Tried to stay up long enough to finish reading this academic book for a review, but the sound of car wheels on wet highway asphalt, under the soft static of rain with rumbles of thunder in the distance, keeps calling me away from the page.

Time to return to the dream of the world.

Wake before dawn, and start (maybe) anew.

🕊️ Goodnight, CoSo.

Heading into a meeting in three minutes. Anyone else up for some #PotatoLit, as well?

"I Have No #Potato, and I Must Scream", anyone?

Or maybe Anne of Green Potatoes?

#PotatoMovie

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Potato

How's everyone doing? Mood okay as the evening barrels in?

A decent summary of the long-term thinking lurking around the lastest looming crisis with #Milton.

Take care of yourselves. 🫂

"Faced with the impossible logistics of relocating a city like Tampa or Miami, that’s what will happen: repeated pulses of abandonment, performed chaotically and with almost limitless potential for immiseration, modernity’s wagon trains set out for who-knows-where as a warmed world reclaims chunks of land rendered, piece by piece, uninhabitable."
https://www.splinter.com/at-some-point-you-dont-go-back

Today for Monday Media Review, we're reflecting on a US anti-fascist film from the 1940s--but looking at it in full, and not just the excerpt often shared online.

The lessons from the full film are more nuanced: they remind us that even living through history doesn't guarantee our understanding of it; and also, that we stand a better chance of defeating horrible ideologies when we acknowledge how mundane their starting-points in recruitment usually are.

#MediaLiteracy
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-real-message-of-dont-be-a-sucker

#Wellness #MediaLiteracy

This was the first news page to greet me today: another day in which so much fresh trauma will be heaped upon grief.

My first task today was counselling a blind friend trying to help her father with dementia in Florida right now.

I think we all have smaller crises we're trying to be present for, while navigating the greater violence of our world.

I want to encourage folks to take breaks and focus on what they *can* do.

Survive today, maybe to thrive later on. 🕊️

A little beauty to start your week.

So much of nature has no idea what we humans get up to.

Let's not tell it, eh?

Let's dwell awhile among the flowers and the trees, the birds and the beetles, and speak of simpler things instead.

#CoSoNature #Colombia

Did I get everything I wanted finished today? Nope!

But boy howdy, do I feel good about having been able to uplift and support some CoSonauts this weekend, and learn from them in turn.

To see you shine in your creative practice, and rise above the madding fray of terrible news to focus on what we can do for one another... that's a real gift.

I mean, I *am* still going to try to get some fiction written before bed now, but...

This was already a good day.

Thanks for spending it together. 🕊️

#AFSR #SFF #ScienceFiction #audiobook #Reading

Hey folks! This one's free-to-read.

Chapters 15 & 16 are now up in audio and text format for A FERTILE SOURCE OF RUIN, my wartime space opera inspired by Thucydides.

Each post includes some historical reflection, along with a summary of the story to date. Today we talk about the uncanny similarity of an old regional incident threatening to spill into greater war.

(History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes!)

Enjoy, if you do!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/113450749

Second time's a charm!

Today for #BookTube, I talk about the strange shifting world of #SFF publishing, and the challenges it creates.

I talk about the red flags indie writers need to look out for, and my experiences as both indie author and editor.

And...

I frame my conversation about why indie *matters* around the work of two #WritersOfCoSo, @cmskiera & @joycereynoldsward: two authors whose work addresses niches & ideas often overlooked in the trad world. 🎉

Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/mhE2TmDri6g

🙃 I was about to post today's BookTube, except that the volume was too low, and then I realized that, even though I'd taken the time today to cut out audio and refine *some* of the highway noise from it, I'd forgotten my most basic volume-boost procedure.

So! It's now re-downloading for re-upload. Le Sigh.

But I can finish Patreon while I wait, and all the YouTube data is ready. Hardest part was finding a good cover screencap, because I always look like I'm in pain. I have a face for radio. 😂

Okay. Recording time, take two! 🤞🏻

(First time today got disrupted by a fire alarm. 🤦🏻‍♂️ On a drizzly morning!!)

😂 I thought I'd been very productive this morning, sending off five voice messages before three work emails. But then I saw this new piece show up and... honestly? I'm regretting introducing North Americans to WhatsApp. They don't know what to do with the VM function!

(Going to be listening to this one at 2x while doing chores, I tell you what!)

Good morning to everyone here who's managed to avoid becoming a corrupt billionaire (redundant phrase, but roll with me on this one).

Honestly, the one good thing about seeing a) how useless world systems are for combatting greed, & b) how rigged the economy is toward people of unchecked wealth is this:

Once you realize the game's all rigged, you can forgive yourself for "failing" in it. For struggling to get by.

None of us are failures who keep striving to do better by one another.

Not one.

(GY!BE just released a new album yesterday, so they're on my mind right now.

Post-rock FTW!)

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/55CLYupTQpQ

I fell asleep with my Godspeed You! Black Emperor t-shirt on, and I...

woke up one morning and fell a little further down -
For sure, it's the valley of death.
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood.

#IFellAsleep