146 posts tagged with writing.
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Hang a tiny bell / from a hungry, agile cat, / and alter all things.
I've launched a new blog called A Tiny Bell. It mixes both the "links to cool things" aspect of a traditional blog and the "personal essay" aspect of more modern blogs. I hope you like it enough to spread the word.
Blog/Column: Humans and Technology
I started writing technology column (as if we need another one of those) for one of my region's local newspapers, and I've been archiving it on a blog. The focus is on the human side of technology use. [more inside]
"The trouble is, however, that I feel that I have something to say"
A 2017 post on the Blue linked to an essay (archive.org!) about a kinda mysterious 1886 American book, The Story of Don Miff, highlighting its unusual "postmodern" elements. I made a proper proof-read ebook, not previously available, that you can get at >> gutenberg.org <<. [more inside]
Hey, There's Science In This
I wrote a book! "Hey, There's Science In This" is a short collection of essays about unexpected science links to everyday topics. Rubber ducks at sea, a Japanese TV show, food-based paint techniques, hiking trails and much more all reveal their hidden science. The book started out as blog posts written between about 2007 and 2023, but they've been updated and rewritten for this collection. [more inside]
Practical Defence Against Piracy - a graphic novel / webcomic in progress
Twelve years ago I posted a project here - “DelilahDirk.com - a graphic novel, serialized online.” Then, for a decade, I kept my head down in an old-fashioned authorly manner and made two more in the same series and some other books I’m proud of. Now I’m making another comic on the internet, it’s full of pirates, it's been nominated for a Will Eisner award, and the final instalment of the most recent chapter goes up on International Talk Like A Pirate Day. [more inside]
A Substack of My (mainly) Fantasy Writing
I've finally pulled the trigger and started a Substack! [more inside]
The Trashscarf Tales
So after a short break from writing of about 20 years, I'm starting up a little story that's just for fun. It's a whimsical fantasy adventure sort of thing with lots of silly jokes and bad puns. There is a talking mustache that is actually a mycelium network. That kinda thing.
Have You Played?
Learn about the videogames you should play and how to think about them! Have You Played is a free weekly newsletter for novices and experts alike, written by an award-winning game design and journalist. Every post starts with a simple description of exactly how the game works and what you do in it, then explores what makes it uniquely good or flawed. I've covered games including Pentiment, Season, Terra Nil, Cyberpunk 2077, Honkai: Star Rail, and many more!
A ChatGPT Primer for Writing Teachers (and other academic humanists)
Academics, like the rest of the world, have been talking a lot about ChatGPT. College writing instructors—people in the field of writing studies or composition and rhetoric—are particularly worried about (1) the possibilities of plagiarism and (2) the questions automated prose generators raise for the notion that writing is form of thinking. This informal 5000-word longread primer, with an extended bibliography for further reading, summarizes some of the technical operations of LLMs for a humanist audience and links those technical questions to larger pedagogical and philosophical concerns. Feedback welcomed!
Newsletter about passages in fiction
I've started a newsletter about influential passages in fiction as they relate to the craft of writing. One post every Tuesday. Each a five-minute read. [more inside]
saneens, nubians, one lamancha: poems
Winner of the 2021 Quarterly West Chapbook Contest, saneens, nubians, one lamancha is a collection of poetry recounting my first six months as a novice farmhand on a small raw goat milk dairy in the southern United States. The poems seek to expand the frame of the pastoral by leveraging the specific experience of a black body learning to work, live, and exist in the agrarian. [more inside]
A VR Schizophrenia Simulator for Us All
My senior year of college, I had a mental crisis of sorts. I was struggling with intrusive thoughts and was afraid that I’d blurt them out loud in class, thereby humiliating myself and inflicting emotional damage on both myself and my peers. I became convinced I had schizophrenia, although I wasn’t exhibiting any of the symptoms...
[more inside]
Hunter x Hunter Ladies Fanzine - For International Women's Day
Happy International Women's Day! I'm back again with another fan project! This one is a fanzine for Yoshihiro Togashi's anime and manga Hunter x Hunter, possibly the only Weekly Shounen Jump manga where the co-protagonist ends the series by deciding to look after his beloved trans kid sister instead of embarking on further adventures.
To celebrate all the great female and fem characters in this series, we put together this free fanzine, which you can read at the link above. It was important for us to create an inclusive zine, and I'd like to ask in comments for your suggestions for trans-inclusive feminist charities, especially European ones, as we are still deciding where we'd like to put any money left over at the of this project (the digital zine is free, the print zine is at cost, and we might do a merch drive for charity if we can find the right one). [more inside]
Return to the Planet: a Zine Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of FFVII
About eight months ago, some discord friends and I decided we wanted to make a zine to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII. It's been a long ride, but happy to share the result with you guys because so many people poured their souls into this passion project and it came out amazing. Includes original art and writing from ~60 people, including eight non-fiction essays discussing topics ranging from Carl Sagan to 90s Japanese environmental activism. Cheers!
How Stories Saved Me
A blog post I wrote Skolion, on how being a writer with a vivid imagination both harmed and helped my mental health.
Avoidance Procedures
Avoidance Procedures is a short comic about persevering in the face of the immensity and eternity of everything. It's also the 60th (and last) episode in the lo-fi sci-fi comic series Places In Space, an episodic journey across the universe and back again spread out across two different 30 episode series (previously on projects). [more inside]
Blaseball is a Horror Game
A short free zine inspired by the cultural event of blaseball. A group of friends and I have been chatting about the splort and decided to explore more of blaseball's horrific aspects, which sometimes get elided by fanworks in favor of pure weird or optimistic reads.
MOSKVA
My short story, MOSKVA, is featured on Hobart Pulp today. Described by one reader as "gritty realism," the story chronicles the 2003 adventures of a gaggle of young American college students who have taken to the streets of Moscow after midnight.
txt.substack
txt. [more inside]
What ARGs can teach us about QAnon
QAnon isn't an alternate reality game (ARG), but ARGs can teach us why QAnon is so popular – and how to restore the lack of trust that led to QAnon's rise. This 5700 word post draws on my 19 years of playing, documenting, designing, and running ARGs.
Pandemic Lit
My colleague and I co-host a monthly live literary show called Write Club, which pits writers against each other in timed bouts on opposing concepts. While we're all quarantined, we're continuing on with a series of video bouts. First installment is up now, with more to come in the weeks to follow. [more inside]
YOU (September 1994 – June 1996)
YOU (September 1994 – June 1996) is an autobiographical short story that attempts to recreate what it felt like being a 16 to 18 year old at school in the 90s.
The 100 Day Writing Challenge
A couple of years ago I made a free 8-week writing course in podcast form. Starting from Jan 1st I'm releasing a new, bigger version called The 100 Day Writing Challenge. [more inside]
This Film Is 100 Years Old
This Film Is 100 Years Old is a site where I watch and review films that are 100 years old (or sometimes even more). Films I've looked at so far include Lotte Reiniger's first ever cartoon, the first appearance of Felix The Cat and a minute long piece of footage of a printing press in motion, as well as the first appearance of Santa Claus, 121 years ago. [more inside]
In The Terminals Of Minraud
In The Terminals Of Minraud is a trilogy of thematiclaly-linked short stories - March My Captive Head, Last Of The Gallant Heroes, and Fading My Name Through Dying Air - assembled entirely out of sentences from William Burroughs novels. (Stories contain sex, violence, unpleasant language) [more inside]
Get Afraid Journal
Thanks to AskMeFi I put a bowl of fruit on it and sold a piano on Craigslist. The buyer ended up composing an amazing song with it for my podcast. After 28 episodes of Man Afraid of Everything (from hailing a taxi to doing improv for a year) I’m excited to share this new workbook inspired by the show. Write, draw, and trash your way through a series of challenges designed to expand your comfort zone. [more inside]
Gist Press
Publishes GitHub gists in a friendly article format, with a little help from Tufte CSS.
Accepts Markdown, syntax-highlights code, renders math symbols beautifully. [more inside]
Between Seasons on the North Head Trail
A longform visual essay (3000 words, 50 photos, and a song) about walking the historic North Head Trail in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. A tromp through local history, freezing rain, macrophotography, fog, a cholera hospital, moonlight hikes, tourists, foxes, and optical phenomena. [more inside]
An Accumulation Of Things
An Accumulation Of Things is a website which collects together various selections of my (fairly eclectic) writing output, including numerous fairy tales, short stories, comics, graphic novels, children's picture books (both rough scripts and fully illustrated books), and occasional short poems and other ephemera. This week is the site's first anniversary, and in that year to date so far it has accumulated roughly 300 things, and my current ongoing projects include Violent Penguin (a daily comic strip about a Penguin), A Thousand And One Tales (my weekly ongoing fairy tales project), and Places In Space (a weekly series of short science fiction comics, detailing a voyage through space). [more inside]
Abel's Autobiography
This is an excerpt from my Icelandic novel Móðurhugur, translated by Larissa Kyzer, and published in the tenth annual Queer issue of Words Without Borders. The excerpt tells the story of a young trans man at the University of Colorado Boulder who becomes embroiled in a love triangle. More about this issues's other stories and poetry below the cut. [more inside]
The Stolen Child (a tale told in tales)
"The child in the cage had been found in the forest, they said, left behind by the fair folk there at the passing of the midsummer sun. Or, they said, the child had been a gift from the gods. The child was a traveller, the child was a spy, a thief, a lie. The child was a warning. A warrior. A weapon. The child was an offering. The child was a beast. But the child in the cage was none of these things. The child was a child."
The Stolen Child is a short fairy tale in six parts, about imprisonment, escape, and revenge. [more inside]
The Unleashed
My late-middle-grade / YA urban fantasy novel about the ghosts of Seattle is free to read online. It follows Mira, a ghost who frees herself from the tether that bound her to the place where she died. Mira learns a terrible secret about the ghosts of Seattle and decides to do something about it. [more inside]
Endarkenment: Dark Ambient Music Newsletter
Endarkenment is a new digital subscription periodical + web archive of contemplative writing on dark ambient music appreciation. The author is a longtime dark ambient nerd who's also writing a book (with interview quotes) about the genre. Newsletter features include deep-dive interviews, themed playlists + liner notes, and an underrated albums series. The default subscription tier is free; readers can upgrade to help support the artists and gain full access to all interviews. [more inside]
Bug Report! zine
Bug Report! is a (free) zine about the frustrations and growing disillusionment of working in technology today. You can see the first issue online here; soliciting submissions for the second one now!
A thousand and one tales.
A thousand and one tales is an ongoing and ever-growing collection of new fairy tales and folk tales, with a new story posted every Friday.
The 30 stories so far include retellings of famous fairy tales (Ariadne and the Minotaur in The King's Daughter And The King's Son; Cinderella in Lonely Isobel; Bluebeard in The Three Doors And The Fourth); stories about good queens (The Lunar Queen; The King And The Light), bad kings (The King And His Weeping Wife), and even worse fathers (The Wolves In The Woods; The Farmer's Daughters); transformations (The Unhappy Bride); beasts (The Three Sorrowful Sisters; A Long Winter's Night); and the telling of tales itself (Old Tales Are Made New In The Telling). [more inside]
The Many Lives of Ayn Winters: My TV Pilot With Sony PlayStation
In 2017, I was chosen to create and develop an original television pilot as a part of Sony PlayStation's Emerging Filmmaker's Program. I co-wrote the script and even got to spend some time on set. After a year of blood, sweat, and development it is finally out! I'd love for you to take a look.
To My Dead Husband
What I'd say to my dead husband if I had the chance. [more inside]
Random Generators
When I get bored, I make random generators. Mostly story/plot or art prompt generators, but there's also one for pub and tavern names, and a collaboration with Yoon Ha Lee on a Tarot-type card reading generator based on the Machineries of Empire series.
An accumulation of things
An accumulation of things is a website collecting together lots of pieces of my writing, including various short stories, fairy tales, picture books, and comics. [more inside]
This Is A Boring Shark Attack: 8 Rules for Fascinating Storytelling
I've been doing standup and storytelling in NYC for ten years this month. Now I'm convinced that the big money comes from telling stories that are built out of jokes, but I'm still waiting for the data to come in.
This Is A Boring Shark Attack: 8 Rules for Fascinating Storytelling [more inside]
This Is A Boring Shark Attack: 8 Rules for Fascinating Storytelling [more inside]
Information Jones Database Detective - Short Stories
Information Jones is the world's greatest database detective and one of its least successful IT professionals. Technology managers knock on his door when they have nowhere else to turn. Follow Information Jones' adventures as he cracks the case contrary to all expectations. His expertise is Oracle. His specialty is unreason. Two collections of short stories, free on the web as HTML or an epub.
100 Doodles
100 Doodles is an art newsletter project where I (try) to draw and write one newsletter per week. Each newsletter contains a small painting and some written notes about the subject. It's sort of a slow, handwritten blog, but in your email. [more inside]
I blogged for 17 years and all I got were these lousy Markov chains.
What does one do with a blog in 2018? If you're me you export the text, do a little cleanup, ingest it with NLP (Natural Language Processing) tool Markovify, and create random sentences based on your own writing. It's a little eerie to read words that seem like me but clearly were not assembled by me. It was fun to make. You can follow it on twitter @BloggingBot.
The Couch to 80k Writing Boot Camp
I made a free 8-week fiction writing course in podcast form. [more inside]
Write or Die 3
Write or Die 3 is the latest in a line of quirky tools for short-circuiting writer's block. Too many writing apps are too unopinionated, they will wait forever for you to start writing. Write or Die exhorts you to write and when you stop writing it will provide consequences. [more inside]
What I Did This Year
A quick round up of stuff I’ve written, drawn or said out loud this year that exists in an easy to see on the Internet form for both myself and something to show to editors and art directors. [more inside]
The truth has got its boots on: an evidence-based response to James Damore's Google memo
In which I have a very, very thorough walk through the relevant literature about gender and the workplace, and.... uh, cite over a hundred peer reviewed works in doing so while I refute effectively ever point I can find in Mr. Damore's 'memo.' I'm currently working on getting the footnotes linked within the piece and getting a functional table of contents rolling, but this is up and linkable for anyone as of right this second. All effort has been made to find non-paywalled PDFs of all links cited in the document. [more inside]
How Much Are My Childhood Dream Jobs Really Worth?
I investigated how much I could be making if I'd stuck with one of my preferred career choices from my childhood, like secretary, architect, or gold-medal-winning-Olympic gymnast, for The Billfold.
Just Like Grape
Starting a weekly newsletter about arts, design and entrepreneurship. The first two posts are already up!
This Land, This Year
I'm traveling to every state in the USA in 2017 and writing about it. For several reasons. I've been to eight states so far. There's an Instagram to go along with the blog.