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LJ Pemberton

@ljabouttown

Writer's writer's writer. πŸ“š STILL ALIVE (2024), longlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award. https://tinyurl.com/y8mt536j

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14.07.2023
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Latest posts by LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown

this term school girl, they keep saying 160 school girls

not girls

not 160 girls

it’s anachronisticβ€”othering to say school girl

even though i keep thinking, i was a school girl

i was a girl at school

11.03.2026 02:28 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

today was not my best day, but there will be other days

11.03.2026 02:12 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job The Social Security inspector general’s office is investigating allegations that the former DOGE engineer took sensitive data on a thumb drive in a major potential security breach, said people familia...

Gift Link: wapo.st/4bAFCQZ

10.03.2026 19:57 πŸ‘ 362 πŸ” 152 πŸ’¬ 17 πŸ“Œ 40
Post image
10.03.2026 21:01 πŸ‘ 948 πŸ” 280 πŸ’¬ 12 πŸ“Œ 36

Reviews help people discover books that would otherwise languish in obscurity.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my bookβ€”past, present, and ye future folks too!

10.03.2026 21:05 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Fucking illiterate pedants everywhere

10.03.2026 18:36 πŸ‘ 94 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 0

Twain was my special interest from ages 21-26. I, too, endorse this message.

10.03.2026 17:51 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Omg how did I forget to mention The Golden Ass by Apuleius? The only ancient Roman novel to survive in its entirety? And people say my book is horny. This thing is a bawdy romp from start to finish!

10.03.2026 17:45 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

ooooof facts

10.03.2026 17:32 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The problem with edgelords in left spaces is that once they're validated they think being complete dickbags is a form of organizing

10.03.2026 17:27 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

When you support indie booksellers and bookstores, you are supporting human curation, the exercise of judgment and taste, the storefronts that make cities interesting. You make it possible for writers and readers outside the mainstream to be found again. You support real people who love literature.

10.03.2026 17:29 πŸ‘ 21 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

When you support indie presses, you keep art and writing made by people alive. You make it possible for voices to exist outside the mainstream. You support real people who are going to work everyday and creating when they can (usually by sleeping less).

10.03.2026 17:28 πŸ‘ 49 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
"You preferred human writing.
You're either sharply attuned to the qualities that make for great writing, or a lucky guesser. Maybe you also noticed that human writing often includes som clunky phrases, like this passage from Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian,' caused by the author's aversion to punctuation: 'As well ask men what they think of stone.'

A.I. used to make mistakes like these. But today's systems are much more fluid than their predecessorsβ€”so fluid, in fact, that finding grammatical errors or nonstandard syntax is often a hint that you're looking at a human's prose, not a machine's."

"You preferred human writing. You're either sharply attuned to the qualities that make for great writing, or a lucky guesser. Maybe you also noticed that human writing often includes som clunky phrases, like this passage from Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian,' caused by the author's aversion to punctuation: 'As well ask men what they think of stone.' A.I. used to make mistakes like these. But today's systems are much more fluid than their predecessorsβ€”so fluid, in fact, that finding grammatical errors or nonstandard syntax is often a hint that you're looking at a human's prose, not a machine's."

i genuinely hate this guy

10.03.2026 15:51 πŸ‘ 520 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 28 πŸ“Œ 17

What a great conference you had!!! Thank you for supporting indie lit and indie authors! (And oh how I adore Casey Plett, one of the founders of Little Puss. We went to grad school together.) xo

10.03.2026 17:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

hot

10.03.2026 17:20 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Meanwhile, at the classically inspired literary magazine, @danielmiller.bsky.social shows what it’s all about:

10.03.2026 02:20 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

That's why I'm so against ChatGPT. I'm against letting a machine do your homework for you. I think you should cling to Doing Your Homework Yourself like it's the last opportunity you have to liberate yourself from mental enslavement. Because it basically is.

Anyway shout out to Kai Cenat.

15.01.2026 02:18 πŸ‘ 1364 πŸ” 199 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 2

I am so sick of near illiterate fascist fools telling the rest of us how Culture and Art and History should be done, when they haven't bothered to learn how it ever was created in the first place. They lost the past by never knowing it, and I'll be damned if they win the future.

10.03.2026 00:30 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I am so sick of near illiterate fascist fools telling the rest of us how Culture and Art and History should be done, when they haven't bothered to learn how it ever was created in the first place. They lost the past by never knowing it, and I'll be damned if they win the future.

10.03.2026 00:30 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Spouse to himself, in a migraine haze, speaking of our cat:

"Meeps knows what's what. He knows Bob Fosse wasn't actually a very good dancer."

10.03.2026 00:24 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

*read

10.03.2026 00:15 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I’m not even asking for your policy paper on how to get there I’m just asking people to imagine it with their minds and want it. It’s free to do!

10.03.2026 00:06 πŸ‘ 139 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1

By the time you read Herodotus and learn about the invention of History, you'll never believe a single propagandistic lie again.

10.03.2026 00:04 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Think Heated Rivalry is gay? May I introduce you to The Iliad.

10.03.2026 00:03 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Truly, you haven't lived until you've heard an 18 year old turn antiauthoritarian after a close reading of Exodus.

10.03.2026 00:02 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

The way conservatives laud The Classics without comprehending the classics makes me think they jerk off to book covers.

10.03.2026 00:01 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Tell me you've never Thucydides, without telling me you've never read Thucydides:

*waves hands at the current conflict in Iran*

10.03.2026 00:00 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Lmao--having gone to Reed College, one of the only schools that requires Humanities 110 of all students, including works by Heraclitus and Aristotle and the Bible, I can testify that a return to the classics will not have the cultural effect that these middling conservative minds think it will.

09.03.2026 23:59 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2

boomer coffee whining has been going on my entire adult life and it was stupid in 2001 and it’s stupid now

09.03.2026 22:31 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The foundation of American fascism rests on three things: extreme bigotry, whining about other people's coffee orders, and saying "so much for global warming" whenever it's cold out

09.03.2026 19:17 πŸ‘ 1126 πŸ” 197 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 4