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Chris DiLeo

@authordileo.bsky.social

1.7K followers 660 following 1.9K posts

Reader. Writer. Teacher. He/Him

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · Jul 10

What can I say? If this guy says my story is “nice and violent,” you know you should read it. So cool.

Stephen Graham Jones @sgj.bsky.social · Jul 10

ah, nice and violent, just like everything over at Shotgun Honey should be. nice, @authordileo.bsky.social

Shotgun Honey @shotgunhoney.com · Jul 10

New Fiction: "The Ten-Dollar Preacher" by @authordileo.bsky.social

shotgunhoney.com/fiction/the-...

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 19m

Now listening! Absolutely agree about Chapter 38. “No great loss.” Can’t wait for THE BLACK PHONE 2. @scaresshapedus.bsky.social @crobertcargill.bsky.social

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

CHAPTER 38
H
s the superflu epidemic wound down, there was a second epidemic that lasted roughly two weeks. This epidemic was most common in technological societies such as the United States, least common in underdeveloped countries such as Peru or Senegal. In the United States the second epidemic took about 16 percent of the superflu survivors. In places like Peru and Senegal, no more than 3 percent. The second epidemic had no name because the symptoms differed wildly from case to case. A sociologist like Glen Bateman might have called this second epidemic "natural death" or
"those ole emergency room blues." In a strictly Darwinian sense, it was the final cut—the unkindest cut of all, some might have said.

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 21h

Now watching.

youtu.be/kBskrYZfhw8

Bring Her Back | Official Trailer HD | A24

YouTube video by A24

youtu.be

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 22h

Yes, indeed.

It becomes evident even to a young mind that often unacknowledged divisions in civilian life find clear and immediate expression in the military distinction between "officers" and "men." One makes the amazing discovery that grown adults walking around with college educations, wearing khaki and brass and charged with heavy-duty responsibilities, can in fact be idiots. And that working-class white hats, while in theory capable of idiocy, are much more apt to display competence, courage, humanity, wisdom, and other virtues associated, by the educated classes, with themselves.

It is no secret nowadays, particularly to women, that many American males, even those of middle-aged appear-ance, wearing suits and holding down jobs, are in fact, incredible as it sounds, still small boys inside.

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 23h

Before I read SHADOW TICKET, I need to go back to the beginning. Slow learners unite. #ThomasPynchon

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 1d

Hey, at least there’s 33 of us to read the new Pynchon…

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 1d

Hope you dug it. I loved it, was telling everybody to go see it.

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 2d

@stephenking.bsky.social on banning books. #BannedBooksWeek @bannedbooksweek.bsky.social

Yet when books are run out of school classrooms and even out of school libraries as a result of this idea, I'm never much disturbed— not as a citizen, not as a writer, not even as a schoolteacher... which I used to be. What I tell kids is, Don't get mad, get even. Don't spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood.
Instead, run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know.
Schools, supported by tax dollars and charged with caring for increasingly diverse student bodies in increasingly difficult and argumentative times, have a difficult responsibility when it comes to the issue of what books to teach in the classroom and what books to keep out. Parents have an equally difficult but less frequently articulated responsibility, which sometimes comes down to a decision to sit down and shut up. Easy to say but often difficult-terribly diffi-cult-to do. Sometimes it's best just to let the kids read the book and trust them to evaluate it sensibly. In other words, trust those fabled
"family values"
... the real, working article instead of the vague
concept invoked by the politicians.
When people feel they must speak out against a book that's being taught or kept in the school library, there should be a review procedure that can be used in a sane fashion. I believe that those who object to certain books should be given a fair hearing, but that they should have to work just as hard to explain what's wrong with a novel or story as a teacher does to explain, in the classroom, what's right with it. No fair coming in with twenty-three curse words and one sex scene highlighted in yellow. Objecting parents or citizens ought to be able to explain, in some rational way, why they feel the book has no redeeming social or intellectual merit. If they can, then fine. If they can't, wh…

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 2d

Happy Banned Books Week!
#BannedBooksWeek

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 3d

This conversation @sleyhousepresents.bsky.social @pfracassi.bsky.social is fantastic. Really appreciating Fracassi’s points about writing what you want, and the discussion about age was spot-on.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Episode #168: The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre with Philip Fracassi

Podcast Episode · Sley House Presents · 10/04/2025 · 1h 7m

podcasts.apple.com

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 3d

That’s damn right.

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Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 3d

Been writing something I don’t think will ever get published (who knows?), but I’m really writing it because I’m enjoying it. Funny, too, thinking how a reader might negatively react, that only makes me twist the narrative harder in the direction I think will annoy them more. Ha!

Chris DiLeo @authordileo.bsky.social · 3d

Read the new Elmore Leonard this morning. Fantastic. So wonderful to be in his writerly clutches again. PICKET LINE, written over fifty years ago, is more apropos today than ever.