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Margaret Owen

@what-eats-owls.bsky.social
3K followers 511 following 1.8K posts

doodler, demi, USA Today, Sunday Times, and NYT #1 bestselling author of LITTLE THIEVES, THE MERCIFUL CROW, ROOTBOUND & more ✨ She/her. Rep: Victoria Marini

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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 15h
And the more people play into that, the more they normalize the narrative of “red states are real America and you *have* to empathize with their struggles, blue states are full of spoiled rich freaks who get what they deserve” and that’s one step closer to “let them take out Los Angeles”
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 15h
When someone complains about “coastal elites” we all know they don’t mean Florida, they don’t mean Texas, they don’t mean Maine, they don’t mean Virginia or Connecticut. They mean New York, and the west coast.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 16h
Look… this is exactly why I’ve started pushing back whenever someone uses the term “coastal elite” around me. I’ve been a PNW resident my entire life and I do not remember a time when the region I call home has ever been considered representative of “real America.”
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Arden Powell @ardenpowell.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you think an artist's style looks like AI but you can scroll back through their portfolio and see them doing the same work before 2020, congrats, you're not looking at an AI grifter. You're looking at one of the original victims whose entire style AI stole.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This most recently happened just yesterday afternoon, when I passed a raily fella, and when I stopped for the crosswalk he abruptly appeared from behind, stumbling almost into a gas station sign, seemingly from his own momentum of trying to stay on my heels 🥲
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I am curious if any other heavy folks have experienced this: I'll typically move at a brisk amble, but periodically, when I'm in a hurry and power walking, I'll pass someone skinnier... who then picks up their own pace, as if they cannot handle that I'm moving faster than them. Anyone else?
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
We've seen plenty of people claim AI could do [insert task] and only make it clear that they personally do not have the skills or subject understanding to do the task themselves. I don't think JCO's take on romance/AI is any different.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
All to say, I think the Meta algorithms in particular are deliberately steering people toward conflict because it keeps them engaged, and social justice communities on these platforms are not exempt. Something to keep in mind as we get fed more and more infighting pre-election.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
And specifically, it did that after two accounts I followed had happily posted about the sequel to TLH. No, I don't think it was just similar subject matter; Insta has been pretty vocal about analyzing any scrap of data it can, so I doubt it skipped the audio, the caption, etc.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
... a couple posts down the feed, it injects a video of a podcast negatively reviewing the recent film adaptation. The caption was negative. The subtitles were negative. The audio was negative. And I wasn't following that account. Instagram's algorithm decided to show it to me.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We all know high-controversy content gets the highest engagement, but also, if it feels like you're being pushed into conflict, I can't say that's wrong. E.g. not five minutes ago, Instagram showed me two different posts from accounts I follow, announcing a sequel to The Love Hypothesis. And then...
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
So this is anecdotal, but I was talking last night with a friend about how it feels like we see increasingly more infighting on the left, and my take was: There is absolutely clout to be chased by policing other people's activism, but we also can't underestimate how it's being algorithmically pushed
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
a million things on my plate, and yet my mind whispers: "do a full set of matching dust covers for your books"
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I do not feel very benevolent towards USC today, but I am glad we smoked them like a ham!
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I only peek in on my alma mater’s football season when we play UW or make it to a bowl, so last night was a bad one to see how my Ducks are playing
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
In what world is knowing your own zip code “fine intellectual dexterity”
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I jest and yet. Eggers' NORTHMAN was based on the source legend for Hamlet, so maybe they're going to try to do the same thing with Romeo & Juliet? But Shakespeare's version was derived from a fractal of adaptations of an Italian story, so...???
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
you've all seen the "modern" r&j retellings, now we're going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Someone is going to skim this and go “so you want authors to be paid out of library budgets” and I’m going to encourage you to reread the article and note the variety in how different countries have implemented it before committing to that conclusion.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
For those unaware: despite claims I’ve seen to the contrary, in the US, authors are *not* paid every time you check out their book from a library. Other countries have implemented variations on a Public Lending Right program to change that: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_...
en.wikipedia.org
Public lending right - Wikipedia
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Every time this rears its head I am reminded that if entities *actually* cared about what they say they care about here, they’d be lobbying for a PLR program in the US
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Matt Bell @mdbell79.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The very first entry in my commonplace book.
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
so "this is going to ruin the tour" was not a complaint, but a prophecy
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Bits @bitshammer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
it even comes with a fun bonus of ruining other books once you realize the worldbuilding is made out of grocery bags and chewing gum!
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I've had her since September 2021! Most of the time she gets called Princess or Fancypants, entirely against her will, but she perseveres 😒
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Boo was similarly thrilled
The sturdy gray tabby from earlier, now resting his chin on my leg as we sit on the couch; he looks consumed with equal parts disgust and exhaustion. OVER IT.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Lady Catherine de Purrgh, on the day she came home, took possession of the residence immediately
A gray-brown tabby kitten, about 3 months old, lying down and leaning into my hand as I scritch her earSame kitten now sitting on a windowsill blocked with a baby gate. Her fur is long enough and her expression severe enough that it gives the overall sense of “why no, officer, I thought dear Reginald was merely out for his nightly walk along the cliffs”
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Not a gentleman but in fact a goblin prince I fear 😩
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Perfect Dickensian Orphan energy for about 30 seconds, and then he tried to suplex everything in the house
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
But also, critically: Boo the day Poe came home
A stout gray tabby with pale yellow eyes lying on a purple coverlet beside me. He is gazing into the camera with an utterly nonplussed expression.Same cat, now gazing balefully over the barrier of my leg.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Poe the day he came home
An itty bitty black kitten with big golden eyes peering up through a flap in a play pen. He has a makeshift blue collar and is surrounded by towels and bedding.
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daryl "rupert pumpkin" b 🏳️‍⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...
reddit comment: 

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply: 

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…
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Meg @meganroseruiz.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I tried designing a character on a three hour flight, let’s see how I did
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Gremmie at home like “oh I see how it is”
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Wendy this is the funniest possible turn of events
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
And it sure isn’t for the benefit of kids!!
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Also a situation complicated by publishers that play coy with the actual age category because they want the perceived benefits of YA without forfeiting the perceived prestige of adult books
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
However my hot take is that the BOTW/TOTK style would have better achieved what they're aiming for here. The existing clash seems to be between highly-rendered semi-realistic detail, and the desire to preserve the campy 90's low-poly feel regardless.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Caught the game trailer end of the Nintendo Live and.... I mean, whatever is happening there, I'm still gonna play the hell out of it on day 1
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caroline cash @cashbrowns.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Nancy 9/7/26 … Happy Labor Day 🛠️
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will. Based on a screenprint by Ricardo Levins Morales after the organizing work done by Robert Owen.
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Dimension 20 @dimension20.dropout.tv · 07/09/2026
every job deserves comfort, dignity and safety! 🫡
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Katherine Locke @katherinelocke.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
One day, this publisher's name will be a distant memory that no longer brings me intense frustration. That day is not today. If you're an Albert Whitman author who has a book in the Anthropic case, you should go check your email in case they're trying to claim 100% of the $$ for your books too.
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
My first order of business today as a newly-minted 40-year-old is going to be, very maturely, buying a Switch 2
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
It's the cat's expression that absolutely makes this
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Poe loves to demolish cardboard by any means necessary, and doubly so if it involves packing tape!!
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In a way I'm grateful it's going to a safer place than my apartment, for my terrible cats would have surely struck it down from envy!!
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
... and I’d like to chat methodology with my contacts among youth librarians and booksellers. Would it be alright if I organized my thoughts and emailed you sometime next week? (3/3)
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
and why it’s so finicky to tinker with. And many of these challenges are very familiar, with publishers intentionally obfuscating age categories, and voters who don't always read the directions :) I think I can help tackle this, but I don’t want to bog down your inbox *right* after Worldcon (2/3)
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Margaret Owen @what-eats-owls.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Sorry for the delay—I sat down with my coffee to do my reading, and then discovered aphids had invaded my houseplants while I was in Anaheim, and that was all hands on deck! But I’ve gone through these links and threads now, and gotten a better a sense of the work that’s gone into the Lodestar (1/3)
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