newsletter is out! The most popular articles so far:

#1: Physicians Are Not Providers: The Ethical Significance of Names in Health Care: A Policy Paper From the American College of Physicians

www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

The Conscious Language Newsletter by Karen Yin The Conscious Language Newsletter rounds up the best opinions and observations from the world of inclusive, respectful, and empowering language. Get the new book, The Conscious Style Guide!

If you subscribe to my newsletter (mail.consciousstyleguide.com/subscribe), you can download a free excerpt from “The Conscious Style Guide: A Flexible Approach to Language That Includes, Respects, and Empowers.”

👉 For more news and opinions on conscious style, follow @consciousstyleguide.com.

Most AI assistants are feminine – and it’s fuelling dangerous stereotypes and abuse Without intervention, we risk hardcoding human misogyny into the digital infrastructure of everyday life.

#3: Most AI Assistants Are Feminine—and It’s Fuelling Dangerous Stereotypes and Abuse @theconversation.com

What Romances by Disabled Authors Do Differently Romances by disabled romance incorporate important access of everyday life with disabilities in their stories, centering lived experiences and emphasizing boundaries and consent.

#2: What Romances by Disabled Authors Do Differently @bookriot.bsky.social

This month’s Conscious Language Newsletter is out! The most popular articles so far:

#1: Physicians Are Not Providers: The Ethical Significance of Names in Health Care: A Policy Paper From the American College of Physicians

www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

The best kind of language rant: Honest, self-aware, clear on the (extremely low) stakes, and funny.

What If We Stopped Calling Them Coffee Beans? | Sprudge Coffee A humble request to fix a longstanding inaccuracy.

My favorite language-related rant this week. ☕

So awesome! Congratulations!

Photo of a 4-inch wide circular display with a felted orange cat perched on a yellow chair, looking at a bookshelf. About six miniature books are strewn all over. in the background is a glass dome that goes over the display.

This makes me so happy. I finally got around to finishing this adorable kit by My Papercut Forest. I made a felted cat, in remembrance of our sweet kitty Saffron, and replaced the book covers with my own. #KidLit 📚🐈

COVER REVEAL for my next authored/illustrated book: SISTER SCRIBBLES, published by Viking, out in Aug 2026. It's a tale of sibling rivalry that shows your greatest competition may also be the one person who understands you the most!
Pre-order: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/773554...

#kidlit

My Sister’s Death Still Echoes Inside Me Rewaa was killed by an Israeli bomb. Her absence has broken me in ways I still cannot describe.

This staggering piece from Asmaa Dwaima about the loss of her sister will stay with you for a long time. www.thenation.com/article/worl...

The Conscious Language Newsletter: January 2026 What language do people in larger bodies actually prefer?

My #ConsciousLanguage Newsletter is out! The most popular articles so far:

• We’re Talking About AI All Wrong. Here’s How We Can Fix the Narrative
• Words Matter, Including “Fat,” “Obese,” “Curvy,” and “Heavy”
• Why “Biological Sex” May Not Mean What You Think

Follow 👉 @consciousstyleguide.com

Jacket design for Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks. It features a historic, drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! 🙏

UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈📚🐵

US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗃️🦋

Editors: When used in general-audience texts, terms like "meta-analysis," "retrospective study," "randomized controlled trial," and the like might not register as well with lay readers vs. those in STEM fields. Consider asking authors to reword or add a parenthetical to explain. #AmEditing

Journalist Don Lemon has been arrested after he covered a Minnesota church protest Journalist Don Lemon and three other people have been arrested in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.

Way more than NYT and WaPo's weak stories, @apnews.com devotes much of its Don Lemon arrest story to how it's an attack on the free press. (Should be higher up though.) apnews.com/article/don-...

The Conscious Language Newsletter: January 2026 What language do people in larger bodies actually prefer?

My #ConsciousLanguage Newsletter is out! The most popular articles so far:

• We’re Talking About AI All Wrong. Here’s How We Can Fix the Narrative
• Words Matter, Including “Fat,” “Obese,” “Curvy,” and “Heavy”
• Why “Biological Sex” May Not Mean What You Think

Follow 👉 @consciousstyleguide.com

studiohoffmann presents GAB 'N' DOODLE with Raúl the Third THURSDAY 1/29/26 @ 6PM EASTERN ON INSTAGRAM LIVE

📚Author/illustrator @raulthethird.bsky.social is an amazing creator of all things #kidlit

🎨Thurs at 6pm ET we’ll make art to auction off, to benefit the Immigrant Law Ctr of MN

Join us on Instagram Live!

@andreabrownlit.bsky.social @literaticat.bsky.social #kidlitart #illustration #graphicnovels

Trump Administration Tells FEMA Not to Warn of ‘Ice’ Ahead of Nationwide Storms in Case It Sparks ICE Memes The Department of Homeland Security has urged FEMA not to use the word ‘ice’ in winter weather warnings amid the ongoing controversy surrounding federal ICE agents. The Trump administration is worried...

Keep warning people about ice. Ice is dangerous. Watch out for ice.

Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day in Fascist Busytown? Welcome to Fascist Busytown. My, what a compliant, orderly town! In Fascist Busytown, everyone works. Working is important. Work makes everything r...

"Adults are workers. Children are workers too. Children are especially good workers because they are small. They can fit into places where adults cannot go, like factories with narrow gaps, crawl spaces under warehouses, and air vents where important listening happens."

Olympic host cities have a contract with the IOC that includes a termination clause that certainly aligns with what’s happening in Trump’s America

Language access is a civil right. Trump's rollback of vital translation services across federal agencies is a blatant attack on immigrant communities. More than 25 million people will be stripped of translation resources for Medicare, home loans, FEMA aid, & other lifelines.

Publishers Seek to Join Class Action Against Google Two members of the Association of American Publishers, Cengage and Hachette Book Group, have asked a court to allow them to join an ongoing class action lawsuit first brought by illustrators and autho...

“Among the remedies the publishers are seeking is an injunction requiring Google to stop infringing copyrighted material as well as an order to destroy ‘all infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ and the Class’s copyrighted works in its possession or control.’”

A copy of Luis and Tabitha, a jacketed hardcover with gold foiling and spot gloss. The cover shows a tuxedo cat with a rose in his mouth following after a woman carrying a fluffy cat. In the background is a night-time cityscape overseen by a full moon. It's painted in mid-century style.

Happy #Caturday! Luis and Tabitha is a purrfectly delightful love story about two star-crossed cat lovers. Words are by me; art is by Hollie Mengert. 🎈 🐈‍⬛

Photo by Pierre Lavie. Yes this is me. And I threw my Leica. It landed on the bass plate with hardly a scratch. Another Photographer grabbed it along with my phone and I was able to track him later. I was held face down tear gas deployed right in front of me and pepper sprayed directly into the eye.

How fun is this? A cover reveal for my book, NOW THAT WE DON’T TALK coming out in Oct from Scholastic.

Thank you Yaoyao Ma Van As for the art and Maithili Joshi for the cover design.

Can’t wait to share this fun story about two dogs who conspire to “parent trap” their feuding owners.

Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators. ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.

👇

Why “biological sex” may not mean what you think There are many terms to refer to a person’s sex: sex, birth sex, natal sex — and more contentiously, assigned sex at birth and biological sex.

What does "biological sex" mean? Tips from the Trans Journalists Association on being clear, specific, and accurate.

#ConsciousLanguage

HCR HQ (@hcrhq.bsky.social) Your home base for all things Heather Cox Richardson on Bluesky. Managed by Team HCR.

FYI, @hcrhq.bsky.social is where my team pulls together all the interviews and stuff I do.