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Arthur Robert Tracy IV

@arttracy.bsky.social
34 followers 41 following 100 posts

Editor and writer. Burned-out educator. Just here because the kids said it was cool.

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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
There's another publication that calls these "chestnut stories"—vampires, werewolves and zombies—and says they're hard sells. They are. We see a lot of them. But when they do something fresh, as @cjtavares.bsky.social does, we still love them. You'll love this one, too.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm very happy to see this piece back in print. If you have not read it, you should read it. If you have read it, you should read it again.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Homecoming is a common theme in fiction. What stood out to me about this one is the beautiful way it explores our tendency to destroy those who nurture us. This is a beautiful little story, and I hope you will take a few minutes to read it.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Happy Dolly Parton Day, those who celebrate!
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Reposted by Arthur Robert Tracy IV
Hell Itself Magazine @hellitself.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Writers, if you have a hard-to-sell speculative Christmas / Winter Holiday story (more speculative than simply "Santa exists," please), we're love to consider it. hellitself.com/submission-g...
hellitself.com
Submission Guidelines – Hell Itself
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Dr. SkySkull @drskyskull.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is just a spectacular unintentional self-own
Dude on Threads: If you hate on ai, you better be pretty damn good at whatever you're doing
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This is a challenging piece for me. As a reader, I don't like the choices Sam makes. As a person, I recognize that I (like all of us) have made those same choices. Good fiction makes us think, even when it's uncomfortable. And this is good fiction.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The charm of this story is obvious. What I find particularly noteworthy, though, is how effortlessly it builds a world and characters, using a blend of familiar stock bits and efficient exposition. This is not the sort of story one usually looks at for craft, but the craft is there.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Not surprisingly, I get a lot of submissions about hell. The ones I publish need to be extraordinary. This one stood out immediately for making straight-up terrible people so much fun.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Says the man who didn't even register to vote until he was almost 30.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I was drawn to this piece for the worldbuilding. Creating a rich secondary world in a short story is no small feat, and I found myself loving Vari's world as much as I loved Vari herself. Definitely take the time to enjoy this one.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
To be clear, my family's involvement in law enforcement goes back to the time of St. Thomas à Becket, when my ancestor helped rid Henry II of that troublesome priest.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
What I loved about this particular piece is the tremendous amount of emotion it conveys without ever coming out and telling us how to feel. From the very beginning it was, well, a requiem. I hope you're as moved as I was.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
All good reasons for people to be against it, but issues I know less about. In the unlikely event the AI companies become ethical and start paying people, I'll have to learn more. I suspect my ban will stand for quite some time.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Authors getting a nice check each month for their share of the profits from the tools would do a lot to remove my ethical objections to LLM. I don't know if it would alter my preference for human-written work.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
There was a settlement (which worked out to a pittance per author). The issue is, almost no one was asked if they agreed and were just told, "this is the settlement, take it or leave it." That's not a mutual agreement. It would absolutely depend on the specific terms and if authors agreed or not.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
To be clear, I don't advocate "buy whatever and blame the writer" either. We no-AI editors must still be doing our best to NOT buy AI-written stories. If it smells like AI, don't buy it. But going on a witch hunt against already disheartened writers isn't the answer.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
You'll notice that I'm leaving myself vulnerable to potential improvements in AI where it evolves to the point where it's not immediately recognizable as slop. Yes. But I feel that's the ethical thing to do.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
My detection method is twofold: 1) Is the story well written? 2) Did the author attest that they did not use AI writing it? (They do so when they submit and again when they accept the contract.) If the answers are "Yes" and "Yes," then it's not AI until I have proof to the contrary.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I also, personally, do not trust that the AI detectors are not then training the AI, and, as noted above, my authors have not consented to having their work used in that manner, nor do I have the authority to authorize it on their behalf, especially BEFORE I've bought the rights to publish it.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
The primary reason why I don't use them is simply because they're unreliable. It would be wildly unfair to a writer to exclude their work because an unreliable tool thinks their work sounds like the work that was plagiarized to create the LLM. One false positive is too many.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
This may make some wonder why I don't put everything that comes in through an AI detector. Though we don't currently charge for Hell Itself, we are putting it out there as a human-written magazine, and we have a responsibility to do due diligence and not publish anything that isn't human-written.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
If I buy your sweater, or if I buy your story, the onus for the dishonesty and the misrepresentation is on you. You're not proving anything by selling your product as something it's not. You're just taking money from me under false pretenses. That's fraud.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Suppose I have a preference for hand-made sweaters. You run a factory that makes machine-made sweaters. If you see me coming and quickly stick a "100% hand made" sign on your sweater display, you're committing fraud. Period. Misrepresenting your AI-written work as human-written is just as fraudulent
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
But if you send me the story saying to yourself, "Tee hee hee, Art won't know the difference and he'll publish my story and that will PROVE that AI is just as good!" you are deluding yourself. All you've proven is that you're willing to misrepresent your product to make a sale.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
The truth is, a very good writer using AI could almost certainly write something that I would not recognize as AI. The process is slow, requires a lot of prompting, and (currently) a fair amount of human revision, but it can be done. I, personally, think it's easier to just write the damned thing.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
But what you may not do is send me a story checking the box in my submission system that says you did not use AI if you did so. That's fraud.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
If you disagree with me on that, you are free to start your own magazine. Some people already have. In many cases, their reach is no worse than mine. I will continue to disagree with your decision and may continue to say so in public, but I won't ever say you don't have the right to do so.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I, personally, think AI LLM is a fun toy and a fascinating technology. I have played with it. I am not ignorant about what it does and what it potentially might do in the future. I'm heartbroken that it was developed so unethically, because it's really, really NEAT. But no. Not in my magazine.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Long version (a thread): My position stems from the fact that LLM tools were trained on IP without the consent of the IP owners. Until these IP owners and the owners of the LLM tool reach a mutually acceptable compensation agreement, it does not matter how good the the tool is. Not in my magazine.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
In light of all that's going on, I feel like I need to make a statement. Short version: 1) I don't accept stories written by or with LLM tools 2) I don't use AI detectors 3) It's possible I could be fooled by AI. All that proves is that the author committed fraud by misrepresenting their product.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
I'm honestly not sure if this story is lit-fic that borrows a spec-fic trope or a spec-fic story told as lit-fic, and I don't think it matters. The result is an emotional resonance that made it the story I didn't know I needed until I read it. I hope you love it as much as I do.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I was taken with the elegant simplicity of this piece. Couple that with my intense hatred of daylight savings time, and it seemed an obvious choice for the magazine.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
I'm afraid I got a little behind on the slush, but I sent a wave of responses today, everything older than June 11. Please query if you didn't get a response. I have a couple of resubmits that are older than that, but I'm trying to get through the new subs first.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I could say many things about Patricia Court's stories, but "they lack complex characters" will never be one of them. This heartbreaking piece is, I think, a magnificent character piece, and it makes me long for the never-published anthology it was written for.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I prefer to think of it as having the flexibility to adapt to the realities of editing an all-volunteer magazine.
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Laurence Raphael Brothers @lrb.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Awesome.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
The rate of submissions to Hell Itself has picked up significantly in the past couple of weeks, and I'm trying desperately to read the entire Hugo packet. Response times may be a little slower than usual.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
A great many people dismiss origin stories, but secondary-world stories about how something came about truly highlight the differences between that world and ours, which makes us reconsider our own. Whether they're connected to a franchise or standalone, I love them when done well. And this one is.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Once again, @reggiekwok.bsky.social delivers a captivating story that no one else would publish. One of the things we're supposed to try to do with our magazines is define what we publish, and this is a story that is very hard to classify. Silly, dark, adult, accessible, weird… I can't define it.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
As always we're on the lookout for stories that we all agree are good, but don't really fit in anywhere else. Revised guidelines here: hellitself.com/submission-g...
hellitself.com
Submission Guidelines – Hell Itself
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I also tweaked the wording to clarify that we really are a science fiction and fantasy publication. Weird horror and weird historical certainly fit under that umbrella, but I'm getting more and more straight-up horror that really isn't what we're looking for. Speculative elements are required.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I still encourage you to get your stories out to as many paying markets as you can before sending them our way, but these owners have now been at it long enough that stories written after the takeover are now starting to run out of markets, and I wanted to respect that.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
The two-tier minimum number of rejections is just intended to reflect the new reality that a great many authors are refusing to submit to a number of magazines that share an owner noted for onerous contract terms, and those magazines are among an already smaller pool willing to take longer stories.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
But even when a flash piece is great, I feel like we're asking too much of it by expecting it to carry the weight of the magazine for two weeks. I've sent several rejections for excellent flash pieces recently because they're flash, so I feel like I should have the guidelines reflect reality.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I'm of two minds, Lord of the Radch style, on flash fiction. When it's done well, I love it. And I've run several pieces (including our current story) that I feel pull a lot more weight than their short length should allow. I hate excluding those stories.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I have made a couple of changes to the @hellitself.bsky.social guidelines. First, I've decided to set a minimum word count of 1,000 words. Second, I've created a two-tier minimum number of rejections so longer stories require fewer to be eligible.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
That's obscure by Tracy standards.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
I have a love-hate relationship with flash. When it's done well, as this one is, I'm amazed at the worlds a writer can bring to life in very few worlds. I worry that they're too short to be satisfying, so I think long and hard before accepting one. Hopefully you will love this one as much as I do.
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Arthur Robert Tracy IV @arttracy.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The beauty of working with human writers is that every writer will have different solutions. I'm very impressed when I find someone has hooked me with a promise that I didn't realize was a promise, but it carried me right through the piece. Don't be afraid to experiment. (I recommend "Save as...")
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