This was my last giddy day before a month of hermitude under my new schedule. 😊 Got all my sillies out.

Starting next week, posts to OnlySky thrice-weekly, with a book club article every Friday.

Newsletter on Tuesdays (acclimating for a future where I add a paid Thursday).

Two new BookTubes coming soon!

Patreon for Patrons with further plans.

&... Thucydides in space! This month, the draft-ening ensues!

Whatever you're up to in May, choose kindness with yourselves.

All else will follow. 💛

I just want to add that I don't post these things to receive praise.

It's really uncomfortable, making such posts, because of the praise they yield.

It's just that we don't *really* talk much about poverty, & we don't have many ways to normalize discussing #MutualAid without citing our own need, or how we met someone else's.

So I do hope that this & similar posts are taken in the light intended.

The *hurt* of so much need is what I'm sharing.

I know you do what you can where you can too. 💙

You can't help everyone, but we help where we can. Family of three, Venezuelan mum & two kids who've been out begging on the highway all day in a muggy heat.

Took them to the discount store. $15 Canadian stocked their household for at least a week.

It is staggering how little can help so many. I'll be in ayunos most of May (for writing clarity; it helps with focus), but it's super hard to watch kids go without. (The older brother was such a sweetheart with his little sister the whole while.)

I should also warn folks that, as of May 1, all my new-fiction attention will be turning from Dostoevsky-in-space to Thucydides-in-space - so consider yourselves warned. 🙃

The history nerd in me is *so* ready to start Hulking out. 🤓 #AmWriting #Soon

I should add contemporaries:

▪️ Wizard of the Crow, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
▪️ A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
▪️ Preparation for the Next Life, Atticus Lish
▪️ The Wrong End of the Telescope, Rabih Alameddine
▪️ Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang
▪️ A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James
▪️ Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders
▪️ Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers

Ugh. You see? There're too many good books. This isn't an easy question! We need each another if we're ever to read them all. 😭

Someone asked me a few weeks back what my favourite novels were. Then I had a Bad Time harassed on the street & forgot. 🙃 So many! How to choose?

Brothers K is one I feel too personally to rank; others include The Sea, The Sea; Light in August; Middlemarch; A Cure for Suicide; Golden Notebook; Anathem...

But for exquisite books? Top 3?

The Name of the Rose
The Years of Rice and Salt
One Hundred Years of Solitude

Books that seek wholehearted immersion will always win my heart.

Y tú? 👀
#Books

It fascinates me how many different ways there are to think about writing.

Fellow #writers, do any of you resonate with these words by William Gass, in a 1976 interview in The Paris Review?

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3576/the-art-of-fiction-no-65-william-gass

If not (and I suspect it's "not" for most of you), what *would* you say motivates your work? Has it always been this way, or have your motivations changed over time?

#WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity

And... like a sucker, I'm starting a Voyager rewatch. I know I have a lot of lousy episodes to look forward to (the tweeness of Kes, Seven played for eye candy, B'Elanna & Tom's quarrels, ...Threshold), but some good stuff too. (Some of the Doctor episodes really grappled with AI in a fun way.) And boy howdy, is the opener hitting my nostalgia just right. (You can totally tell it was airing around B5, though, with its opening tone.)

#StarTrek #SFF #CoSoTV

Okay, and now it's #BookTube time!

This time around, I chat about another major influence for my upcoming novel, Children of Doro.

Yes, it's part Dostoevsky-in-space. But it's also inspired by Star Trek - at least, in franchise formations appealing to the construction of a better society.

Next up? A longer rec list of #SFF that draws from classic lit, history, & philosophy.

(Trust me, that one's going to be fun!👌)

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo
https://youtu.be/VQCuUDPQQLc

💫 Good morning to all, but especially to @Laredo2014, @j0n, @ACG2, @LiseL, @poemblaze, @evamarie, @thewebrecluse, @tiptoeing, & all the other dedicated greeters not only of the day but also all we fellow oddballs in it. ❤️ It's the little things that keep any community thriving.

Bonus shout-outs to @TheresaVermont for keeping her daily chocolate going 🍫, @GaryPoole & @phase for bringing the brew ☕, & @TheNewsOwl for sharing other treats to get us started 📰.

Have a lovely one, loves. As always.

I'm at a key decision-point for #writers: The point where you recognize something won't get finished in time for a call, and have to decide if you're going to spend the next few days scrambling, stressing, and *still* failing, or...

Accept the setback, shelve the work until you can complete it properly, and give yourself a workload of easier wins over the next few days instead.

Silly pragmatic adulthood.

Going for a walk! Then targeting 4 more manageable weekend tasks instead.

#WritersOfCoSo

(Also, good morning, good Friday, and where did I put my brew... )

🙃 Morning, CoSo.

I thought this was going to be a wee news brief for #OnlySky.

Instead I wrote about the ERA's latest death in a way that returns us to the whole history of its intersectionality with labour rights, and more.

I... think I'm getting a little fed up with the way that the serious socioeconomic issues facing the US (and world) are being hijacked by trans panic, queer panic, and general hostility toward women?

Just a lil' bit?

#Humanism #Politics
https://onlysky.media/mclark/what-a-failed-equal-rights-amendment-reveals-about-us-politics/

To be clear, my very first month in Colombia, while in Bogotá, activist groups stormed a building across the street and set up shop on the roof. The military surrounded & locked down our block for the rest of the day. Tear gas had us take our students to the third floor, where we steered clear of windows because the kids across the street were shooting at them.

So I've known what it means to live in Colombia from the start! 🙃 Lovely weather--& active political discourse in ever so many forms.

😊 Oh I love this country.

Two years ago I watched from my balcony as protestors filled the highway, setting up strategic fire barriers (you read that right!) and using trucks to stall traffic during protests centered mainly around a mid-pandemic tax policy that would have gutted low- and mid-income households to shore up pension funds via international investment rankings. Esmad tore out in the other direction. Skirmishes ensued. LOTS of tear gas. Good times. Memorial strike tomorrow! #Colombia

I honestly feel remarkably alive amid the demise of so many social-media & clickbait ventures. I never felt comfortable in this milieu; I always hated the neoliberal push for folks to commodify themselves & prioritize hot takes over substantive discourse.

Have we outlasted that nonsense? Is there room for us to contribute meaningfully to a better media climate going forward?

Gosh I hope so!

"Vice News Tonight to End as Company Undergoes News Layoffs and Restructuring"
https://deadline.com/2023/04/vice-news-tonight-canceled-layoffs-1235339323/

Has anyone here been keen to talk more about The Dawn of Everything?

Starting next week I'm going to run a weekly "book club" article on OnlySky about a different section of the text. I'm hoping to tie each chunk into broader contemporary issues, too - so you won't *have* to have read the book to follow along - but if this is something you'd be interested in, consider this a head's up to dive (back) in to your Graeber & Wengrow!

We ride at dawn!💪
Er. Next Friday. 🙃

#CoSoBooks #Books #BookClub