Alyx Jones is an independent game developer from the UK. She’s been working on The Quiet Things, a deeply personal game about sexual abuse, trauma, and survival. A trailer for The Quiet Things was slated to be shown during the BAFTA Games Awards on April 17; for an independent developer,… (keep reading)

I started using Scrivener in 2012 or so, and I’ve kept the same license going ever since — despite the fact that support ended for my version of Scrivener years ago. I’m now at the point where the app crashes on two startups out of every three. Upgrading to the… (keep reading)

Book publisher Hachette has pulled out of its deal with author Mia Ballard over accusations that her novel, Shy Girl, was written with the assistance of a large language model. I say “accusations” because the actual evidence here is pretty thin. The arguments presented are all either “the writing looks… (keep reading)

It’s fascinating to me how the cultural object of The Book, defined as a physical stack of paper with words in it, generates so much more excitement than an ebook. Both take arguably the same amount of effort, and yet one “counts” as an achievement in a way that the… (keep reading)

When I was a kid, my mom explained to me why she didn’t really enjoy Mother’s Day: she felt as if celebrating mothers one day a year gave everyone free reign to take them for granted during the other 364. I kind of got it after a while, but I… (keep reading)

A few days ago, a mutual of mine on Tumblr asked a pretty interesting question: “why do people get uncomfortable with political fanfic?” She went on to point out that “A lot of you love to boast that you love the dirtiest, nastiest smut ever, why can’t you handle someone… (keep reading)

Conventional publishing wisdom holds that you’re supposed to adopt a buzzy, overexcited tone when announcing the release of a new book, the better to build up hype. I’m not sure that wisdom holds when the book in question is about a very serious, very horrible thing that won’t stop showing… (keep reading)

Draft2Digital has just rolled out distribution through Bookshop.org, which means a bunch of my books are now available on Bookshop. However, it looks like Bookshop is blocking distribution for titles that are under a certain length. My short stories haven’t made it onto the site; neither have any of the… (keep reading)

A friend of mine, while reading over a draft of the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story, said, “Love how angry you are in this one.” Which is maybe one of the highest compliments I’ve received on my writing. As I’ve explained to a few people before, I don’t see… (keep reading)

Heated Rivalry has pushed gay romance as a genre into the mainstream eye, which of course means we must now be subjected to an endless stream of video essays and thinkpieces about whether certain demographics (women, straight men, people who aren’t into hockey) are “allowed” to like it. I do… (keep reading)