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CJ CHERRYH announced her retirement from writing on Facebook. She thanks her publisher Betsy Wollheim and wife “Jane, who is all things.”

KELLY MURASHIGE is now represented by Ashley Reisinger of Triada US. Murashige sold Milkiverse, in which a neurodiverse woman “discovers that drinking her customers’ leftover milk allows her to enter alternate worlds in which she is finally happy,” to Alexa Wejko at Soho Press via Savannah Brooks of kt literary.

LYSZ FLO and JEANÉ D. RIDGES have launched Spec Colorways In Verse, a “newsletter and community space” centering queer, BIPOC speculative poetry. It opened to submissions on May 16.

 

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AKWAEKE EMEZI sold dark epic fantasy Eclipse & The Wolf and another book to Laura Schreiber at Voyager in a pre-empt via Jacqueline Ko of The Wylie Agency.

LYNN BUCHANAN’s Breeze Felt at Moonrise, first in a fantasy series with “a young woman growing mineral armor from her body who must leave home on a quest to prove herself to her people,” and another book went to Betsy Wollheim at DAW via Matt Bialer of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

LAUREN DEDROOG sold Bloodlorn, “pitched as Carmilla meets The Serpent and the Wings of Night,” and Godscorn to Toni Kirkpatrick at Diversion Books via Melissa Vandeputte of Hamley Books Literary Agency.

CHOI JIN-YOUNG’s Everything Happened at Once, translated from Korean by Soje and in which a virus sweeps away half the population overnight, went to Michael Reynolds at Europa Editions via Emma Thawley at Hachette UK. Lucrezia Lazzari will edit.

SHELBY CARLETON sold Sexpocalypse to Zach Phillips at Pantheon in a pre-empt via Charlie Olsen of Inkwell Management.

ARTHUR H. MANNERS’s Inworld, “pitched as The Three-Body Problem meets Annihilation,” and another book sold to Tim O’Connell at Saga Press via Brandi Bowles of UTA. UK rights sold to Chloe Gough at Voyager UK via Alexander Cochran while part of C+W on behalf of Mike Nardullo.

DULEY ANDERSON sold Saint of Despondent Pets, “in which a woman accidentally becomes a magical saint and must wrangle her newfound powers—and a love triangle between her boss and the saint of lost causes,” to Stefanie Chin at Union Square & Co via Hannah Andrade of Bradford Literary Agency.

SOLAR HOÀNG sold River Runs Red in a historical fantasy duology set in Hanoi and another book to David Pomerico at Voyager via Angeline Rodriguez of WME.

MATT BELL sold Penitent, “a future-set novel cast in a medieval-like world,” to Thomas Gebremedhin at Doubleday via Kirby Kim of Janklow & Nesbit.

TRAVIS BALDREE’s Tales from the Territory, a five-story collection in the world of Legends & Lattes, went to Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency. Jonathan Strahan will edit. UK rights went to Sophie Robinson at Tor UK.

SALLY SULTZMAN’s “dark fairy tale” They Are All Her Children sold to Darian Bianco at Apex.

CHARLENE CHALLENGER sold “cozy speculative novel” The Architect to Elsewhere and another book to Diana M. Pho at Erewhon Books via Kelvin Kong of K2Literary.

KAT COLLINS sold Jetsam, “the Murderbot Diaries meets Memento,” to Amy Borsuk at Rebellion via Brady McReynolds of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

DANIEL KALLA’s The Perfect Memory, “grounded in existing neuroscience, about a gene therapy that can erase traumatic memories,” and another book sold to Luisa Smith at Mysterious Press in a pre-empt via Liza Fleissig of Liza Royce Agency.

DETE MESERVE sold speculative mystery The Last Time She Saw and an untitled mystery to Melissa Rechter at Poisoned Pen Press via Christina Hogrebe of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

THOMAS PIERCE’s short story collection Do You Miss Earth? went to Meg Reid at Hub City Press via Jin Auh of The Wylie Agency.

BETH CATO’s A Manor Beyond the Mist, “weaving Arthurian lore and fae myth,” sold to Marilyn Brigham at 47North via Rebecca Strauss of DeFiore & Company.

MICHAEL SIMON sold Fifth Horizon, fifth in the First Command series, to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Michelle Hauck of Storm Literary Agency.

KURT SCHLICHTER sold American Warlord to Tony Daniel at Ark Press.

EMILIA HART sold The Enigmas to Sarah Cantin at St. Martin’s via Alexandra Machinist at CAA on behalf of Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown UK. UK rights went to Amy Perkins at The Borough Press via Blunt.

TEOLINDA GERSÃO’s short story collection Alice in Thunderland & Other Stories went to Fernanda Viveiros at Arquipélago via Jennifer Thompson of Nordlyset Literary Agency.

JOHANNA VAN VEEN’s The Literary Remains of Cornelia Feyen, “a humorous epistolary novel pitched as intertwining Dutch faerie folklore with a sapphic love story,” sold to Rebecca Brewer at Bloomsbury Archer at auction via Kristina Pérez of Pérez Literary & Entertainment. UK rights sold to Delayna Spencer at Hodderscape.

ALTA HENSLEY sold dark romantic comedy Witchmoth in the Wake and another book to Laura Schreiber at Avon Impulse for six figures via Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency.

CHARLAINE HARRIS sold adult romantasy Hold My Spellbook, “pitched as The Bachelorette with swords and magic,” to Joe Monti at Saga Press. UK rights to Hold My Spellbook and another title went to Gillian Green at Bramble UK in a pre-empt via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency on behalf of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

KATRINA KWAN sold Deathly Beloved, following two vampires who work to end a war between their families, to Candice Coote at Berkley in a pre-empt via Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

KALIE REID’s “friends-to-lovers romantasy” Copperstitched went to Julia DeVarti at Little, Brown via Maddy Belton of Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.

GUS KRIEGER’s romantic speculative The Seventh Ribbon, in which a widow finds typewriter ribbons that can ink a different reality, sold to Karen Kosztolnyik at Grand Central via Margaret Sutherland Brown & Jenna Land Free of Folio Literary Management.

ALYSSA PICKERING sold Princess of Lies and two more books to Rachel Winterbottom at Wayward TxF in a pre-empt via Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.

B. CELESTE sold Not Another Vampire Romance to Reina Galhea at Berkley XO at auction via Josi Beck of Beck Literary Agency.

JENNIFER ESTEP’s “Robin Hood-inspired” Queen of Foxes went to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Jessica Errera & Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency. Rebecca Heyman will edit. UK rights went to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.

JENNA WOLFHART sold dark romantasy Forsaken Crown, first in a duology, and another title to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Susan Velazquez Colmant of JABberwocky Literary Agency. UK rights sold to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.

RACHEL ROBINSON’s Echoed Vow and Golden Oath in the Resonant Hunger series and another title went to Ellie Folden at Love N. Books Press. Kayla Ireland will edit.

TESSONJA ODETTE’s “standalone fantasy rom-com” Elegance & Espionage sold to Kelly Smith at Zaffre via Kimberly Whalen of The Whalen Agency.

HEATHER CARTER sold gothic paranormal romance The Echoes of Radfield Hall to Lisa Green at City Owl Press via Marisa Corvisiero & Katrina Lemaire of Corvisiero Literary Agency.

TORRI HEAT’s paranormal romance Heresy and three more books went to Jasmine Callaghan at Boldwood via Katie Monson of SBR Media.

LINDY RYAN’s Final Girl Forever, in which a washed-up scream queen ends up a resident ghost in a mansion “until a botched seance forces her to step back into the spotlight and fight one last time for survival,” sold to Alexandra Sehulster at Minotaur via Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management.

TAYLOR GROTHE sold “queer, dark academia horror-romance” Lethal Kiss to Gillian Green at Nightfire UK.

KATE COLLINS sold Saint Death, set at a decrepit hotel now chosen as the site for a TV show, to Gina Iaquinta at Liveright via Stephanie Delman of Trellis Literary Management on behalf of Sara Langham. UK rights went to Harriet Hirshman at Dead Ink via Sara Langham at David Higham Associates.

BENEDICT ANNING’s Atomic Coffin, “blending deep-sea dread and psychological horror,” and another title went to Joe Monti at Saga Press at auction via John Baker of Bell Lomax Moreton Agency. UK rights sold to Simon Taylor at Transworld.

DAVE V. RISER sold Not Only Will this Kill You but It Will Hurt the Whole Time You Are Dying, following “a trans street kid turned necromancer,” to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.

HAILEY SPENCER’s Epiphyte, in which a grad student and her childhood friend are trapped in a story controlled by the rules of fairy tales, went to Amanda Manns at Creature via Marisa Corvisiero & Gabrielle Harbowy of Corvisiero Literary Agency. Krysta Winsheimer will edit.

CAITLIN CHISLING sold fantasy What the Wind Said, in which “a hungry wind uses impossible wishes to devour the living,” to Alyza Liu at Simon & Schuster Children’s via Bridget Smith of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

HILARY FILKINS sold The Living Half, following a girl and her mother after a zombie apocalypse, and another book to Alex Borbolla at Bloomsbury Children’s for six figures at auction via Elizabeth Bennett of Transatlantic Literary Agency.

CINDY PON sold Sheen, “in which a young woman lives among a traveling troupe of performers with illegal magic,” to Jenny Bak at Viking Children’s via Eric Smith of Neighborhood Literary.

KATHLEEN KITT’s fantasy romance Crown & Captive went to Jennifer Klonsky at Putnam Children’s via Lanie Davis & Viana Siniscalchi of Alloy Entertainment. Simone Roberts-Payne will edit.

ERICA SAGE’s Dead Things, “in which a girl discovers the rotting body of the most popular girl in school,” sold to Sofia Aves at Evernight Teen.

KYLIE LEE BAKER’s Infernally Yours, in which a teenage girl competes for the hand of the prince of hell to avoid being stuck as a yokai forever, went to Holly West at Feiwel & Friends via Mary C. Moore of Aevitas Creative Management.

DANA SCHWARTZ sold YA gothic historical fantasy Down Came a Blackbird and another book to Sara Goodman at Wednesday Books via Dan Mandel of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

ADRIANA MATHER sold A Curse of Stolen Time to Holly West at Feiwel & Friends via Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio.

MEGAN FLETCHER’s YA “post-apocalyptic sapphic romance” Where Time Ends went to Kristie Choi at Atheneum via Juliana McBride of Rebecca Friedman Literary.

EMILY THIEDE’s YA fantasy romance Gilded Wings and another book sold to Vicki Lame at Wednesday Books via Chelsea Eberly of Folio Jr.

HAZEL CROSS’s YA paranormal romance Roses & Ruin sold to Jennifer Klonsky at Putnam Children’s via Lanie Davis & Viana Siniscalchi of Alloy Entertainment. Simone Roberts-Payne will edit.

VALERIE NORTON sold debut, fantasy adventure The Darkness Beneath, “pitched as inspired by The Mummy,” to Elana Gibson at Alcove Press via Bethany Hendrix of Spencerhill Associates.

S.J. CRISTEA sold debut, “fantasy rom-com” How to Save a Dog from the Underworld and another book to Julia Elliott at Avon in a pre-empt via Kiya Evans of Paper Literary. Canadian rights went to Mikaela Roasa at Harper Canada, and UK rights went to Phillipa Walker at Michael Joseph at auction, via Evans.

JUNE HARRINGTON sold debut Merely a Matter of Time, in which two scientists skilled in magic “accidentally fall 200 years back in time, only to fall for each other,” and another title to Ali Fisher at Wildthorn in a pre-empt via Aurora Fernandez of Trident Media Group. UK rights sold to Bella Pagan at Tor UK at auction on behalf of Marley Johnson of Trident Media Group.

CHARLOTTE PETERS’s debut, “swashbuckling western romantasy” The Silver Bounty and another book went to Alexandra Sehulster at Saturday Books at auction via Lisa Grubka of UTA. UK rights went to Saida Azizova at Renegade Books via Susan Armstrong of C+W.

TAMAR VOSKUNI’s debut Witch & Hunter, a romantasy in which a vampire bounty hunter targets a woman accused of witchcraft, and another book sold to Kate Roddy at akaSTORY for six figures at auction via Claire Friedman of Inkwell Management for Voskuni and via Stephen Barbara of Inkwell Management for Jenna Brickley of StoryGiants; and to Sophie Clarke at Wayward TxF at auction via Hannah Schofield of LBA.

ESME LEE WILMOT sold debut Parallel, “a domestic suspense novel with speculative elements,” and another title to Pippa White at Lake Union Publishing via Anjanette Fennell of Bookspark Literary.

GITA JACKSON’s debut, “LitRPG romance” Level Up for Romance! went to Emma Cole at Mira via Alex Land of Mad Woman Literary Agency.

MARIE CROKE’s debut, horror Hush Little Hauntings sold to Nivia Evans at Saga Press via Kaitlyn Katsoupis of Belcastro Agency.

TAUBIN DUPAVILLON’s debut, romantasy Ocean Eyes went to Frankie Vasquez at Olive Press.

CAITLIN CLEMENTS’s debut Every Stop Between Us, “a speculative coming-of-age romance,” and another book went to Kelsey Horton at Delacorte in a pre-empt via Renee Runge of Spencerhill Associates.

GARETH L. POWELL’s SF novella Downdraft sold to Jendia Gammon at Stars and Sabers.

AKUA LEZLI HOPE’s collection of speculative poetry Telepath went to Gnashing Teeth Publishing.

HADEER ELSBAI’s horror novella You Just Have to Ask Me sold to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co in a pre-empt for publication in winter 2027, by Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary Agency (world).

JESSIKA FLECK’s ”Choose Your Own Adventure” The Hawthorne Vampire Society sold to Lizzi Middleman at Chooseco via Fiona Kenshole at Transatlantic Literary Agency. Eamon Dunn will edit.

 

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MICHAEL ROCH resold Lanvil, 2070, originally published in French, to Zach Phillips at Pantheon via Rebecca Wearmouth of PFD on behalf of Lucy Barry and Kieron Fairweather of PFD for La Volte. UK rights went to Christopher Sturtivant at Harvill Secker in a pre-empt via Barry and Fairweather.

ZOEY DRAVEN resold Desire in His Blood, Craving in His Blood, and Hunger in His Blood, the first three in “a sci-fi romantasy/monster romance series” to Emily Archbold at Del Rey via Kimberly Brower of Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.

Three books in JENNIFER CHIPMAN’s Witches of Pleasant Grove series resold to Phillipa Walker at Michael Joseph via Valentine Grinstead of The Seymour Agency.

 

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At DAW, Head of Marketing and Publicity LAURA FITZGERALD will add Associate Publisher to their title, MADELINE GOLDBERG is now Associate Editor, and GRACE BROWN will join as Junior Designer.

JUDITH CURR, HarperOne president and publisher, retired May 29 after eight years leading the imprint.

STEPHANIE FRYLING joined HarperCollins as president of sales beginning May 11. Fryling was previously at Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House. ROXANNE FINKELSTEIN has been promoted to director of publishing operations in managing editorial, GINA MACDONALD to associate director in production editorial, and TARYN ORTOLAN and ERIN PINKSEN each to assistant manager in production editorial.

Senior staff at Curtis Brown Creative, including ANNA DAVIS, have bought a majority stake in CBC from Curtis Brown UK. JONNY GELLER has resigned as director of CBC and the company will vacate Curtis Brown’s offices but maintain a relationship with it.

LISA LITWACK has been promoted to executive director of art as Simon & Schuster.

 

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Film rights to The Midnight Library by MATT HAIG went to StudioCanal and Blueprint Pictures. Matt Haig will produce along with Florence Pugh. Gareth Davis will direct.

Film rights to The Buried Giant by KAZUO ISHIGURO sold to Netflix as a stop-motion film. Guillermo del Toro will produce, ShadowMachine will produce animation, and Dennis Kelly and del Toro will adapt the script.

Film rights to The Barbie Mur­ders by JOHN VARLEY sold to FX Studios via Jon Levin of Sustainable Entertainment and the Virginia Kidd Agency on behalf of Kerry Varley for the Estate of John Varley.

Film rights to Rest Stop by NAT CASSIDY went to Coin Operated. Gary Dauberman and Mia Manis­calco will produce; Cassidy will adapt the screenplay.

 

 

Today's links

• AI and amateurism: When is generative content vernacular?
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Disney characters x clean underwear; Transparent Pontiac; Makers v dog with LED collar; Microsoft buys Linkedin; Legitimate greatness.
• Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Edinburgh, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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AI and amateurism (permalink)

Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with:

https://www.instructables.com/CARDIAC-CARDboard-Illustrative-Aid-to-Computation-/

Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on.

After that, I got an Apple ][+ in 1979, and shortly thereafter acquired a modem, and that was it: I was hooked for life. I became an amateur programmer, then a professional programmer. I hosted forums on dial-up BBSes where I distributed software and offered support to strangers who wanted to connect their computers to the internet. I got a job as a gopher developer, then a web developer, then a CIO-for-hire, helping wire up small businesses and connect them to the net. Eventually, I co-founded a free/open source software startup, before transitioning to 25 years as a digital rights activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And for most of that time, I was energetically writing science fiction, eventually becoming associated with a school sometimes called "post-cyberpunk":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewired:_The_Post-Cyberpunk_Anthology

The force that energized all this work was a dialectical one, the contradiction that powered cyberpunk literature itself. For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion."

Gibson's more famous quote, of course, is "the street finds its own use for things." In Gibson's novels (and in my own life in technology) all the most interesting things happen when users of technology (often without formal training or credentials) find ways to adapt the technology they use to suit their needs:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/17/technopolitics/#original-sin

This is why I remain an ardent fan of Hypercard, Scratch and other meta-tools that are designed to allow non-programmers to write software that exactly conforms to their desires. Whatever the apps produced by these tools lack in sophistication and efficiency is more than offset by the fact that they give everyday people the power to directly control the tools they rely upon.

If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools – vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun – that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make.

The ancient dictum of "nothing about us without us" – born in 16th century Poland and taken up by the modern disability rights movement – asserts the right of people to control their own living conditions, and also the unique capacity of people to understand their own needs. You know what's even better than being consulted on the design of the technology you use? Having direct control over that technology!

This is why I was so suspicious of the iPad. The iPad's much-lauded "ease of use" was entirely about how easy it was to use an iPad to consume technology. But the iPad remains the single most user-innovation-hostile technology in modern history, a device designed to make it impossible to produce technology without permission from a remorseless multinational corporation. This is cyberpunk as a demand, not a warning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

The technology I've championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users. One of my immutable precepts is that people who are different from me know things I can't know, and the only way I can get the benefit of their unique knowledge and perspective is if they are free to make and share things that matter to them. As Dan Gillmor said, back when he was inventing the study of citizen journalism, "My readers know more than I do":

https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/wemedia/book/ch00.pdf

And while I am broadly very skeptical of AI, and deeply alarmed by the proliferation of "vibe coded" software in production environments, vibe coding for personal projects is a useful and exciting addition to the lineage of tools that let computer users decide how their computers will work. For people making personal projects, vibe coding extends the power of shell scripting, cron jobs, Applescript, and other desktop automation tools to a wider audience.

One of the journalists I spoke to last week about my book described how he had vibe coded an app that showed him an alert every time a plane flew over his house, giving the tail number and other details of the flight. This is information that I have no need for and no interest in, and that I'm therefore excited to learn about, because its very existence affirms that the world is full of people who are delightfully, irreducibly, amazingly different from me, and moreover, that their unique needs can be directly met using their imaginations and their personal computers.

I recently sat down with my colleague Naomi Novik, a brilliant author who also co-founded Archive of Our Own. Naomi demoed her followup to AO3 for me: Wreccer, a system to help you find small groups of people with taste similar to your own, in order to facilitate media recommendations within that group – a kind of personal, relationship-driven alternative to massive, centralized, monolithic algorithmic recommendation systems:

https://github.com/wreccer

Naomi told me that Wreccer was being built using the same design ethos that the original Twitter embraced. When Twitter launched, it was an API first, and the official Twitter front end was built on that API – but anyone could build their own front end for Twitter that worked in the way they wanted it to. Now, the word "anyone" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because most people don't even know what an API is, and of the people who do, most of them were not capable of writing their own software front end for Twitter.

But Wreccer is being designed for the age of vibe coding, and the API will really allow anyone who uses the service to design their own interface to the system, one that elevates and centers the features they find useful and tucks away the ones they're not interested in. Your personal, custom front end could also bring in other data-sources – pulling in your Mastodon messages, for example, or even showing you an alert with the tail-number of any plane flying over your home.

This is the part of vibe coding that I'm quite excited about, but it's not the part the industry focuses on. Instead of hearing about how personal, homemade software utilities can be an end unto themselves, we hear about vibe coded projects as prototypes for commercial production code. We hear about clueless bosses vibe coding software products and services that run fine for one user on a siloed desktop computer, and then demanding to know why it takes 50 engineers a year to make the same thing work for millions of users on the public internet. We hear about people who vibe code and submit patches to free/open-source software projects with millions of users, overwhelming project maintainers with slop code that is riddled with security vulnerabilities.

Of course, there's an obvious reason why the industry wants to focus on the potential for vibe coded software to replace production code. The AI bubble has burned up $1.4t to date, while bringing in mere tens of billions of dollars per year, even as its unit economics grow steadily worse:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/

To keep the bubble inflated, AI hucksters must promise massive economic returns to the technology. They want investors to believe that vibe code is about to replace working programmers, who are skilled, high-waged, high-demand workers. Their pitch is that for every million dollars' worth of programmers that an AI salesman and a boss conspire to fire, half a million dollars will go to the AI company whose bots shit out that vibe code.

That's par for the course with the AI bubble, whose focus is entirely on how AI can centralize, control and homogenize our lives. Whereas early desktop publishing, web publishing and social media gave us a glorious higgledy-piggledy of chaotic, weird and transgressive hobbyist media and retina-searing designs, AI art and design are instantly recognizable at a thousand yards, and it all looks the same, boring, and washed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/20/ransom-note-force-field/#antilibraries

AI companies have released open weight/open source models that can run on your own computer, but these are treated as side-shows and toys and demos. The real action, we're told, is in "frontier models," which is industry-speak for "a piece of software whose running costs exceed the GDP of most countries":

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/#stock-buyback

Perhaps this is why the dynamics of AI are so different from the early dynamics of the web. Early web users were workers, who demanded that their bosses allow them to use the web and so devolve more power to people doing their jobs. By contrast, today's most ardent AI boosters are bosses, who threaten workers who don't use AI enough in the course of their duties:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/#until-morale-improves

Where we do see idiosyncrasy emerging from AI usage, it's often terrible. AI can help you create a folie-a-un in which you and a chatbot team up to reinforce your delusions and drive you deeper into a world of dangerous mirage:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/03/mission-space/#gsd

There's a (false) story that's told about people who championed the early internet: that we were blithely certain that technology could only be a force for good, and negligently disinterested in the possibility that technology could control, extract and harm. That's demonstrably untrue: recall cyberpunk's dualism of "the street finds its own use for things" and "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion."

More true is to say that early internet champions were alive to the importance of the internet, and therefore both excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver a world of connection, idiosyncrasy, love and solidarity; and about the danger of the internet as a dystopian system of surveillance and manipulation:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/digital-rights/#are-human-rights

History isn't finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It's part of the life we can build in technology's "shadowy corners" that we used to just call "technology." The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It's how the street finds its own use for things:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/goodharts-lawbreaker/#no-metrics-no-targets

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Mediocre Fred https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCXc-xC5ms0

• Shame On You https://www.change.org/p/an-open-letter-to-the-american-diabetes-association-shame-on-you

• Keycap Quarry https://keycapquarry.com/shop/

• The Threat of Big Insurance https://prospect.org/2026/06/11/threat-of-big-insurance-lobbying-congress-donations/

• End Citizens United’s Tiffany Muller on fighting big money in politics https://www.citationneeded.news/end-citizens-uniteds-tiffany-muller-on-fighting-big-money-in-politics/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Disney characters win right to clean underwear https://web.archive.org/web/20010707023727/https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/06/07/state1339EDT0171.DTL

#20yrsago Lampooning the American dismissal of Gitmo suicides https://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/610-changed-everything-run-for-your.html

#20yrsago LA’s South Central Farm under police siege right now https://web.archive.org/web/20060616085732/http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=160&Itemid=2

#15yrsago Transparent Pontiac for sale https://web.archive.org/web/20110610113919/http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/06/07/the-tin-indian-that-wasnt-rm-to-offer-see-through-pontiac/

#15yrsago Pulp Fiction edited down to just the cussing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PcAQbhnGNs

#15yrsago New York State to pet cemeteries: no pet owners’ ashes allowed https://web.archive.org/web/20110614133359/https://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/11/new-york-tells-pet-cemeteries-to-stop-taking-in-humans/#ixzz1PAZoGS6l

#15yrsago A dog with persistence-of-vision LEDs in her shirt writes my novel Makers in the park at night https://web.archive.org/web/20110618011346/https://i.document.m05.de/?p=970

#15yrsago Head of UN copyright agency says fair use is a “negative agenda,” wants to get rid of discussions on rights for blind people and go back to giving privileges to giant companies https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/14/head-of-un-copyright-agency-says-fair-use-is-a-negative-agenda-wants-to-get-rid-of-discussions-on-rights-for-blind-people-and-go-back-to-giving-privileges-to-giant-companies/

#10yrsago Air Force loses access to database tracking fraud investigations to 2004 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/database-corruption-erases-100000-air-force-investigation-records/

#10yrsago Peter Thiel’s lawyer threatens Gawker for talking about Donald Trump’s “hair” https://web.archive.org/web/20160615022004/https://gawker.com/now-peter-thiels-lawyer-wants-to-silence-reporting-on-t-1781918385

#10yrsago Samantha Bee on Orlando shooting: angry and uncompromising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t88X1pYQu-I

#10yrsago Goldman Sachs bribed Libyan officials with sex workers, private jet rides, then lost all their money https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/13/goldman-sachs-hired-prostitutes-to-win-libyan-business-court-told

#10yrsago Net Neutrality Wins: Federal Court Upholds FCC Open Internet Rules https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/14/cable-industry-proclaims-more-competition-hurts-consumers-damages-economic-efficiency/

#10yrsago Microsoft will buy Linkedin for $26.2B https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/microsoft-will-acquire-linkedin-for-18-5b/

#10yrsago Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Awards sonnet for the Orlando shooting victims https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/see-lin-manuel-mirandas-stirring-tribute-to-orlando-victims-103131/

#10yrsago China’s online astroturf is mostly produced by government workers as “extra duty” https://web.archive.org/web/20160613194153/http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/red-astroturf-chinese-government-makes-millions-of-fake-social-media-posts/

#10yrsago Rio: your quadrennial reminder that the Olympics colonize host-states with Orwellian surveillance and human rights abuses https://web.archive.org/web/20160614122124/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-olympics-are-turning-rio-into-a-military-state

#5yrsago A Monopoly Isn’t the Same as Legitimate Greatness https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/13/a-monopoly-isnt-the-same-as-legitimate-greatness/

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Virtual: The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order), Jun 19
  https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY

• LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
  https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant

• Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
  https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026

• Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23
  https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026

• Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998

• NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
  https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html

• Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559

• Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage)
  https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the

• Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus)
  https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035

• Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP)
  https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/

• On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI

• EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu)
  https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

After a long career of publishing gorgeous limited editions, collections, art books, and novellas, publisher Bill Schafer has shared the news that Subterranean Press will be permanently closing in the coming years. Subterranean intends to continue publishing work through the end of 2027, “which may bleed into 2028 as we wrap things up.” Schafer says,

We want to handle this in a structured, orderly fashion, which will include communicating with a large number of writers, artists, as well as publishers we license rights from.

One goal of our plan is that we either complete a number of ongoing series, or place them with other presses, to be continued in the same style as our volumes, so long-time customers will have a uniform set.

I hope that answers a few questions. Answers to others will have to wait until more of this process unfolds. I ask that you not deluge us with them.

From their website: Based in Burton, Michigan, Subterranean Press has been putting out approximately 45 titles each year. Since it began in 1995, both the publisher and numerous works it has produced have been honored with accolades including the World Fantasy, Locus, Horror Writers Association, and Hugo Awards.

Among the authors Subterranean has published are Kelley Armstrong, Ted Chiang, Alix E. Harrow, Joe Hill, Fonda Lee, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Arkady Martine, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Tamsyn Muir, John Scalzi, Robert Silverberg, and many more.

Our books have included artwork by Rovina Cai, Jon Foster, Victo Ngai, Dave McKean, Matt Mahurin, and many others.

The post Subterranean Press to Close appeared first on Locus.

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JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD is now represented by John Jarrold Literary Agency.

LYNNE M. THOMAS and MI­CHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS were amicably divorced on April 2. Un­canny Magazine is now entirely under the ownership of Michael Damian Thomas per the divorce settlement.

 

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S.A. CHAKRABORTY sold an untitled novel and another book to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager US for seven figures via Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates.

BRANDON SANDERSON and PE­TER ORULLIAN sold contemporary fantasy Songs of the Dead, first in the Strata Wars trilogy, and two more books to Marcus Gipps at The Broken Binding Press via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency on behalf of Joshua Bilmes of the JABberwocky Agency.

CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO sold short story collection Songs of the Sun Eater, “set in the world of the galaxy-spanning saga,” and another book to Aranya Jain at DAW via Danny Baror of Baror International. UK rights went to Nicolas Cheetham at Head of Zeus.

CL HELLISEN’s The Shape of Monsters and A Million Points of Light went to Bella Pagan at Tor UK via Caro Clarke of Portobello Literary.

GENOVEVA DIMOVA’s The Trav­elling Museum of Witchcraft went to Stephanie Stein at Tor via Brenna English-Loeb of Transatlantic Literary Agency. UK rights sold to Amanda Raybould at Solaris.

JENNIFER G. BLAKE’s Midnight at the Immortalium, “pitched as Ocean’s Eleven but fantasy,” and an­other book sold to Sareer Khader at Ace at auction via Samantha Fabien of Root Literary.

VAISHNAVI PATEL’s The Library of Lost Time went to Natalie Hallak at Ballantine via Jordan Hill of New Leaf Literary & Media.

SAARA EL-ARIFI’s Sinnerman, “following an immortal who masquer­ades as a detective but consumes sins to survive,” and another book went to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co in a pre-empt via Ginger Clark of Ginger Clark Literary on behalf of Juliet Mushens. UK rights to Sinner­man and two more books went to Charlotte Trumble at Harper Voyager UK via Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.

KATIE SIEGEL sold One for the Books to Shannon Plackis at Avon A via Melissa Jeglinski of The Knight Agency.

M.O. WALSH sold near-future story L3K to Gabriella Mongelli at Little, Brown in a pre-empt via Renée Zuck­erbrot of Massie McQuilkin & Altman.

JULIE BUXBAUM sold The Past Selves Club to Margo Shickmanter at Avid Reader Press via Jennifer Joel of CAA. UK rights went to Joanna Lee at Juniper.

CATHERINE LEROUX sold Re­public of Glass set in a near-future Montreal and translated by Katia Grubisic, to Sally Howe at Scribner via Jacqueline Ko of The Wylie Agency. Canadian rights went to Nicole Win­stanley at Scribner Canada via Jessica Bullock of The Wylie Agency UK.

TANIA MALIK’s Vanished Crea­tures sold to Emily Griffin at Holt, at auction via Nicki Richesin at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

NAINA KUMAR’s Diamond of the Rebellion, “pitched as a speculative reimagining of the Victorian era” fol­lowing an Indian princess, went to Sarah Blumenstock at Ace in a pre-empt. Kumar’s modern paranormal romance You’ve Been Ghosted went to Kara Cesare at Bantam Dell via Johanna Castillo of Writers House. Gabby Colangelo will edit.

JOANNA RUTH MEYER sold two books in the cozy fantasy series Tea & Wizardry to Marilyn Brigham at 47North via Sarah Gerton while part of New Leaf Literary & Media.

JEFF WHEELER sold The Last Harbinger and two more books to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North.

ROBERT CHARLES WILSON’s 40 Million Years of Summer sold to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publica­tions via Shawna McCarthy of The McCarthy Agency.

DAVID LISS sold The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek to Jacob Weis­man at Tachyon Publications. Rick Klaw will edit.

AUSTON HABERSHAW’s fantasy novel In Her Exquisite Clutches to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publica­tions via Joshua Bilmes of JABber­wocky Literary Agency. Jaymee Goh will edit.

RR HAYWOOD’s “multiverse ad­venture novel” Changing Worlds sold to George Sandison at Titan Books via Anthony Harvison of The Double Agents.

HANNA HEDGEWARD sold fan­tasy novel Fallow Lies the Blood to Katie McGuire at Alcove Press via Amy Giuffrida of Belcastro Agency.

LASHAWN M. WANAK’s short sto­ry collection The Works of Her Hands sold to Patrick Swenson at Fairwood Press via Kristopher O’Higgins of Scribe Agency.

MARIA DONG’s “steampunk adult fantasy mystery” Pastiche went to Laurie Johnson at Severn House via Amy Bishop-Wycisk of Trellis Literary Management.

LUKE BECKSTRAND’s Spark of Life and books two to six in the Axion series went to Sally O’Keefe at Primera.

BRENDON TAYLOR’s In Tune for Murder, An Overture to Murder, and books three to five in the George Picardi Mysteries series; as well as The Apothecant, The Bloodstone Curse, Counting in the Dark, The Archivist, and The Bloodstone War; went to Tanya Anne Crosby at Primera in two separate deals.

KELLY FAE WILSON sold Unravel­ing Fate, Weaving Fate, and Balanc­ing Fate to Sally O’Keefe at Primera.

DAVID LAWRENCE MORSE sold “speculative literary novel” The Oc­cident to Jaynie Royal at Regal House.

Four books in an untitled litRPG series by SHAMI STOVALL went to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.

NORET FLOOD’s Conduit series sold to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.

LINDARAE SANDE’s historical fan­tasy titles A Bloom for a Blacksmith, A Hero for a Housekeeper, A Maiden for a Monster, A Lookalike for a Lord, A Mate for a Methuselah, and An Inamorata for an Immortal went to Kathryn Le Veque at Dragonblade Moonrise.

SHANNON IWANSKI sold The Wages of Sin, first in a “supernatural queer detective noir” series, plus Burned by a Cold Kiss, They Must Be Fed, Renaming the Dead, and To-Be-Dead Pile to Staci Troilo at Rogue River via Metamorphosis Liter­ary Agency.

MORGAN BRIDGES’s dystopian romance trilogy, The Nocturnal Se­quence, went to Stephanie Beard at Podium Publishing for seven figures.

REBECCA ROSS sold A Bitter­sweet Spell and two more books to Julia Elliott at Harper Voyager US via Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media. UK rights sold to Elizabeth Vaziri at Harper Voyager UK.

LYNN CAHOON’s Black Mountain Magic, first in the Enchanted Moun­tain Bakery Mysteries series, and two more titles went to Michaela Hamilton at Kensington via Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

TASHIE BHUIYAN’s Double Take and another title went to Carrie Feron at Gallery via Stuti Telidevara and Pete Knapp of Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.

KIMBERLY LYNN HANSON sold horror fantasy romance I Am the Devouring Dark and another book to Ruth Atkins at Michael Joseph via Bethany Weaver of Weaver Literary Agency.

PENELOPE BLOOM resold Un­bound, the first book in the Conflu­ence Academy series, and sold two more titles to Madeleine Colavita at Forever via Katherine Odom-Tomchin of Folio Literary Management. UK rights went to Jessie Goetzinger-Hall at Headline.

LJ ANDREWS sold Blood in the Ink, first in a dystopian romance series, and another book to Kristine Swartz at Ace via Katie Shea Boutil­lier of Donald Maass Literary Agency.

KASSANDRA ALEXANDER’s The Elevator Glitch, “a Greek and Greek mythology-inspired speculative ro­mantic comedy,” went to Chelsea Villareal at Podium Publishing via Christina Zobel and Susan Velazquez of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

NANCY TUCKER’s Nice Things All the Time went to Katherine Burdon at Quercus in a pre-empt via Hattie Grunewald of The Blair Partnership.

LEAH LOBEL sold contemporary paranormal romance Bleeding Me Dry and another title to Sam Brody at Forever via Emily Forney of BookEnds.

K.A. LINDE sold the “last two” books in the Oak and Holly Cycle to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Kimberly Brower at Park, Fine & Brower Liter­ary Management.

N.K. BROWN’s dark romantic fan­tasy A Bounty of Blood and Bargains in the Devil’s Huntress series sold to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.

TI MIKKEL’s Echo of Ashes went to Yelena Casale at City Owl Press.

LESLIE O’SULLIVAN’s fantasy romance Moon Strings went to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.

STEPHANIE MŌSHER’s Flame and Sorrow went to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.

ASHLEY SELLMAN sold A Prison of Stone, first in the Fae of Broken Kingdoms series, and another title to Twisted Words.

JASMINE WIGHAM sold The Library of Botanical Witchcraft to Hannah Bowstead at Headline via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency.

ALEXANDRA BRACKEN’s Immor­tal Rose and another book went to Kate Agar at Tempest via Alessandra Birch of Writers House on behalf of Merrilee Heifetz.

GENEVIEVE K. THOMAS sold an untitled cozy romantic fantasy and an­other title to Sophie Judge at Second Sky via Kiya Evans of Paper Literary.

ANGELA MONTOYA’s romantasy The Immortal Undoing sold to Bria Ragin, David Yoon, and Nicola Yoon at Joy Revolution via Larissa Melo Pien­kowski of Azantian Literary Agency.

ISABELLE TAYLOR’s Fake Dating with a Dragon, fifth in the monster romance series Claw Haven, and another book went to Stephanie Doig at Harlequin.

PREMEE MOHAMED and JONA­THAN SIMS’s From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, set in the Magnus Archives universe, and two more books sold to Lydia Estrada at Ran­dom House Worlds via Rusty Quill.

GARETH L. POWELL sold Un­leashed and another book to Fenton Coulthurst at Titan Books via Luci­enne Diver of The Knight Agency.

JESSICA LEWIS sold This House Is Not a Home to Ariana Sinclair at Morrow via Holly Root of Root Literary.

SETH HADDON’s Such Deep Hun­ger and another book sold to Oliver Dougherty at Nightfire via Maeve MacLysaght of Aevitas Creative Management.

TANYA PELL’s A Darkness Rather Blacker went to Kimberly Laws at Gallery via Marcy Posner of Folio Literary Management.

SEAN FERRELL sold In the Fields We Thirst to Ed Schlesinger at Gallery via Alec Shane of Writers House.

K LUCIAN JONES’s Ghosts of Bakersfield went to Justine Norton-Kertson at Android.

J.W. OCKER’s Our Monster Who Art in Heaven sold to Alexandra Murphy at Page Street via Alexander Slater while part of Sanford J. Green­burger Associates.

PETER CLINES sold The Off Sea­son and another title to Peter Wolver­ton at St. Martin’s via David Fugate of LaunchBooks Literary Agency.

REBECCA KENNEY’s “haunted house horroromance” Writhe and two more books sold to Mary Altman at Sourcebooks Casablanca via Eva Scalzo of Speilburg Literary Agency (world).

JACY MORRIS sold A Town Paint­ed Red, “in which an Indigenous graf­fiti artist… discovers that [Portland] is rotting from the inside out,” to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.

CARL ANTONOWICZ’s illustrated novel The Wreck and Ascension of the Good Ship Yanqui went to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.

LESLIE J. ANDERSON’s folk horror Children of the Wrong Heaven went to Randall Lotowycz at Quirk Books via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Liter­ary Agency.

DAVID MASSENGILL sold “queer horror-thriller” Mr. Doppelganger to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Hor­ror Press.

MAZEY EDDINGS sold “gothic horromance” The Bargain to Ra­chael Kelly at Dutton at auction via Claire Friedman and Jessica Mileo of Inkwell Management. UK rights went to Soraya Bouazzaoui of Headline Eternal.

PHILIPPA YOUNG sold “para­normal rom-com” Cold Hearts and another book to Holly Ingraham at Sourcebooks Casablanca via Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Manage­ment.

AISLINN BROPHY’s “sapphic high fantasy” The Divinity Thieves went to Polo Orozco at Putnam Children’s via Sarah Fisk at The Tobias Literary Agency.

BRIDGET MORRISSEY sold YA romance I Put a Spell on You to Hannah Hill at Delacorte Romance via Taylor Haggerty of Root Literary. BRIDGET MORRISSEY, AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA, and EMILY WIBBERLEY writing as E.B. ASHER sold Last Night in Lyris to Priyanka Krishnan at Avon via Taylor Haggerty of Root Literary for Morrissey, and Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency for Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka.

RACQUEL MARIE sold YA con­temporary horror A Different Kind of Murder to Rachel Diebel at Feiwel and Friends via Thao Le of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

KENDALL ANNETTE’s YA novels Tylor Whitlock Just Won’t Die and Charlie Burton Has Killer Timing sold to Jennifer Thompson at Scho­lastic for six figures at auction via Bethany Weaver of Weaver Literary Agency.

SARAH PORTER sold YA gothic thriller A Darker Obscure to Alex­andra Aceves at Holiday House via Rebecca Podos at Neighborhood Literary.

HAFSA A. JAWAD resold romanta­sy The Tales of Arcana Fortune and sold sequel The Mirrors of Runisia Winters to Alison Romig at Delacorte via Sophie Sheumaker of BookEnds.

RYAN DOUGLASS’s horror novel Night of Madness and another title sold to Kara Sargent at Simon Pulse via Petersen Harris of Temple Hill Publishing on behalf of Lane Clarke at Ultra Literary.

JO SALAZAR’s If We Survive the Night, If We Survive What Saved Us, and another title sold to Gabbi Cal­abrese at Sourcebooks Fire via Renee Runge and Ali Herring of Spencerhill Associates.

GWENYTH REITZ’s Prom Anom­aly went to Emilia Sowersby at Roar­ing Brook Press via Uwe Stender of TriadaUS Literary Agency.

KALYN JOSEPHSON sold A Drag­onslayer’s Guide to Love, Valor, and Other Myths to Kate Meltzer at Roaring Brook Press, in an exclusive submission via Carrie Pestritto of Laura Dail Literary Agency.

ROXANE DE ROUEN’s romantasy duology beginning with She Dies at Dawn went to Brian Geffen at Holt Children’s at auction via Lizzie Bishop of Faber UK.

ROWAN BRIGHTON BROWN’s young adult contemporary fantasy White Trash Witchcraft sold to Al­exandra Aceves at Holiday House via Alexander Slater while part of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

FABIANA MUÑOZ’s The Dead Walk in Pleasant Cove and another book went to Tamara Grasty at Page Street Kids via Vicky Weber of Cre­ative Media Agency.

PAIGE COOPER sold speculative literary debut novel Nulligravida to Martha Sharpe at Flying Books via Samantha Haywood and Eva Oakes of Transatlantic Literary Agency.

SHIRA ERLICHMAN sold debut novel Tangerapple, “set in a lightly speculative version of New York,” to Deborah Garrison at Knopf in a pre-empt via Erika Stevens of Salky Literary Management.

B.N. KING sold debut Wolfboy, first in a trilogy, to Emily Archbold at Del Rey via Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates. UK rights went to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.

MEGAN DANIELS sold Time Sick, “in which one woman travels forward five years in time to solve her own murder, only to find herself falling in love with her future self’s husband,” to Natalie Hallak at Ballantine at auction via Nicole Cunningham of Trellis Liter­ary Management.

JOSIE BULLARD sold Dreams of Ruin and two more books to Andy Dodds at Podium Publishing via Christy Fletcher and Ariele Fredman of UTA on behalf of Alix Frank of DBA. UK rights went to Alexa Allen-Batifou­lier at Del Rey UK at auction via Ciara Finan and Cathryn Summerhayes of Curtis Brown UK.

BRETT RYLAND sold Our Whole Lives Behind Us, following a widower who works for a time travel tourism agency, to MJ Johnston at Source­books Landmark via Jane Dystel of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

MYLEE MILLER sold Heart of Bone to Marcy Harris at Alcove Press via Rachel Estep of D4EO Literary Agency.

JESSE ARAGON sold debut “hor­ror-tinged epic science fantasy” The Demon Star and another book to Marcus Gipps at The Broken Bind­ing Press via Imogen Bovill of Abner Stein on behalf of 2 Seas Agency for DAW Books and John Baker and Julie Gourinchas of Bell Lomax Moreton.

THERESA HUNTER’s debut ro­mantasy Wings of Salt and Storm, first in a series, and another title sold to Kate Prosswimmer at Scarlett Press via Emily Forney of BookEnds.

REMY FINK sold debut Thespians: A Tragedy to Taz Urnov at Hell’s Hun­dred via Claire Harris of Helm Literary.

A.J. JACONO’s speculative debut Yes, Yes went to Katie McGuire at Crooked Lane via Logan Harper of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

ELLIE OWENS sold debut YA dystopian fantasy Cave Jumpers and another book to Madison Pelletier at Mischief Books via Juliana McBride of Rebecca Friedman Literary. Lydia Sharp will edit.

DENE PLEWS’s debut YA roman­tasy Queen of Thieves and another title went to Lydia Sharp at Mischief Books via Cole Lanahan of The Sey­mour Agency.

WEN-YI LEE will edit horror anthol­ogy The Kids Came Back Wrong for Mary Kate Castellani at Bloomsbury Children’s, sold at auction via Isabel Kaufman of Fox Literary. Kei Nakat­suka will edit.

SYLVIE ALTHOFF sold SF novella Trivial Matters, “featuring a transgen­der heroine lost in time,” to Justine Norton-Kertson at Android.

KWAN ANN TAN’s debut “specu­lative literary choose-your-own-adventure novella” The Waiter went to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co via Julie Finidori of Aevitas Creative Management UK.

LOUIS BAYARD’s The Night Call­er, “pitched as a Dracula origin story,” went to Jovanna Brinck at Algonquin via Dan Conaway of Writers House.

JAMAL HODGE will edit short story anthology Shards of Gotham: New York City Through the Looking Glass for R.B. Wood at Ruadán.

IVANA GEČEK’s Strange Flowers Blooming from Within, fourth in the Extremities “queer anthology series,” sold to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.

DARYL GREGORY sold horror no­vella The Porcelain Sisters to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications via Seth Fishman of The Gernert Com­pany. Jaymee Goh will edit.

ROBERT J. SAWYER sold Sawyer on Science Fiction, a “collection of articles, columns, reviews, and speeches,” to Edward Willett at Shad­owpaw Press.

 

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SHEILA MASTERSON resold The Poison Daughter to Nicole Otto at Slowburn for seven figures at auction via Alyssa Morris of Trellis Literary Management. UK rights went to Ra­chel Winterbottom at Wayward TxF at auction via Maddalena Cavaciuti of David Higham Associates on behalf of Allison Malecha and Tori Clayton at Trellis Literary Management.

ERIN AMPERSAND sold Time to Play, Making Friends, Hide and Seek, Breaking Rules, and Running Wild in the litRPG Apocalypse Parent­ing series to Ali Fisher and Maxine Charles at Tor in a pre-empt via Erin Malone of WME.

PIRATEABA resold The Wander­ing Inn and Fae and Fare to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager US via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.

BEN FARTHING resold novella Scurry, pitched as “in the vein” of Good Boy, to John Harlacher at Weird Tales Presents via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency.

JACEY BEDFORD’s Psi-Tech trilogy resold to Wizard’s Tower.

ANTHONY TARDIFF’s Mirages resold to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North via Carrie Pestritto of Laura Dail Literary Agency.

Three books in ARCANE CA­DENCE’s New Life As a Max Level Archmage series went to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault. Damian Wassel will edit.

 

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At Tor, ALEXA BEST has been pro­moted to publishing strategy associ­ate, SAMANTHA FRIEDLANDER to associate marketing manager, LIZZY HOSTY to associate manager of pub­lishing strategy, TYRINNE LEWIS has been promoted to senior marketing manager, EMILY MLYNEK to senior director of marketing, ERIN ROBIN­SON to associate manager of publish­ing operations, JESSE SHAMON to AdPromo designer, TIANA TOLBERT to senior social media manager, and BECKY YEAGER to associate director of ad promo and marketing.

ASHLEIGH HEATON has launched Enchantress Marketing, “a full-service book marketing agency specializing in genre fiction and open to tradi­tional, indie, and hybrid authors.” It will offer services including “author brand development and manage­ment, individual title advertising and launch promotions, social media and newsletter strategy, convention planning assistance, website design, backlist support, and publishing consultations.” Heaton was previously director of marketing at Penguin Ran­dom House.

AUTUMN TOENNIS has joined Europa Editions as editor.

CRISTAL SANCHEZ was promoted to national account manager and SHELBY SWEET has joined as as­sociate national account manager for Hachette Book Group.

SARAH GERTON has joined The Caldwell Agency as literary agent and audio rights manager. She was previ­ously at New Leaf Literary.

 

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Film rights to JOE ABERCROM­BIE’s The Devils went to James Cameron at Lightstorm. Abercrom­bie and Cameron will co-write the script.

Film rights to OCTAVIA E. BUT­LER’s Parable of the Sower sold to Warner Bros. Melina Matsoukas and Inga Veronique will produce, along with Color Force’s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, as well as man­aging director of Butler’s estate Jules Jackson. Matsoukas will direct.

Film rights to BEN MEZRICH’s forthcoming novel The Last Orbit: Genius, Terror, Defiance, and the Race to Avert Apocalypse sold to TriStar Pictures in a pre-empt. Beau Flynn will produce, Matt Shakman will direct, and Josh Friedman will adapt.

Film rights to YA dystopia Tal­ented by SOPHIE DAVIS went to Molly Cusick at ReelShort via Flavia Viotti of Bookcase Literary Agency.

Film rights to AVERY FLYNN’s Head Witch in Charge sold to Molly Cusick at ReelShort.

 

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