A. P. Howell

MANDATORY TIMELINE CLEANSE

Fighting back by (attempting) to become an Immovable Lump is a mood.

Paperback of Animal Noir, held in a white lady's left hand in front of a light gray wall. Anthropomorphic noir mysteries. Edited by Elizabeth Mitchell. Background image is a black and white cityscape. Foreground is a set of anthropomorphic animals rendered in collage/riso style.

Yesterday's #bookmail! My contributor copy of Animal Noir. Available from an ever-increasing number of vendors. Meet my hedgehog socialite with a secret. 🦔

books2read.com/animalnoir

I don't walk on grates because I am convinced something is going to grab and/or stab my feet with its talons. But this is a much more sensible reason not to walk on grates.

This Friday at 7pm at Bold Coffee & Books in Portland, I’ll be reading about my royal silkie chicken! Come here me and other awesome authors like @meganleebees.bsky.social and @shedric.bsky.social

The Colour of Magic, from the public library when I was like ten. (I reverse engineered various fantasy influences I hadn't read yet.) My big Pratchett kick started a few years later in college. There were more books and I had access to bigger bookstores and informal dorm libraries.

the two phases of writing: (1) writing and (2) wandering aimlessly like an unmoored ghost and complaining about not writing

Maybe he's thinking of the Very Very Catholic versions of Robin Hood and making a comment on the history of sectarian strife in the UK and Canada.

I used Overdrive for the first time in the 5+ years I've had my Kobo. First use: smooth as silk. Picking up this hold: significantly more typing required. But I want to get in the habit of using the library more.

(I don't usually badmouth markets; it feels rude, and I know even half-assed publishing takes a lot of effort. But, well, I don't feel too bad about badmouthing three GPTs in a trenchcoat. And I don't think there are a lot of public warnings out there for less-networked writers.) 4/4

AI isn't just bad, it's not fit for purpose.

I'm mentioning it here because the market in question has actually appeared in a couple market listings, morphed into a paid critique mill, etc. I expect it to go belly-up, but there's a chance it'll persist, so beware. (It's Soo Generis.) 3/4

I signed a contract to see what would happen and giggle about it in writer spaces, and see the details of the trainwreck. Suffice to say three GPTs in a trenchcoat are making even more of a hash of things than your average newbie editor/publisher. (No shade to editor/publishers: it's tough!) 2/4

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do currently have a story in the queue of a publisher that is making heavy use of AI, despite claims to the contrary. Plenty of other red flags, too.

I am under no illusion they will ever actually publish anything (note: this is why reversion clauses matter!) 1/4

Basically, I do the same sort of reputational vibe check I try to do with other issues (e.g. do the editorials include far-right talking points?) to see if I want to nope out of doing business with a publication.

Accepting AI-written work is a hard line for me.

AI art and editing are tougher to police as a submitting writer. It's not necessarily mentioned in contracts (though that's starting to change) so to a great extent you need to look at the market's track record, public statements, and general vibes.

International Women’s Day A book bundle featuring work by and about women (inclusively defined). Running from March 2–10, $32 for 32 books (including "The Relative Positions of Dead Things in the Dark").

International Women’s Day

A book bundle featuring work by and about women (inclusively defined). Running from March 2–10, $32 for 32 books (including "The Relative Positions of Dead Things in the Dark").

I did not know that! (I did know that you can just, like, remove their hip joints and they're fine afterward, once they've gotten past the dragging-themselves-around-post-surgery part.)

So the memory drug isn't a yellow peril zaibatsu thing like in that one short story? (I never read Flashback.)

I read the first one when I was very young and it's the first time I remember noping out of anything with such confidence.

SFWA folks, it's the last day to submit Nebula ballots. Mine is hurried and incomplete but in. (The reading list and ballot are a hot mess but I appreciate all the volunteers wrangling code and duct tape.)

I know endless wars (legally declared or otherwise) against non-white people are part of this country's entire post-WWII identity but that does not make it any less gut-wrenchingly infuriating each time it happens.

Thanks you!

I loved in 2025 (for awards)

STORIES

“Through the Machine” @cornellwriter.bsky.social
“Different Flames” @bethcato.bsky.social
“The Mermaid Who Declined…” @aphowell.com
“The Midwife in the Palace of the Forest King” @jelenawrites.bsky.social
“The Cold Burning Light of Her” @swpisciotta.bsky.social

You can't just skeet out huge numbers like that.

Oblivious white teen me picked up on the ick factor reading it (it's been decades and I still remember some passages I side-eyed) and I have no desire to see how much worse it actually is.

Definitely with the Islamophobia. The various assorted racisms, misogyny, and homophobia always felt...more bog standard for the genre and the culture in general, I think.

I was on a big Simmons kick in the '90s, and while I side-eyed Song of Kali especially, I had a sort of "well, early career" optimism. After a while I drifted away (it wasn't an early career problem) and hearing about the online meltdowns did not entirely surprise me.

I wasn't even fond of The Fall of Hyperion at the time--another data point in favor of the structure being a big part of the appeal of the first one--but yeah, the Endymion books are best ignored.

(Well, I can't honestly say Hyperion holds up. I suspect it doesn't; but while I've reread it since it first came out, I haven't looked at it in literal decades. Still a memorable read when first encountered.)

Same.