about bots, stories, and who is in control
there is a subtitle but it doesn't say anything you didn't already know
This is my first real post.
Like many first posts, it is mostly to see if anyone is paying attention.
I was guided through its creation by a bot.
Am I now governed by A.I.? Aren’t we all?
Here are some things that are automated that we think about and think are pretty cool:
targeted ads
selection of the next TV show/movie we’ll watch
selection of next book we will read
next news item we’ll see
next episode of a podcast
What do we talk most about? Things we just purchased, the TV/movies we saw, the podcasts we heard, the books we read & the news headlines…
Here are some things that are automated that we don’t think about at all:
when to walk (crossing signs)
how to do just about everything (interfaces to teach us tech)
financial advice (pop ups on banking apps with credit card applications or suggested savings plans)
what our next password should be
what our current password actually is
how to retrieve said password
Yeah so, that’s kind of what my newsletter is likely to be like.
I won’t send many. Maybe once every couple of weeks or so? Whenever I have news about my short stories that are coming out or if I have a public appearance for my new book.
I do have a few new stories out right now:
“The Mayor of Flashback” is in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal (it was nominated for a Pushcart)
“Needs Milk” is in Ilanot Magazine (there is a reading of it on the homepage)
“A House on Baltic Avenue” is in Ellipses Magazine
“Cake” is in an anthology called Twisted Book of Shadows, which won a Shirley Jackson Award and was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award
“Left Brain” is in a new anthology called Delirium Corridor
and “The Scissors of Hope and Despair” is (are??) in the Baltimore Review (that one has audio if you click at the bottom of the page)
If you like them, please let me know! It’s nice to be writing directly to you again. For a while I was doing this on Facebook but then, you know… bots. Which brings us full circle.