K. Winkler
@bleakhousing.bsky.social
Predominant necromancer.
The Substitute Teacher (Avon A/HarperCollins Fall 2027)
The Ship of Death (Avon A/HarperCollins, Fall 2026)
Enter the Peerless
Grasshands
Tone-Bone
The Nothing That Is
Rep: Naomi Eisenbeiss (InkWell)
The Substitute Teacher (Avon A/HarperCollins Fall 2027)
The Ship of Death (Avon A/HarperCollins, Fall 2026)
Enter the Peerless
Grasshands
Tone-Bone
The Nothing That Is
Rep: Naomi Eisenbeiss (InkWell)
Pinned
K. Winkler
@bleakhousing.bsky.social
· Jun 4
“There are no grown-ups. There are only children and dead people."
- John Gardner, THE SUNLIGHT DIALOGUES
- John Gardner, THE SUNLIGHT DIALOGUES
Paging Gene Wolfe...pick up the red courtesy phone…paging Gene Wolfe…
November 26, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Paging Gene Wolfe...pick up the red courtesy phone…paging Gene Wolfe…
Reposted by K. Winkler
Alright, for kicks let's hear some of your favorites for "short and excellent" from living authors.
I'll start: "Houses of Ravicka" by Renee Gladman
I'll start: "Houses of Ravicka" by Renee Gladman
November 25, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Alright, for kicks let's hear some of your favorites for "short and excellent" from living authors.
I'll start: "Houses of Ravicka" by Renee Gladman
I'll start: "Houses of Ravicka" by Renee Gladman
There's a direct link between the rhetorical presentation/aesthetics of techbros and evangelical pastors of megachurches.
E.g. Steve Jobs big Apple presentations and contemporary church worship services.
E.g. Steve Jobs big Apple presentations and contemporary church worship services.
November 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM
There's a direct link between the rhetorical presentation/aesthetics of techbros and evangelical pastors of megachurches.
E.g. Steve Jobs big Apple presentations and contemporary church worship services.
E.g. Steve Jobs big Apple presentations and contemporary church worship services.
Now, I just have to make it good.
November 25, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Now, I just have to make it good.
Reposted by K. Winkler
More blanks, more voids, more left unsaid, more productive ambiguity
March 11, 2025 at 3:20 PM
More blanks, more voids, more left unsaid, more productive ambiguity
Reposted by K. Winkler
Less description, fewer feelings
March 11, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Less description, fewer feelings
Reposted by K. Winkler
You are preaching to the choir!! Endless revolution against bloat!!
March 11, 2025 at 2:58 PM
You are preaching to the choir!! Endless revolution against bloat!!
Reposted by K. Winkler
Listen I just finished the most complex thing I've ever written and it's 35K. Most books are way too long and I will die on this hill
March 11, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Listen I just finished the most complex thing I've ever written and it's 35K. Most books are way too long and I will die on this hill
Oh look, dear: Fascism.
1. In Tennessee, public libraries have closed for up to a week to facilitate a Trump-inspired book purge.
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) has ordered most of the state's public librarians to remove children's books with LGBTQ characters or themes.
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) has ordered most of the state's public librarians to remove children's books with LGBTQ characters or themes.
Tennessee public libraries close for Trump-inspired book purge
One hundred and eighty-one public libraries in Tennessee are reviewing their children’s collections after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes…
popular.info
November 25, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Oh look, dear: Fascism.
I think a lot about that scene from WONDER BOYS where Hannah Green tells Grady that the novel would be good if he left out the part where he goes into the dental records of the horses that the book's family owns.
LEAVE OUT THE EQUINE DENTAL RECORDS, PEOPLE! COME ON!
LEAVE OUT THE EQUINE DENTAL RECORDS, PEOPLE! COME ON!
Each of these books has more detail and allusive references to the world inside the book than anything I have read. But they are rather slim compared to those average books we see published today. There are lots of variables here, but I think the main reason is: no need to over-detail.
November 25, 2025 at 5:05 PM
I think a lot about that scene from WONDER BOYS where Hannah Green tells Grady that the novel would be good if he left out the part where he goes into the dental records of the horses that the book's family owns.
LEAVE OUT THE EQUINE DENTAL RECORDS, PEOPLE! COME ON!
LEAVE OUT THE EQUINE DENTAL RECORDS, PEOPLE! COME ON!
I've commented on this before, but we have this encoded belief that a "big book" is an "important" book. And I don't think that's true. In fact, I think it's dangerous. (Well, not dangerous, but silly.)
What creates the seeming need for a "long and immersive" novel is capitalism. Esp in genre fiction, that expectation for a massive novel is tied to a) the availability of paper in the 1970s b) the amount of money publishers had to pay writers & c) a sense that "more is more." All of this is flawed.
November 25, 2025 at 5:03 PM
I've commented on this before, but we have this encoded belief that a "big book" is an "important" book. And I don't think that's true. In fact, I think it's dangerous. (Well, not dangerous, but silly.)
I constantly am analyzing & reading novels from the 60s/70s/80s that are slimmer. Wondering how they escaped this. But it turns out they never needed the bloat.
Let me give an example.
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 4 volumes. All moderate length. (It can be seen as 1 book, but...)
Let me give an example.
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 4 volumes. All moderate length. (It can be seen as 1 book, but...)
What creates the seeming need for a "long and immersive" novel is capitalism. Esp in genre fiction, that expectation for a massive novel is tied to a) the availability of paper in the 1970s b) the amount of money publishers had to pay writers & c) a sense that "more is more." All of this is flawed.
November 25, 2025 at 4:59 PM
I constantly am analyzing & reading novels from the 60s/70s/80s that are slimmer. Wondering how they escaped this. But it turns out they never needed the bloat.
Let me give an example.
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 4 volumes. All moderate length. (It can be seen as 1 book, but...)
Let me give an example.
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 4 volumes. All moderate length. (It can be seen as 1 book, but...)
What creates the seeming need for a "long and immersive" novel is capitalism. Esp in genre fiction, that expectation for a massive novel is tied to a) the availability of paper in the 1970s b) the amount of money publishers had to pay writers & c) a sense that "more is more." All of this is flawed.
November 25, 2025 at 4:57 PM
What creates the seeming need for a "long and immersive" novel is capitalism. Esp in genre fiction, that expectation for a massive novel is tied to a) the availability of paper in the 1970s b) the amount of money publishers had to pay writers & c) a sense that "more is more." All of this is flawed.
26 WEEKS!
November 25, 2025 at 2:29 PM
26 WEEKS!
Reposted by K. Winkler
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Reposted by K. Winkler
Any time corporate executives are in a room together and don't know they're being recorded, the transcript is like: "Christ, I hate our customers. We're agreed that we all hate our customers? Let's lie to the IRS, criminally. Did I mention the Holocaust never happened? Put more lead in our soda."
Campbell's soup VP caught on tape trashing his own brand. Oof. www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2...
November 24, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Any time corporate executives are in a room together and don't know they're being recorded, the transcript is like: "Christ, I hate our customers. We're agreed that we all hate our customers? Let's lie to the IRS, criminally. Did I mention the Holocaust never happened? Put more lead in our soda."
Make this make sense.
November 25, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Make this make sense.
This is where visuality edges out words, I think. What attempts to be scary or weird in words can fall flat when compared with a painting of said scene.
What scares me are the moments where you’re wrenching yr mind for an image that won’t offer itself and you end up with some hot garbage that bores you. Or maybe not bores but doesn’t zing. Then everything has suddenly been done before. You’re staring down banal amalgamations. Sad mutants.
November 25, 2025 at 3:24 AM
This is where visuality edges out words, I think. What attempts to be scary or weird in words can fall flat when compared with a painting of said scene.
What scares me are the moments where you’re wrenching yr mind for an image that won’t offer itself and you end up with some hot garbage that bores you. Or maybe not bores but doesn’t zing. Then everything has suddenly been done before. You’re staring down banal amalgamations. Sad mutants.
November 25, 2025 at 3:21 AM
What scares me are the moments where you’re wrenching yr mind for an image that won’t offer itself and you end up with some hot garbage that bores you. Or maybe not bores but doesn’t zing. Then everything has suddenly been done before. You’re staring down banal amalgamations. Sad mutants.
Listen: I’m in the middle of it, so I’m stress posting. All the doubts are rearing their heads.
Books are written in revision. They have to be. There are too many instances where one’s initial idea is so insufficient that the whole point of creating it is to revisit it later.
November 25, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Listen: I’m in the middle of it, so I’m stress posting. All the doubts are rearing their heads.
It’s like an underpainting. You’re laminating language.
Books are written in revision. They have to be. There are too many instances where one’s initial idea is so insufficient that the whole point of creating it is to revisit it later.
November 25, 2025 at 3:17 AM
It’s like an underpainting. You’re laminating language.
Books are written in revision. They have to be. There are too many instances where one’s initial idea is so insufficient that the whole point of creating it is to revisit it later.
November 25, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Books are written in revision. They have to be. There are too many instances where one’s initial idea is so insufficient that the whole point of creating it is to revisit it later.
Reposted by K. Winkler
do you have a horror/horror-ish book coming out in 2026? tell me about it here, please! I'm working on the 2026 horror list and while I'm very good at sniffing out new books, I still miss things - help me help you!
forms.gle/KxLNwVDVbbRS...
forms.gle/KxLNwVDVbbRS...
2025-2026 Horror Master List Book Submissions
Because I'm out of my mind, I maintain a running list of the year's new horror releases. If you're an author/editor/marketer/publicist/agent who'd like one of your books included, please fill out the ...
forms.gle
October 21, 2025 at 6:22 PM
do you have a horror/horror-ish book coming out in 2026? tell me about it here, please! I'm working on the 2026 horror list and while I'm very good at sniffing out new books, I still miss things - help me help you!
forms.gle/KxLNwVDVbbRS...
forms.gle/KxLNwVDVbbRS...
Waiting rooms are the contemporary form of torture.
“You want healed? You must suffer.”
“You want healed? You must suffer.”
November 24, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Waiting rooms are the contemporary form of torture.
“You want healed? You must suffer.”
“You want healed? You must suffer.”
Every day out here opening a vein.
November 24, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Every day out here opening a vein.