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Alan

@alanallanallen.bsky.social
168 followers 139 following 548 posts

Beloved Literary Institution

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Reposted by Alan
Malarkey @malarkeybooks.bsky.social · 3h
Hellarkey V is real. It costs X dollars but you can get V dollars off with code BLOODDIMMEDTIDE malarkeybooks.com/store/hellar...
malarkeybooks.com
Hellarkey V — Malarkey
This fifth annual issue of Hellarkey contains stories and poems from past Malarkey contributors as well as brand new inductees to the cult. See the list below, if you dare! Eidolon Vampires by Xavi...
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Malarkey @malarkeybooks.bsky.social · 10h
So so so behind but laying out and printing Hellarkey V this weekend. Thanks to @ossuary.bsky.social @renbolger.bsky.social @geoliminal.bsky.social for editing! $10 but take off $5 if you need with code BLOODDIMMEDTIDE. malarkeybooks.com/store/hellar...
malarkeybooks.com
Hellarkey V — Malarkey
This fifth annual issue of Hellarkey contains stories and poems from past Malarkey contributors as well as brand new inductees to the cult. See the list below, if you dare! Eidolon Vampires by Xavi...
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Christopher Stevenson @chrisstevenson.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Can't wait to read all these! I have one called "So That We can Love Ourselves." Thanks to Adam at CJ for pubbing such a risky story. Hitachi and sickle romance / antifa crime fiction. SIDE NOTE: The bar I mention shut down a few months back bc of ICE. Here's the opening:
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
turns out these AI email scams directed at writers are ubiquitous because...they work www.thedial.world/articles/new...
thedial.world
The Lucrative World of Literary Scams — The Dial
Why writers are the perfect target.
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Jon Chaiim McConnell @jonmcconn.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
New edition of thrum is real and it's here! Release date 11/11 Pre-orderable here malarkeybooks.com/store/thrum
New edition of thrum in its boxNew edition of thrum not in its box
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Malarkey @malarkeybooks.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
It is hard but we pay human artists real money for covers. Our jacket copy tends to be a joint venture between our writers and our editors. We don’t use AI for anything. We wish absolute destruction on any publisher that is using AI or LLMs for covers, copy, or anything else. ☠️☠️☠️
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WIRED @wired.com · 09/10/2026
More than two dozen workers at three major publishing houses—HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette—tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech. Read the full story: buff.ly/p0ymGmN
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Super Duper Intelligence
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I’ve got a copy of Piranesi, looking forward to reading it.
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Eric Williams @geoliminal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
helluva sale going on over at bookshop dot org - free shipping on the 6th and 7th! good time to purchase one of the greatest collections of weird fiction ever written: bookshop.org/p/books/toad...
bookshop.org
Toadstones
Check out Toadstones by Eric Williams on Bookshop.org US!
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Erin Keane @erinkeane.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I was raised by a nurse with an associates degree and a steel mill electrician. I am not denigrating the value and dignity of blue collar work when I ask how many elite national media staffers are raising future bricklayers themselves. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
theatlantic.com
Time to Consider Becoming a Bricklayer
College degrees hold less value, while jobs in the trades are booming.
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Christopher Stevenson @chrisstevenson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New Podcast! I interview the amazing @ambersparks.bsky.social about her debut novel, childhood and adulthood, magic, and Halloween. Donna Arrendell interviews the participants of the short horror films workshop. Best podcast ever! dcplpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/com...
dcplpodcast.simplecast.com
Coming Into Spooky Season | DC Public Library Podcast
In this episode, we’re coming into spooky season. In Get Lit Chris Stevenson interviews Amber Sparks about her debut novel “Happy People Don’t Live Here” which is now in paperback. After that we’ll br...
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Eric Williams @geoliminal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
if you want to support human-made independent literature AND you want some of the best weird fiction you'll ever read for this spooky season, might i suggest: asterismbooks.com/product/toad...
asterismbooks.com
Toadstones | Asterism Books
Bloody haruspicy as an archeological technique. The violent premier of a film star’s lost noir masterpiece. A housekeeper’s final job for her late employer. An exhumation to retrieve a poetry manuscri...
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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 01/10/2026
Tomorrow night at @eveninghouse.bsky.social, 7PM in Buffalo, NY, I’m really excited to be hosting @adamvoith.bsky.social of @littleengines.bsky.social AND @ljabouttown.bsky.social. All three of us will be reading as part of Adam’s book tour. gonna be a really fun night of literature. Come out!
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I thought I was busy when I was building a house but teaching high school is more work.
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jon christian @jonchristian.net · 30/09/2026
NEW: People who chug their own piss have emerged as MAJOR supporters of AI futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
People Who Drink Their Own Pee Are Obsessed With AI, Using It to Reassure Themselves That It's a Miraculous Cure-All
Urine therapy devotees are sharing ways to break past AI guardrails in order to brainstorm ways to use pee as medicine.
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Melissa Johnson, PhD @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am tired of having to pretend that the value of studying my discipline solely rests on the "marketable skills" we teach. Sometimes things are just worth knowing and doing because they make your life bigger and richer.
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The “ethical use of AI” video suggests we let students use AI to translate Shakespeare and that frees us up to talk about plot. No Fear Shakespeare already exists. Don’t know that it does any good. Much more useful to ask students to translate Shakespeare themselves and give them a plot summary.
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One reason to learn about things outside your major is so that you have something to talk about with people at parties and on dates. No amount of money will make up for you being a crushing bore. History majors learn this early but I guess it takes other people longer.
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My most nuanced opinion about AI is I hope everyone involved in foisting this shit on us burns in hell.
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Malarkey @malarkeybooks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Exactly 10 signed copies of Submarines, a fantastic novel by @mikeandrelczyk.bsky.social and the title we get the most AI scam emails about, left. Get one! malarkeybooks.com/store/submar...
malarkeybooks.com
Submarines, a novel by Mike Andrelczyk — Malarkey
July 2026 Preorders will be signed by the author and shipped out in June/July 2026, accompanied by a bookmark and a bonus micro-chapbook of the author’s poetry. I loved  Submarines  fo...
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Been watching BOY safety videos for six+ hours—not my ideal Sunday, no offense to vector solutions.
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Jennifer Wortman @wrefinnej.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I have a new book coming into the world! Many thanks to Thirty West and Josh. I’m thrilled to be in the company of so many great writers.
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Chris Kluwe, adjudicated poaster @chriswarcraft.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Weird coincidence that all this is happening the same day as the AI air control rollout. “You’re absolutely right - a forty five degree angle of approach is entirely too steep for landings, and that’s on me. Would you like me to call some local mortuaries?”
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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
AI Guy Asks AI To Help Him Read Difficult Books
4 panel comic

Panel 1: Orange Guy holds up book and says “I’m gonna read a book”

Panel 2: Orange Guy looks at book cover and says “hmmmmm”

Panel 3: Orange Guy types a query into his phone

Panel 4: Close up on phone screen reveals AI responding with “a chocolate factory is a factory made of chocolate”
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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
been thinkin about how robots are gonna kill us
Scratchy drawing of a two panel comic.
Panel 1: 
Titled:“How we thought robots would kill us”
A robot shoots a human to death with a gun. It screams “Die flesh sack”

Panel 2:
Titled “How robots will actually kill us”
A MediBot is injecting something into a humans arm. The bot says “Whooops. I injected you with cancer instead of insulin. That’s on me”
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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 16/09/2026
Fun update!!! Reading with Adam Voith for the October 2nd event is gonna be myself & fellow Malarkey writer & general superstar @ljabouttown.bsky.social
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Gonna make a class zine for Things Fall Apart. Each section will have its own zine, with students able to submit more creative work of their choosing. On Friday we’re doing “This Is Just to Say” poems from the perspectives of characters in the book and the best ones will end up in the zine.
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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This would be a difficult story to report, because nobody would want to go on the record about it, but the actually important story about American schools is the persistence of thousands of teachers who give their kids what we know they need despite the barrage of mandates, standards, tests, etc—
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Just one more reason to ❤️ Hacks
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Sheldon Birnie @badguybirnie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Wrote about generative AI and gig posters for the paper today. Check it out ❌ 🤖 🖼️ www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-lif...
winnipegfreepress.com
Winnipeg venues saying no to AI-made advertisements
Although the days when telephone poles and notice boards across the city were thick with gig posters, either slopped up with wheat paste or wrapped tight with packing tape, are behind us, the art of m...
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Identity Theory @identitytheory.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Come edit with us! We're accepting staff applications for late 2026-27.
identitytheory.submittable.com
Identity Theory - Volunteer Staff Application
Established in 2000, Identity Theory is an online magazine of literature and culture that has published hundreds of writers and thousands of creative works, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, revi...
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Straight talk time: Doomerism is BORING. It's the same fantasties rehashed over and over again, just louder each time. And with each iteration it seems that new audiences are being reached, and a new group of people needs to be talked down from unnecessary fear. >>
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Don’t really know. I should not have quoted the post but it caught me in a moment of weakness!
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
💨
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
“The Second Coming” is a doomer poem. Have to admit “Blood-dimmed tide” is good but otherwise I hate this poem.
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Happy birthday!
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Mike Andrelczyk @mikeandrelczyk.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Nice review of Submarines from God’s Cruel Joke: www.godscrueljokelit.com/blanton-gamb...
godscrueljokelit.com
Hugh Blanton - The Hallucinating Gambler — God's Cruel Joke
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Will Musgrove @willmusgrove.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Yesterday I got my first blurb for my book, After Last Call, which is coming out from @malarkeybooks.bsky.social next April. If you haven't already, you can preorder my book here: malarkeybooks.com/store/afterl...
malarkeybooks.com
After Last Call by Will Musgrove — Malarkey
April 2027 Preorders will be signed by the author. After Last Call is about those who linger long past closing time, who bum around the bar’s parking lot to trade stories about a time when t...
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Took this poem from the new issue of Poetry magazine into class and we read it (wrecked me, personally) and then made our own poems about things AI can’t do www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
Sentence strips taped onto construction paper making a poem, on the topic of things AI can’t do, that reads:
Fall in love
Escape a cult 
Accidentally call your girlfriend “mom”
 Drink all of the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone cause it’s dripping on your hand
AI cannot
Replace
The
Human
Experience
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O F SCARY @ossuary.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
BACKMASK is a sapphic Satanic Panic book about girls, sex, drugs, rock n roll and subliminal message. Available in audio, e-book and paperback formats. @malarkeybooks.bsky.social @haruspex-audio.bsky.social
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
LOVE. I LOVE my hobby! FORGIVE? Yeah, FORGIVE me for having a cool hobby!
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
“Sticks” is a story about a guy with a hobby.
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Girish M. Duvvuri @gmduvvuri.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The open secret to pedagogy research is that small class sizes/maximizing educator attention per pupil is the simplest, most effective, and unfortunately the least attractive to administration thing you can do to improve learning outcomes.
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
People idealize rural life but no one really talks about how often it stinks too bad to go outside because your neighbors two miles down the road bought fertilizer.
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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 06/09/2026
Got 'em: The @thebulwark.com added an editor's note to the review, acknowledging that the author's direct affiliation with the Foundation for American Innovation ("the foundation shaping the tech right," according to Inc.) created a conflict that should have been forthrightly disclosed.
Editor's note from Bulwark: 1
Editor’s note (September 3, 2026, 1:10 p.m. EDT): In a response to this review posted to social media, Gil Durán, author of The Nerd Reich, has highlighted that the reviewer, Jacob Bruggeman, is affiliated with the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI). Durán mentions FAI in his book, once, in a sentence that reads as follows: “This merging of tech and far-right networks—hosted by the Foundation for American Innovation, which Inc. later described as ‘the foundation shaping the tech right’—seemed like a live test of [Balaji] Srinivasan’s theory.” Bruggeman’s affiliation with FAI is an unpaid, nonresident fellowship (in other words, it is not his day job), and while it was mentioned in his byline beneath this review, we should have made a point of additionally disclosing it in a footnote like this.
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Hope so!
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Got approval for in-school slow read book club—excited to read Les Miserables over the course of a school year with a handful of high schoolers and teachers!
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Alan @alanallanallen.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This man converted to Catholicism purely for the bit. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
JD Vance says he’s doing ‘God’s work – and if that leads to the end times, OK’
Vice-president says on evangelical podcast he would feel ‘not shocked if the antichrist was walking among us’
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Hell Gate *subscribe today!* @hellgatenyc.com · 02/09/2026
The work of New York City native and street poet @7SoulsDeep is nothing if not polarizing. It cleaves its audience into two camps: People who have clapped when their plane landed, and everyone else. We know where we stand. hellgatenyc.com/7soulsdeep-s...
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