iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I have never seen a moral panic grip a country so quickly or thoroughly

C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Yesterday the question was asked: How many times does an Emergency Alert have to go off before a west end theatre audience turns off their sodding phones? Answer: There is no limit. Still blaring during the curtain call.

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Bona Books 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🤘🏼 @bonabooks.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Hi all, our lovely editor Rob is in danger of getting kicked out of the UK if he doesn't raise enough money for immigration fees by 27 Oct, so he's set up a GoFundMe. We very much want him here, making queer books, so if you're able to donate or simply share his campaign, we'd be so grateful!

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Me Stay in the UK For Good (After 10 Years Living Here), organized by Robert Berg

Who I Am My name is Robert Berg and I’m raising funds to hel… Robert Berg needs your support for Help Me Stay in the UK For Good (After 10 Years Living Here)

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🎃 Trip Ghouley 🎃 @trip.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

In desperate need of some emergency cash, so dipped into the freelance writing gig boards again and…Fucking. Hell. Just HELL The sheer number of posts looking for someone to clean up their AI slop for pennies is…the kindest thing I can say is vomit inducing? Anyone need a copy- or ghost-writer? ☠️

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Rob (and his husband) are two of the most brilliant people in the world. They work incredibly hard, have done everything 'right', but are still at risk of not being able to stay in the country they've made their home, thanks to some really stupid rules. Please donate if you can.

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Praisegod Bathtubs Georg. @pgbarebones.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

There probably was someone called Emily Wilson who wrote a critical review of Nolan’s Odyssey, but most of what we now think of as “Wilson’s review’ is probably the result of codifying a long tradition of anonymous Bluesky posting.

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Listening to Tubular Bells whilst ploughing through some uninteresting proofreading, and I can't help but smile whenever I get to the cavemen 🤣

static.klipy.com

Corgi Puppy Awooo Howling

ALT: Corgi Puppy Awooo Howling

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This is very thoughtful and reflective - and indeed touching.

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Mari Ness, writer of things @mariness.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

And we now have an OFFICIAL HUGO AWARD FOR BEST POEM! (until at least 2029, heh) (when we get to do all of this ratification stuff AGAIN)

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Jason Sanford @jasonsanford.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I warned last year that if people relied on generative AI to write, this could happen. Those who control a tool can take that tool away from you. But if you learn to write with your own mind, no one can steal that from you. 1/

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

What *possible* point is there to this? It's not as if the defining moments of Scrooge's youth are unexamined. Jfc.

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Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

📚 Our seventh novella series crowdfund is now live 📚 Boosts appreciated!

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Nothing demonstrates how completely moving house swallowed my bandwidth more than the fact that I've proactively booked a theatre ticket for the first time in, uhhhh, six months?

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Anathema Magazine @anathemamagazine.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

You asked, and we answered! ✨ Anathema is EXTENDING our submission window to July 31st! Thank you to everyone who’s submitted—we’ve had such a wonderful time reading and can’t wait to read more. If you haven’t been able to submit in time, now’s your chance! 💜

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OTHERSIDE @othersidespec.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

It’s the final countdown! Submissions for Issue 3 close tomorrow! We are looking for speculative fiction/poetry by queer authors. Please help us spread the word… and send us your work! 🪐 Guidelines: othersidespec.com/guidelines/ 🗡️ Pay: 8 cents/word, $50/poem 🌈 Deadline: July 21st, 11:59 pm Eastern

othersidespec.com

Submission Guidelines - OTHERSIDE

Submission guidelines for fiction and poetry submissions to OTHERSIDE, including opening dates and how to submit.

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Sam J Miller @sentencebender.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Scholarly research folk! Can anyone point me toward some solid books/papers on the audience for the Homeric epics? How, when, where, and for whom were they performed? Especially interested in non-elite/working-class access to the narratives. Signal boosts appreciated if you don't know.

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

This is excellent advice, but also (if you're me) potentially very expensive advice.

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

If you see stories about AI writing/AI scammers in publishing and feel despair, go to a bookstore. Flip open a dozen random novels and read the first paragraph. I did this last week & just marveled at the astonishing creative variety, the unique voices, even in books I might not ever choose myself.

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

All three replacement stories for Wrath Month are in my inbox and ready for edits next week once I'm done with the house move. VERY excited. So lovely to have nice things emerge at the end of all these AI shenanigans.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 15/07/2026

Writers and editors are (mostly) on the same side. Our enemies are not each other, but the techbro billionaire fascists who stole our art and sold their plagiarism machine slop to the masses

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Satsuma Danger @clementinedanger.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

There's this tendency in fiction that isn't written by queer people to have the disapproving parents (or other loved ones) experience some sort of shock that puts everything in perspective and makes them realize that love is all that matters and it always reads like a children's storybook to me.

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Patrick Ness @patricknessbooks.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

So unsurprising to see how TERFs have been completely played. Exactly what we all would said would happen. Congrats.

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Dr Stew Hotston (he/him) @stewarthotston.com · 14/07/2026

@theguardian.com why aren't you covering JKR's threat to suppress free speech by throwing her money ay vexatious lawsuits against Amnesty International? Is it because you're transphobic too?

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Huge new class action lawsuit filed by big publishers and authors against Google this week over AI training. It accuses Google of taking millions of books / articles provided to them for use only in Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar, and secretly using them to train LLMs. 🧵 1/4

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Dianna Gunn Does (Fictional) Murders 🇨🇦 @diannalgunn.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

LGBTQ+ Pride Month is over but it is still Pride Specifically it is Disability Pride Month The perfect time to grab a bundle of 33 sci-fi, fantasy & horror books by disabled authors for $33 - that's just a buck a book itch.io/b/3751/disab...

Disability Pride Month flag overlaid with the words “Disability Pride Month Bundle - 33 Scifi, fantasy, and horror books for $33 - July 1 - 17” and the covers for Moonshadow’s Guardian, Inarora's Excursion, TEMPEST, TAKE ME HOME, Beyond Bringers, A Stage over Ruthless Stars, Sidetracked Part 1, LET THIS UNDO YOU, Where We Converge, The Old Goat and the Alien, Their Village, Their Fortress, Valyo Rising, A Study on Magic and Crystals, Behind the Mask, Carved by Water, The Tenderness of Being Alive, GULA: A Poem for the End Times, Haunting the Scavenger, Lessons in Life & Love among Centaurs, Abominations: Poems of Feminine Monstrosity, Transformation, and Horror, Enemies to Enemies, Testing Grounds, Demonic Resonance Therapy, and more

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Anthony Oliveira @meakoopa.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

London is screaming something sports happened

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Have found the most English pub name in the history of English pub names.

Picture of a lovely period red brick building with white painted scent stonework and a sign in a serif font that reads, "The Antigallican".

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Just had my prose dragged by someone who has written fifteen Bluesky posts in total ever. She broke her almost total customary silence just to say I sound like AI. Knife to my heart 😅

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Bona Books 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🤘🏼 @bonabooks.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This is one of our top concerns in the report and its recommendations - it lobs massive barriers between the new and/or marginalised author and a pro-published career. We will do more work on identifying and combatting these impacts (watch this space! 👀). But yes, this is pure hell, basically.

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Whichever version you opt for, this is essential reading, for publishers, authors and readers.

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Eugenia Triantafyllou @foxesandroses.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Khoreo's Kickstarter is almost 7k away from funding with only nine days to go!!! Let's do this for a magazine that has always been promoting marginalised authors and brings a fresh perspective to the sff community ❤️

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a wiki editor @aionwikipedia.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

interesting report but kind of lays bare how differently AI presents in different contexts, e.g., fictional manuscripts vs. nonfiction; a lot of the stuff that indicates AI usage here doesn't apply outside the fiction world (and vice versa)

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Kaya Skovdatter 🏳️‍⚧️ (She/They) @gothgreenwitch.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I keep thinking about all the AI slop being subbed everywhere. Writing is *fun*. It's the joy of building connections, of refining character, of figuring out the perfect turn of phrase. You can write the wildest shit or the most ephemeral moment. To deprive yourself of the experience? That joy? ->

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Also helped draft to my knowledge the first detailed public commitment from any small press against AI use (below) three years ago, and have been pushing for others to do at least that since (and clearly need to do more internally at least, per your report). Hope this helps spark it finally!

buttonpoetry.com

Button’s Commitments on Generative AI

Button’s Commitments on Generative AI As it becomes increasingly transparent that recent developments in AI stand atop the backs of stolen books, art, and other creative property, we believe it is t...

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🎃👻 Rob for Apples 👻🎃 @robwillb.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The really frustrating thing about this is we kind of almost now have to give more scrutiny to the stories that most closely suit the brief we're looking for, which is just all kinds of fucked up.

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Ellis Nye @ellisnyeland.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Bona Books was hit by the same fraudster that got us at Reckoning. They were in an even worse position than us, because they had to make a determination based solely on whether or not they believed her writing to use generative AI tools. (We lucked out; she also broke our submission guidelines.)

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priya chand @priyachand.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

it happened to us, it can happen to you. pls don't assume you're just gonna know it when you see it, *especially* for short, experimental work

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Heartlines Spec @heartlines-spec.com · 07/07/2026

Whether a piece is potentially AI or not has become a discussion point during our editor meetings and it feels gross every time. It chips away at so much trust and we hate feeling like we need to distrust our writers. We do this for fun because we love reading and supporting writers.

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Reckoning @reckoningmag.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Today, in place of a new piece of writing from IT WAS PARADISE, our special issue on war and conflict in environmental justice, here's a word of explanation from publisher @michaeljdeluca.bsky.social as to why we felt we had to remove a poem from the issue: reckoning.press/ai/

Cover art by Mónica Robles Corzo for Reckoning: It Was Paradise, a special issue on war, conflict, and environmental justice, featuring a monstrous antlered head with burning red eyes and a warhead emerging from its fanged mouth.

The letters "AI" in a red circle with a line through them

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Whilst I wouldn't wish this situation on anyone, speaking to Katherine about her Hydra battles genuinely saved my emotional health. Speaking to a smart, thoughtful, experienced editor who was seeing some of the exact same things I was, was such a reassurance.

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Lee 🐰 @lyamkk.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

*and personal. I would much rather have been raving at Wrath Month launches and organising/celebrating our house move… …than I would have spending every waking moment trying to protect and feed two people, stabilise a fledgling business and read Google reviews for private investigators in Lagos. 🫠

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Lee 🐰 @lyamkk.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I last wrote a dissertation 11 years ago, and I barely made it out alive. I didn’t expect to do it again in 35 degree heat amid the first house purchase of my life. Never make me do it again. 🙂‍↕️

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The last few months have been some of the hardest in my professional life, as Bona Books has worked through an AI crisis . We ploughed our time, love and energy into creating paid, professional opportunities for genuine queer writers - and someone tried to steal them.

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C.L. McCartney @chrismccartney.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Best argument for queer literature I've seen. YOU BAFFLE THOSE HETEROSEXUALS.

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Joe Watson @jwillustration.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Who wants to get in on the ground floor of my new kidlit crime procedural

Mock kidlit book cover of a round toad and skinny bug character standing over a tiny bug in yellow booties who has totally beefed it, with the toad exclaim that ‘dis fellas croaked!’ Text reads - BOUBA and KIKI, pond detectives

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Gretchen Felker-Martin PRE ORDER CHIMERA 2.16.27 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

he looks like he's animorphing into a photorealistic Bert from Sesame Street

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Queen of Swords Press @qospress.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

#Booksky Just a day and a half left to get your copy of the Pride StoryBundle! 16 great queer books from @neonhemlock.bsky.social, @wtpress.bsky.social, @tachyonpub.bsky.social and more (like us!) and you can include a donation to Rainbow Railroad at no extra cost! storybundle.com/pride

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Hell Dunkin @halduncan.com · 28/06/2026

if we're doing this again I'm escalating my stance to "gay sex scenes should be mandatory in all media"

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