Michelle A. Chikaonda

YOU'RE AMAZING 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

A little overwhelmed to see ‘25 Peppercorns’ on the BSFA’s Best Short Fiction shortlist.

I cried for three days when this story came out. It meant so much to me to be able to give life to these feelings, and I’m grateful to all the readers who voted for it.

Me: I love books. I will never stop buying them. I will die buried beneath them like a cairn.

Me while packing: whose shitass idea was this?

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Smart people have already written about the many problems of generative AI better than I could, but I’ll tell you this about the thing I know: writing is about writing. It’s an action. A verb. It’s what we do. I write, you write, they write. Skip that and you’re not a writer.

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

Just had to send another of those replies to a request for peer review: "The book sounds interesting, but I’m afraid I don’t exchange my labour for free e-books. The amounts paid in cash for such work are pitiable enough.” sigh

The SmokeLong Workshop Prize — Finalists and Winners! - SmokeLong Quarterly We’re behind. We know! The problem with The SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition is that the stories are all good. Choosing winners is like choosing a favorite child. This is famously bad parenting. B...

The results of this year's SmokeLong Workshop Prize are finally here! We have 11 wonderful finalists. And (drumroll):

Third Prize winner: @allisonfieldbell.bsky.social

Second Prize: @travisflatt.bsky.social

First Prize: @katehorsleywriter.bsky.social ⭐

www.smokelong.com/the-smokelon...

the Post news is gutting for many reasons, but I can’t help focusing on the books section—how great it was, and how essential. So many worthy books barely get reviewed. I’ve had authors reach out to thank me because mine was the only post-pub coverage they got. Just awful for readers & for writers.

U-Haul Unveils Live-In Trucks To Sleep In While You Sort Some Shit Out

U-Haul Unveils Live-In Trucks To Sleep In While You Sort Some Shit Out https://theonion.com/u-haul-unveils-live-in-trucks-to-sleep-in-while-you-sort-some-shit-out/

Bondi directed federal agents to arrest four journalists.

Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, Jamael Lundy, and Trahern Crews.

All Black. All doing their jobs.

hey Mom can you come pick me up. yeah everyone on the niche microblogging website is arguing about who has the correct emotional posture to the unknowable future again

We all need an occasional reminder, so listen up. Write that book. Send that story. Query that agent. Ask for that blurb. Maybe it doesn’t work out, but there’s a chance it will, and that chance—however small you think it is—is all you need.

I want us to not want white validation for Black art because while it looks nice to have the amount of times I’ve written something that a white person didn’t understand just for a Black person to pull me to the side and tell me how much they loved or needed it.

Our government functions like a rich nuclear family with an abusive dad. You don’t even have to look too deeply to see it. It’s After-School Special shit.

We cannot be more clear. Leave us the fuck alone.

Sadiq by Brian Turner It should make you shake and sweat, nightmare you, strand you in a desert of irrevocable desolation, the consequences seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline feeds the muscle its courage, no matter what god shines down on you, no matter what crackling pain and anger you carry in your fists, my friend, it should break your heart to kill.

…it should break your heart to kill.

Hang in there, y’all.

Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.

This man don’t miss.

Despite what we are often told, this line from Mamdani’s inauguration speech is what true pragmatism actually looks like:

“Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”

i am rooting as much as is appropriate for mamdani to be an effective mayor because if he manages it, he will be an important model and national leader for american progressives — one part fiorello la guardia, one part robert la folette

My New Year's resolution, arbitrary as it is, is to be online less. I'm having trouble concentrating, chasing little dopamine hits instead of committing to long term activities like writing and reading. I'm addicted to the distractions, and it has to stop. I'm too old for this constant outrage. (1)

The Olivia Nuzzi story and the Bari Weiss at CBS story are the same story, which is that the upper echelons of legacy media are absolutely rife with people who worship power and don't feel burdened by any sense of responsibility to their profession or the public.

Bringing back Limewire to illegally rip copies of reporting suppressed by the government is definitely some cyberpunk shit

I do think the key for things like Home Alone, Muppet Christmas Carol, etc. is that the actors fully commit to the bit

I feel like similar films made now lean too heavily into doing it ironically

lol they leaking the 60 minutes piece like it's the BEYONCE visuals

We watched last night. I will never, EVER forget, "That money is but one psalm in the Bible of my bitterness, you fucking child."

A line. A whole word.

I can’t stop thinking about that unfortunate Conpact article yesterday. At its core, we are talking about entitlement. White men (some) genuinely believe they lose opportunities to women and/or people of color by virtue of identity. They believe they are inherently more talented and being overlooked