Thanks to @brianboone.bsky.social of @humoristbooks.bsky.social for letting me provide six important writerly answers to his six important writerly question! humoristbooks.com/6-important-...

Great news if you're a fan of my stuff in @mcsweeneys.net (and bad news if you're not): I have written a WHOLE BOOK of academic satire! It's available NOW from the good people at @humoristbooks.bsky.social.

@bullenross.bsky.social is a professor AND a writer, so putting him through the gauntlet of “5 Writerly Questions” wasn’t that big a deal since he obviously loves to do homework.
humoristbooks.com/6-important-...

Read an excerpt of Ross Bullen’s HOW TO SUCCEED IN ACADEMIA (WHILE FAILING AT EVERYTHING ELSE) right here!
humoristbooks.com/read-an-excl...

Considering a career in academia? Already stuck on a tenure path? Allow @bullenross.bsky.social to talk you right out of it. The hilariously harrowing and deeply silly HOW TO SUCCEED IN ACADEMIA (WHILE FAILING AT EVERYTHING ELSE) is out now from Humorist Books.
www.amazon.com/Succeed-Acad...

.@BullenRoss on how a story told by the African American novelist, historian, playwright, and physician William Wells Brown circulated, first through his own works, and then abroad, as a parable of American banking gone bad https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/william-wells-brown-wildcat-banker

BREAKING: The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to a Melville Guy™

"The following tips will help you feel like you belong in the Ivory Tower, even when that little voice in your head says, 'I’m not good enough,' or 'Nobody likes me,' or 'I’m actually half a dozen raccoons nestled inside an abandoned upscale Swedish jacket.'"

"Imposter syndrome is real. In a field like academia, everybody feels like a fraud sometimes, whether it’s a scathing peer review, a nasty comment from a student, or being shooed away by campus security when you get caught eating apple cores out of the dining hall dumpster."

"A sign on your office door informs you that it is being turned into a private sauna for the university’s senior administration. Okay, okay, you can deal with this. You just need to find somewhere else to work."

"It’s not all bad. Sure, I’m grading five hundred papers a week and living in a 1990 Honda Civic, but at least I get to hold my office hours in the campus Starbucks."

I don’t even want to read this because the headline is so perfect.

"The old guy says I have to work as an adjunct professor for the rest of eternity or until I get a tenure-track job. I try to scream, but the only thing that comes out is a forty-five-minute lecture about something called 'le Nouveau Roman.'"

"I blink, and suddenly I’m standing in front of a room of college kids. Most of them are sleeping on their backpacks. I’m talking about some guy named Alain Robbe-Grillet and telling everybody that their essays were due three weeks ago."

Going through some old memes on my phone and found this gem from @bullenross.bsky.social. Pretty sure this was shortly after my alma mater unveiled its new mascot design, too...