📗 As promised, today for #OnlySky I launch our Humanist Book Club.

The first text, for the next six weeks, will be The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

In this intro article, I outline the problems of pseudo-hagiography: when the popularity of the author can make it difficult to access the text and its arguments directly.

Next week, we'll dive into the first two chapters!
Should be fun!

#Books #Reading #CoSoBooks #BookClub #Humanism
https://onlysky.media/mclark/humanist-book-club-how-we-pre-engage-with-popular-science/

Tech friends: The other day I encountered a new-to-me term, "frugal computing"--the concept of writing software & using tech in ways that make fewer energy demands, as part of a general push for degrowth in our societies. I've read a couple of papers on it by now, but I'm curious what the real-world chatter is around this. Are implementations of this concept reasonable? Feasible? Underway? And if so, how? Any recommended resources for learning more?

(Thanks in advance!)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.06642

One thing that can happen to authors across the publishing landscape is that they can feel a deep "low" after finishing a project, or around a launch.

It happens for folks who land a book with a major publisher, a small press, or an indie.

I now have two books out in the world. I moved countries and hustled hard to be able to write them at all. I've finished what I wanted to do.

Tomorrow, life goes on!

I have to reflect on what comes next for *me*, though.

It's been a journey and a half.

All right, loves.

I have *no* idea why this #Newsletter was so difficult to send out.

Yes, it explores heavy stuff, including carceral reform & the cruelty of trans panic, but mostly it's about the importance of striving for pluralist democracy, & not letting hateful politics trick us into accepting a reductive approach to society instead.

(Children of Doro also goes deep into governance and restorative justice, so this all weaves together well.)

#BetterWorldsTheory

https://mlclark.substack.com/p/history-literature-and-pluralist

Oh, I should also note:

Children of Doro is now available on eBook and in paperback: inspired by The Brothers Karamazov, narrated by an AI ship, and including multiple forms of AI government in conflict.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read, review, and/or recommend it. 💛

(And if you're not keen on Amazon, there are still review copies at BookSiren, BookSprout, and NetGalley.)

#SFF #WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo #Indie #Publishing #IndiePublishing https://www.amazon.com/Children-Doro-M-L-Clark/dp/B0C2RSC5D1/

Tuesday night through all of yesterday, I seem to have been affected by an unusual heat wave (I live in a "City of Eternal Spring", so day-and-night mugginess is a rare thing, but it happened!).

Will have the newsletter up today - I worked on it off and on Tuesday and Wednesday but just couldn't "brain" well enough to get it done to my satisfaction.

(Or maybe I couldn't "brain" well enough to let it go? To-may-to, to-mah-to!)

Until then, as I was sorely reminded yesterday:

Please hydrate! 💧

Happy May 4th, CoSo!

Today for #OnlySky: There's been a lot of uncertainty in financial news as of late, so I've looped together a few threads of recent data & industry concerns to highlight a confidence crisis in banking that we'd all do well to watch.

As always for financial pieces, my aim is to make the bigger So What far more accessible to everyday readers who rightly despise the usual gamification of finance. Hopefully this is a straightforward read! ⬇️

#Humanism
https://onlysky.media/mclark/may-the-financial-fracasos-be-with-us/

Still wrapping up today's newsletter - it's a heart-heavy one - but for now, here's a wee slice from readings I'm doing to flesh out a character in the next novel: on the deep connection between history and empirical science.

Humanist praxis compels us to mind our history, if we're to remain informed enough about the present to build better worlds to come.

Morning, CoSo. 💫😊

Today's BookTube offers a deep dive into classic lit, philosophy, and history in contemporary SFF... and it also reflects on some of the problems with Western publishing that make it difficult for us to *own* the intellectual histories in our fictions. We can do better! Here's a great reading list to get you started, if you're itchy for work in conversation with ideas that came before.

#BetterWorldsTheory #SFF #Books #CoSoBooks #Publishing
https://youtu.be/SnS0Lm9w-Bs

Ah, humanity in a nutshell. 🙃

We mean well. We do!

Just, don't ask us to make sacrifices. We have a finely honed ability to be concerned about a situation without being ready to take action over it.

This is our gift to the cosmos.

Some animals leave other (dead) animals at people's doorsteps -so who's to say which species is the messiest, right? 🙃

(Morning CoSo! Hope your first news of the day was more fun!)

Just enough time for a walk before evening classes - and at that perfect hour, too, when the lessening sun turns the air crystalline-hazy and filters gold across the mountains, over the brick facades of other towering homes, and all along the windows shading lives every bit as rich as the only ones we've ever known.

:) A good day.

Live footage from Day 1 of novel MS work, after three months away from the draft. 🙃

(We'll build back stronger tomorrow, but I had a lot of time to rethink my worldbuilding, so smash-y smash-y was required today.)

All right, loves. And now it is on. Next Book O'Clock. Happy May.

#AmWriting #ThucydidesInSpace

Morning CoSo! Happy May! 🌺

Today for #OnlySky, I've got a 10-book reading list on offer, for a summer of humanist deep dives. Books on science, global ecosystems, tech and finance, AI and military, US law, border crises, and more!

I'm also starting a Humanist Book Club, which will run on Fridays with The Dawn of Everything as its opening text. Should be a fun late spring and early summer! What have you got on the go? ⬇️

#Humanism #Books #CoSoBooks https://onlysky.media/mclark/10-books-for-deep-dives-a-humanist-summer-reading-list/

😅 A common crisis for our lot.

#WritingCommunity #Writing #WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity

Otherwise? I'm just winding down the last few hours before my May schedule officially begins - and trying to block three articles in advance, to give myself even more time for the next novel this week.

Inspired by Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, this next space opera is going to wrestle with some big questions about the nature of national identity - its formation, its maintenance, & its weaponization.

Anyone else here with May projects queued up? (Good skill if so!)

#WritersOfCoSo #Writers

As much as Colombia's government has gotten flak as of late for ongoing struggles with Clan del Golfo and ELN, there are definitely signs that it's trying to stay ahead of the curve. Tomorrow is a protest day / holiday in Colombia, and there's currently a military presence monitoring a distribution centre near my home, plus another team by the water filtration plant down the street.

Precautions precautions!

Kind of fascinating, how many layers of power struggle play out every day in our world.

One last post for the night.

I've felt so much more secure in myself & my pursuits since joining CoSo.

This isn't a "cult-y" post.

It's about the power of leaving a performative way of being, on other social media, that always had me feeling Less Than.

Here I get to be my full self. Warts & all.

& I can trust that if folks don't like it, they'll simply mute or block.

While folks who resonate reach out.

I owe so much of my strength of conviction to this space.

So thank you.
Thank *you*.
💛