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mlclark.bsky.social
Writer (SFWA), translator, humanist, general odd duck • 🇨🇦n in 🇨🇴 • avoids pronouns, they/them if key 🌈🌌
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Andor is a powerful depiction of resistance movements and how the state weaponizes resistance against itself. But it also has an omission that should remind we who watch shows like this to move *past* shows like this. If we think art alone will save us, we didn't pay enough attention to the plot.

What a joy it was to work with this team! I can't wait to read the rest of the ToC. My story was inspired by a very real struggle for small pueblos caught between state & carcel extraction economies. Is it tough to dream of better in some spaces? Yes! But where there's life, there is always hope.

Hi folks. I’ll have another piece for you as time allows, but something that happened last night in my community offers a perfect example of my schism right now. If my biggest issue at present is trying to balance two parts of my “literary” life, I am deeply privileged indeed. #Humanism #Colombia

The Comics Panel's first series at The SFWA Blog @sfwa.bsky.social is still going strong! This week, A.A. Rubin takes us through moves that make your story shine in comic panel format. Work like this also serves as an excellent reminder of what we share as creators across mediums. #StrongerTogether!

Promises, promises. 🙃 #Science #Cosmology

I've been remiss in posting to Patreon, BookTube, & my newsletter these past few weeks. Tonight I finally had a chance to jot down *why*, & talk about gratitude while hitting pause on my Patreon. Thank you to EVERYONE who ever supported me along the incredibly hard way to my current change in life.

Happy Twilight Zone Day, everyone! I thought that was most every day these days, but I guess not. 🙃

ICYMI: Our comics series @sfwa.bsky.social, curated by @roxanaarama.com & Comics Committee Chair @jessicamaison.bsky.social, is going strong! This week, Jessica talks about an important part of this process for writers: actually working with an artist! Here's how to make that collaboration shine.

A head's up, I just took this survey and it's clearly designed to elicit positive responses. The questions are all framed toward AI being a good thing. There's very little room for opposition. It isn't a neutral survey but one designed to push the grift.

Oh! I have a new story out in the latest issue of Clarkesworld Magazine. "Descent" is a standalone science-fantasy novella set in the amazing @sauutiverse.bsky.social about an exploration mission on a planet of storms, epistemology, parental expectations and the limits of knowledge. Check it!

And since we #CantStop #WontStop on the Comics train @sfwa.bsky.social, here's Tim Susman's thoughtful primer, "How to Write a Comic Strip", which teaches us a thing or two about cadence in the form. It's part of the new Comics Panel: one of a few series now showcasing our brilliant SFWA committees.

Apropos of nothing at all, I am once again gonna mention that Flights of Foundry registration is open. Just gonna slide this across the table and remind folks, conventions don't have to be awful and have multiple face-palm moments a year. I promise.

Preeeetty sure my tienda del barrio is better than yours. 😊 #IDontMakeTheRules #CatTax #DogTax

My heart breaks for all the everyday humans caught in this nightmare. Our failure to rise to the challenges of our time by deepening in our humanity will only lead to an acceleration of such suffering. Love your neighbours. Fight for a world where our shared humanity can never be questioned again.

It's highly possible my North American friends have never seen one (we curate our fruits for sale too tightly), so please enjoy this double banana I had for brekkie today. Happy Wednesday! #DoubleBanana #WhatDoesItMean

I work in scam prevention. I want to call out something I really, really appreciated in the latest @leverageredemption.bsky.social episode: They stressed that the victim of the grandparent scam was extremely smart and capable, and that absolutely anyone can get got.

Today, I share some thoughts prompted by a recent conversation on how current political affairs are a clear extension of failings in our preceding system. When we bear up to those failings, we start to grasp the level of work needed to build our world in anything even approximating a better way.

This week, @jessicamaison.bsky.social introduces us to what makes comics a vitally distinct medium. This is the first year for Nebulas eligibility in comics and poetry, so @roxanaarama.com's team at The SFWA Blog has been working hard with our Comics and Poetry Committees to celebrate these forms. 🥳

become ungovernable (by using a 386 for everything)

Just a wee one today, to outline an important reason that some are relieved by Pope Francis’s death. For people who’ve been quietly (& not so quietly) leveraging religious institutions to bolster nationalist causes, this death marks an opportunity to nudge a global platform in line with their goals.

This Venezuelan entered US with CBP One appointment. As a delivery man in Detroit, he took a wrong turn & went over the bridge to Ontario. Trying to return he was detained. Now he's disappeared from the face of the earth. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/u...

One of my favourite online comics comes to mind today. It's well over a decade old, and as relevant as ever. Happy Earth Day, I suppose!

We’re starting off the week with a reflection on a wise, genre-transcending film by Ryan Coogler. This is not your mama’s vampire story. This is about the limits of seeking freedom in all its human-cursed forms. #BetterWorldsTheory #Movies #MediaLiteracy #Horror

We knew this was coming, but this is still heartbreaking. We have failed to do what needs doing to mitigate climate change. The planet doesn't give a hoot about our struggles with authoritarianism, and it will not patiently hold off on further disaster until we get our political act together.

Today's #BookTube looks at the Feb 2025 @clarkesworldmagazine.com. One of my stories is in here, but the whole issue boasts a well-curated range of thoughtful work, including by @somtoihezue.bsky.social, @clairejiawen.bsky.social, & @percypropa.bsky.social. Definitely worth reading the whole ToC!

This is prep work for even worse abuses in the near future. My heart goes out to everyone standing against all the cruel acts of indifference that keep seizing the day. Your courage may yet save something--or someone. Keep going.

Ira Nayman's latest for The SFWA Blog @sfwa.bsky.social was a much-needed read for me this week. Writing humor well is hard because it requires us to build wisely on the existing drama of life. If you're doing that work, thank you--and please keep at it! Laughter is sorely needed in hard times.

It's apparently World Marble Day. If you've lost yours... Well, me, too. 😐

It's been a rough week, & I'm still struggling with the lack of hours in the day for everything. This is a summation of recent failed attempts to broach the depravity of everything we're moving through. I'm a self-admitted grouch here, but sometimes writing feels useless. These are heinous times.

#ArtBreak, anyone? This is a very local artist: the mother of a friend. María Lucidia is self-taught, and now teaches children. Having lived in a small pueblo all her life, she is rightfully enamoured by the view. Colombia's mountain valleys unfold in ways that open the world to your imagination.

The SFWA Blog is on a no-size-fits-all roll @sfwa.bsky.social this month. Last week, social anxiety! This week? A thoughtful read by @cjtavares.bsky.social, on how disability reframes writing practice. There are as many ways to do the work as there are people who do it. Find what works for *you*.

#ArtBreak #Poetry Wendell Berry's "Questionnaire" is coming hard to mind today. You can find it in his poetry collection Leavings (2010), among others. Berry's meditations are powerful because they do not waver between grand and quotidian thoughts. Rather, the big questions live with us every day.

When hundreds of thousands of people coordinate across an entire nation to protest governmental policies, that’s not a page 18 story. That’s not a “see more in section B” situation. That’s front-page news. Period. newrepublic.com/article/1936...

Today, we’re going to Heard Island to think about what penguins actually care about—and no, it’s not tariffs. If they could talk to us, they’d probably have a thing or two to say about what we’re doing to their ecosystem, through our relentless failure to mitigate the impact of climate change. 🐧

Some of you know @ourmankoto.bsky.social and I have been Canucking up the joint at SFWA these last few months, getting the Showcase anthologies up to date. Today, I wanted to celebrate the work Stephen does elsewhere, and reflect on what it means to produce an anthology of "Canadian" SFF. So, I did!

Just a wee one to start us off this week. Don’t let the title of this recently acclaimed 4-part miniseries mislead you: Adolescence isn’t just about the volatile mess of a teen’s mind. It’s also a snapshot of a behaviour that shows up in many adults who unfortunately shape large swaths of our world.

Amid so much suffering, I just want to issue this reminder: There is no room for imposter syndrome. In a world this unjust, you have nothing to prove. Your existence is enough. Your talents are enough. Maybe not to change the world--but to be fully present where you are? You are always enough.

This week on The SFWA Blog @sfwa.bsky.social, @mariecroke.bsky.social looks at one way to change your relationship with publishing, despite any internal messaging keeping you from engaging in related events. It's a tough, strange world out there! But there's room for all our strangeness in it, too!

El Colombiano's article today on the local impact of yesterday's tariffs. According to the chart below, the most exported products from Antioquia to the US are gold, coffee, other forms of gold, other flowers, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, bananas, roasted coffee, avocados, & coffee byproducts. Sigh.

Lucky "Little". 🙃 #Economics #Politics #Finance #US apnews.com/article/stoc...