Authors Electric

Why have Stephen King, his son Joe Hill, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez joined the ranks of those who've bounced from Twitter to the new platform Bluesky? In June 2023 users numbered 180K. As of September the number had risen to 1 million. Here, four Bluebies (Bluesky newbies) tell of their learning to fly the Blue sky. The four roundtable knights are: Debbie Bennett Wendy H Jones Reb MacRath Z: a legendary author sworn to secrecy. Bios and links below.  Were you an active member of The Other Place? What led you to move on? DB: Yes, I was a Twitterer. Or is it Tweep? Not that I've ever used it much. Back in the days when posts were limited to about five words (I'm joking--it was a few more than that), I could never quite see the point. Far from being a lesson in brevity, it just seemed to stifle any creativity for me. But I've never tried to 'create' on these platforms--simply to observe, watch and listen. I did follow the occasional Pitchfest and the thingies that...

I'm reading - or rather, forcing myself to read - Stephen King's Sleeping Beauties , co-written with his son Owen King. I used to love Stephen King's books, back in the days of Firestarter , The Stand and It .  Back in the days when you didn't have to wade through pages and pages of exposition and asides and irrelevant minutiae. I just about managed 11.22.63 , but since then I've given up, and I doubt I'll get to the end of this book. It sits on my bedside table and I'm even watching Family Guy in bed now, because I can't face picking up the hefty doorstop of a paperback and trying to remember which one of the myriad of characters is in this chapter. I can't even hold it comfortably to read. Why does nobody edit this stuff anymore? Is it because he's such a huge name and the publishers know the books will sell whatever they do or don't do? Is it because of the cut-backs everywhere, the redundancies in the publishing industry and relucta...