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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

So ready for the Hallozine fair in Edinburgh next week. I’ve got three zines for sale (two poetry, one autobiographical) and I’ll be leading an afternoon workshop on making poetry zines.

Plus lots of lino prints. Not sure I’ll be able to get my etchings together in time yet.

A promotional poster for the Hallozine fair listing Alex Penland as a tabler. A cute ghost reading a zine floats next to an image of the author, who is walking in a green wood. The promotion states that the event will happen on the 18th of October from 11:00-16:00 at the National Library of Scotland.

A promotional poster for the Hallozine fair listing Alex Penland as a workshop host. A cute ghost reading a zine floats next to an image of a one-page zine with poetry written on the golden pages. The promotion states that the event will happen on the 18th of October from 11:00-16:00 at the National Library of Scotland. It also states that tickets are free and can be booked through the Hallozine eventbrite.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

AMAZING, Zebib! Congratulations!

Z.K.A. @pegasusunder.bsky.social · 1d

📚 🧡 MY BIGGEST DREAM COME TRUE 📚 🧡

My debut novel, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, will be out in 2027!

Publishers Marketplace, Z. K. Abraham's My Darling Clementine, in which a Black queer woman, who, feeling lost in teh depths of an unhappy marriage, leaves it all behind, only to lose herself completely-and beyond human recognition-to a new love, to Makayla Tabron at Amistad, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in 2027, by Carleen Geisler at P.S. Literary Agency (world English). Translation: Taryn Fagerness Agency

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

Tickets can be found here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hallozine-...

(I won’t turn anyone away but they do want to know the numbers.)

HalloZINE FAIR

Spooky scary skeletons invite you to sink your fangs into all things zine at the Coin-Operated Press spooktacular HALLOZINE FAIR!

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

So ready for the Hallozine fair in Edinburgh next week. I’ve got three zines for sale (two poetry, one autobiographical) and I’ll be leading an afternoon workshop on making poetry zines.

Plus lots of lino prints. Not sure I’ll be able to get my etchings together in time yet.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

Right? It was right down to their clothes! Did not realize we were in Florida, gents, but that’s pure Jacksonville behavior.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

This is dumb crime, not cool crime. Teens, go spray paint political slogans somewhere. Don’t stand there with lip gloss falling out your pants. (UK use of the term.)

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 1d

Just watched a group of spectacular stupid teenagers shoplift from the Superdrug across the street. They were hanging out to the side of the building with merchandise falling out of their pockets like pre-Good-Place Jason Mendoza’s dance crew.

Yes, in full view of a camera. Hashtag Edinburgh.

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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

Daith an’ dule will stab ye surely,
Be ye man or wife,
Mony trauchles an’ mischances
In ilk weird are rife;
Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.

—Helen Cruickshank, “Sea Buckthorn”
#Scotstober
asls.org.uk/publications...

Sea Buckthorn
by Helen Cruickshank

Saut an’ cruel winds tae shear it,
Nichts o’ haar an’ rain –
Ye micht think the sallow buckthorn
Ne’er a hairst could hain;
But amang the sea-bleached branches
Ashen-grey as pain,
Thornset orange berries cluster
Flamin’, beauty-fain.

Daith an’ dule will stab ye surely,
Be ye man or wife,
Mony trauchles an’ mischances
In ilk weird are rife;
Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 2d

I can’t wait to read it!!

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 6d

I’m sorry is this bot actually trying to capitalize on people being stolen off the fucking streets

Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 6d

Poly, steampunk Ancient Greece, ace main character who tries to follow in her father’s footsteps as an orator. It’s all about questioning and challenging the world around you!

www.knighterrantpress.com/product-page...

Andrion by Alex Penland | Knight Errant Press

Publication date 21 September 2023ISBN: 978-1-9996713-8-9eISBN: 978-1-916665-01-9 A tale of steampunk antiquity on the brink of a feminist revolution –– Andrion will delight fans of Madeline Miller's ...

www.knighterrantpress.com

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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Wendy Xu @wendyxu.bsky.social · 11d

"single-use plastic of the mind" had me GAGGED

But a still graver scandal of AI— like its hydra-head sibling, cryptocurrency-is the technology's colossal wastefulness. The untold billions firehosed by investors into its development; the water-guzzling data centers draining the parched exurbs of Phoenix and Dallas; the yeti-size carbon footprint of the sector as a whole—and for what? A cankerous glut of racist memes and cardboard essays.
Not only is the ratio of Al's resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, Al-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 6d

You know, a lot of the art accounts I follow only pop in a couple times a year to post big finished pieces.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 6d

You should REALLY know better than to break sacred covenants in October bro

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 6d

Halloween is supposed to hold the line!!!

a group of skeletons are dancing in a circle in a cemetery in a black and white cartoon .

ALT: a group of skeletons are dancing in a circle in a cemetery in a black and white cartoon .

media.tenor.com

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 7d

Just want to center a quote from later in the thread: "This is a hit list."

vexorian @vexorian.dev · Jul 30

Microsoft have dropped a list of the 40 professions most threatened by AI. Your first instinct should be to dismiss it due to their mountains of interests in convincing the world that AI is more than horribly inept at most jobs

But on a second look, it's worse than that. Historians? Mathematicians?

I am sorry, but it's an image of a table. That's how it is being published.

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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 7d

Sharing this comprehensive Writer Beware post, for anyone needing clarification, links etc on the Anthropic court case and its many issues. Includes link to search US copyright site for registrations.
writerbeware.blog/2025/09/26/b...

Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement: An Update for Authors - Writer Beware

The searchable list of eligible works is available at the settlement website (also see the update below): https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup BACKGROUND A year ago, a group of autho...

writerbeware.blog

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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · 8d

📢 POETS WANTED!

Nominations now open for the Scottish Poetry Library's ONLINE GUIDE TO SCOTTISH POETS.

Any poet can be nominated born in Scotland, lives/works in Scotland, or is Scottish by inclination. Closing date is 2/11/25.

#NationalPoetryDay

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/09/nomi...

Nominations are now open for the SPL's online guide to Scottish poets

Who would you like to see added to the Scottish Poetry Library’s online guide to Scottish poets? The biennial nomination process is open until Sunday 2nd November 2025.

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 8d

Content warning, of course.

Just reminding everyone who likes to think they’d have been a hero in the 1930s that you’ve got the chance to be a hero now.

Also, if you want out of the US and you’re considering a student visa, ask me anything. I’m here to help.

Anjali Enjeti @anjalienjeti.bsky.social · 8d

My god.

“Watson said she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans. Kids were separated from their mothers…’It was heartbreaking to watch…seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.’”

Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'

The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Reposted by Alex Penland, Academia Native

Electric Literature @electricliterature.com · 11d

“Most writers are not really sold—they’re told, implicitly or explicitly, to sell themselves.” (@ilanaslightly.bsky.social)

Artists Shouldn’t Need to Become Content Creators to Get Fair Pay - Electric Literature

Under capitalism, those of us who want a career in the arts feel pressured to sell ourselves. But making art and marketing it are very different skills

buff.ly

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 14d

*who knows more about nutrition and the human body than anyone else on the planet I swear to god he’s a genuine genius

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 14d

Cannot recommend enough the news delivery system of a wonderful, kind Italian man* coming up, declaring how embarrassing it all is, and giving you a hug before filling you in on all the human rights violations in a country you can’t go home to.

Really eases the sting, I gotta say.

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 14d

Mainstream media? No, I get my news from my nutritionist, who greets me with more and more sympathy these days before outlining the nonsense Discount Hitler’s been up to lately.

(He’s a delight. I love this man.)

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 19d

Love a good fungi season!! And I saw a ton of other great mushrooms while out and about too!

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Alex Penland, Academia Native @alexpenname.bsky.social · 19d

Just a weekend for the books, honestly. Four days with two of my favorite people, exploring, eating good food, and marveling at the odd things one finds on castle grounds…

The front of Blair Athol Distillery; the building is stone and covered with reddening Virginia Creeper vine.

Two jars of jam from the Blair Castle estate: raspberry and strawberry. The strawberry is empty.

The author returns from the greenery of the Faskally Woods. His head is turned down, watching where he walks; his hands are in the pockets of his long woolen coat.

The single tusk of a narwhal, mounted on the ornamented walls of an interiore stair in Blair Castle. A plaque reads: The single tusk of a narwhal or arctic whale. These were often sold to the public by the early explorers and travelers as unicorn’s horns, which were believed to have magical properties.

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