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LJ Pemberton

@ljabouttown.bsky.social

1.7K followers 460 following 3K posts

Writer's writer's writer. 📚 STILL ALIVE (2024), longlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award. https://tinyurl.com/y8mt536j

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · Jul 22

Periodic reminder that if you read my book and messaged me or made a bluesky posting about it, I'm eternally grateful, and would also be really appreciative of a quick review drop on Goodreads, Amazon, or LibraryThing. I wish these things didn't make such a difference, but they do!

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Reposted by LJ Pemberton

Elad Nehorai @eladn.bsky.social · 6h

"The administration is doing dumb things, this proves they will fail."

1. They are not as dumb as you think in the areas that matter to them: grabbing power.

2. Being dumb is a feature, not a bug, of authoritarianism. Hiring based on loyalty does that.

3. This thinking is what leads to inaction.

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Reposted by LJ Pemberton

Picket Fire @picketfire.bsky.social · 7h

John F Duffy, author of "Where When It Rains," will be at the Louisville Book Festival this Saturday. Come say hi.

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 2h

🥰😘

Reposted by LJ Pemberton

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 15d

READ. THIS. BOOK.

The protagonist is a close-to-pro skater who gets a traumatic brain injury and has to give it up. He takes up his camera and enters the Arizona party scene, where he semi-makes it, while also getting embroiled in a love quadrangle that ends very badly. Really thoughtfully done.

Picket Fire @picketfire.bsky.social · Dec 2

Hey #booksky, we're a small press with a novel being released tomorrow. 'Where When It Rains' is available on our website or through your local bookstore. You should read it if you like complicated, broken characters handled delicately in a story that breaks your heart, then breaks it again.

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Elizabeth: Ghost in the City @kikutowne.bsky.social · 3h

It doesn’t feel good to be ahead of the curve. It feels shitty.

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 3h

oh no i opened one of the bags of halloween candy

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 3h

Boxcutters is so good. 🔥

John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 3h

It’s a Fall Friday, my dudes. Grateful to be walking through the October Country.

Friendly reminder I’ve got two books that are still good. Haven’t rotted out yet, still very much in season

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 12h

remember kids: fascists don’t mind being portrayed as evil but they do really mind being portrayed as silly and not scary at all

Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 13h

This video is everywhere because it's a hilarious visual refutation of Portland being on fire. You can't get a mass movement going without convincing the masses

so yes, this does do something actually

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Dallas Steele

@Cherrykickstart

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This literally does nothing. You are not beating fascism by dressing up in inflatable suits and dancing

Quote tweeting Claude Taylor @TrueFactsStated

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Portland is leading the way. This is how you (non violently) beat Fascism. Humor and ridicule are key.

Stillframe from a video of Portland protesters dancing in inflatable suits

9:17 AM 08 Oct 25 758K Views

13:01 09 Oct 25 32.6K Views

88 Reposts

11 Quotes

1,049 Likes

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 13h

increasingly convinced that the tech barons think AI is useful because they, themselves, have no skills or thoughts, and so the simulation of a skill or thought, however bad, is enough to fool them

Reposted by LJ Pemberton

perfect knight @shiningknightx.bsky.social · 1d

"we cant uninvent ai" no we cant but we couldnt uninvent nfts either and nobody gives a fuck about them anymore

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Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social · 1d

This is very very good news frankly.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 1d

Our plane to Spain is in the air!

🙌🙌

Thank you so much to the countless people supporting us in every way and in particular all of the Rutgers students and faculty who have supported us every step of the way.

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Reposted by LJ Pemberton

🅱️️ig Sandwich [11110001] @siltyloam.bsky.social · 9d

a black shirt that says GOVERNMENT SLUTDOWN with the congress building and lightning bolts and scantily clad men and women

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

that moment when the rejection causes you to sigh with relief

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

how could i know? but i knew

as would you

so primordial

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

i waved—it was all very normal

but i started thinking about predators and prey and how humans are each other’s predators most of the time these days

and how this instinct has been preserved: feeling the eyes of someone on us

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

i felt like i was being watched when i was delivering mail today and turned and looked right at this guy in his garage fifty yards away—the culprit

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

we all know that feeling of being watched, and are able to usually find who is doing the watching almost immediately

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

don’t you think it’s incredibly strange that we can tell when someone is looking at us

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"spooky sukkot" daniel s. @self.agency · 1d

israel has been holding over 1,700 people hostage the whole time it has been demanding the release of its hostages

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 1d

Netanyahu's mouthpiece, Amit Segal, casually admits on Twitter that his country has been holding 1,700 people from Gaza hostage, including children.

Among other things, according to the decision:

- 250 security prisoners will be released.
- 1,700 residents of the Gaza Strip who were not involved in the events of October 7 and were arrested after the massacre will be released.
- 22 minors under the age of 18, residents of the Gaza Strip who were not involved in the events of October 7 and were arrested after the massacre, will be released.
- 360 bodies of terrorists will be returned.

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HAD @havehashad.com · 1d

Joshua Hebburn continuing to carve out this really interesting, specific niche of micros that sneak up on you, that unfold & unfold and&unfold to keep revealing secrets inside, single sentences as tunnels, illusions, pinhole cameras looking at our giant world...

www.havehashad.com/hadposts/it-...

October 9, 2025
It's The Thought That Counts
Joshua Hebburn
Listening—or listing, but not missing not losing a thing, I’m thinking I should be, instead of.

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

*pouring the pasta water into my sauce*

a cartoon chef is cooking in a kitchen and says kongz kongz kongz

Alt: a the swedish chef muppet is cooking in a kitchen and says kongz kongz kongz

media.tenor.com

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

I encountered this. Had a student tell me, “I don’t consume plot-based media.” 🙄

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 1d

it’s a home model! ;)

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 2d

the american conservative mind cannot begin to comprehend the life of a chaos bisexual

LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 2d

you guys we got an ORGAN for FREE on craigslist so now we can play the ORGAN in our basement

A working Wurlitzer organ in the finished half of LJ’s basement. A small lamp sits on the right side. Vintage high heels (from an old Salvation Army uniform) hang on the white wood panel wall. Also a portrait of LJ’s spouse’s grandparents. And a painting of a windmill painted by her great grandmother. And a picture of her grandmother’s graduating class, slightly too far from the middle painting but it somehow works, visually.

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LJ Pemberton @ljabouttown.bsky.social · 2d

i just made these lemon cookies and you absolutely must let them cool on the pan but then they're DELICIOUS

wearenotmartha.com/soft-lemon-c...

Soft Lemon Cookies

On the search for the best soft lemon cookies? These cookies are incredibly soft and chewy, with the perfect amount of sweetness and lemon zing!

wearenotmartha.com