Mathan Campbell

Mathan Campbell

@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Author of "A Thoughtful Kind of Monster."

191 followers85 following384 posts

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

I'd like to invite all of you to take this opportunity to relentlessly harass and bully every hack that's out here shilling for LLM's / corporate plagiarism machines (they are NOT AI and calling them AI is part of the grift). Make them embarrassed to open their mouths in public.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Just saw yesterday would have been Ursula LeGuin's 97th birthday. Not everything she wrote was perfect or has aged well - a fact she recognized herself - but she was always learning, always courageous with her pen and her words. I can't think of another writer of fiction who has inspired me more.

Mathan Campbell reposted

Eric Smith
@ericsmithrocks.bsky.social

Annual reminder, please don’t message me about your A.I. publishing services. I would rather be blessed by a hangnail on every finger than speak with you.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

So I've been substitute teaching a bit lately and it has been an eye opener! The number of kids who are functionally illiterate and can't write a simple paragraph by middle school is *shocking.* When did we, as a society, decide this was ok?

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Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

And, because California gutted the "Gifted" programs that existed when I was a kid, the minority that actually does want to learn gets dragged down and held back. Which of course makes it that much harder for working class kids who already have the deck stacked against them because of their Class.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

For a state and an educational system that talks endlessly about equity, California has done a remarkably terrible job. The only equity I see is that these schools are failing everyone.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

So I've been substitute teaching a bit lately and it has been an eye opener! The number of kids who are functionally illiterate and can't write a simple paragraph by middle school is *shocking.* When did we, as a society, decide this was ok?

View full thread
Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

In a different class a 6th grader told me point blank she would not do the assignment because she sees no point in education. She's 11. She didn't come up with that on her own. This kid has been failed by her family and by our whole community.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

I sub at multiple schools and see stuff like this regularly. As a society, we've known how to teach reading and writing for literally centuries at this point. Somewhere along the way, educators decided to accept mediocrity and failure.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

So I've been substitute teaching a bit lately and it has been an eye opener! The number of kids who are functionally illiterate and can't write a simple paragraph by middle school is *shocking.* When did we, as a society, decide this was ok?

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

One interaction today particularly jumped out at me. A student was struggling and I was helping them work through the assignment and the class aide - whose whole job is helping kids with special needs - says to me "I wouldn't bother with him, he's autistic." What the actual FUCK?

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

My response - that I am too - caught him off guard and he quickly excused himself. Insert rant here about how the average autistic person is more intelligent than the average non-autistic person. We are 3x more likely to be above average & 6x more likely to be geniuses. Also, fuck bigots.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Double it and make it annual.

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social

California’s billionaires have a combined net worth of $2.4 trillion. Under Prop 40, their net worth would fall to…just under $2.3 trillion. What amounts to a rounding error for them would allow millions of their fellow Californians to afford healthcare. Vote yes on Prop 40.

theguardian.comThe ultra-rich are spending one million dollars a day fighting California’s proposed billionaire taxTech billionaires have raised more than $340m to defeat Prop 40, a one-time 5% wealth tax that will fund healthcare and
Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

My kids have been watching Avatar: The Legend of Korra and got to season three where the red lotus assassinate the earth queen. As it happened, they shouted to me "Dad! They're killing the queen, this is awesome!" It feels good to know I've instilled good values in them.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

In 2014 they told Scotland that staying in the UK meant staying in the EU. Instead, it meant staying part of a country that criminalizes free speech and prosecutes people for speaking out against genocide. Don't be fooled again.

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social

@andyburnham.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

theguardian.comSally Rooney says she can no longer sell books in UK due to Palestine Action supportIrish writer of Normal People says she can no longer receive royalties from British sales and she cancelled UK trip due to fear of arrest
Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Do the people championing rhis in Publishing really not understand they are in fact championing their own replacement?

Adam Morgan@adamm0rgan.bsky.social

For @wired.com, I spoke with workers about the quiet push to experiment with AI tools from book publishing executives at the Big Five. www.wired.com/story/book-p...

wired.comBook Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are RevoltingWorkers at three major publishing houses tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech.
Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

I guess I was ahead of the curve when I started hating Rowling in 2014 as she gave tons of money to the British Nationalist campaign against Scottish independence. It's ironic that an author who gained notoriety in the US when right wingers burned her books turned out to be a right winger herself.

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Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

In today's #WIPSnip, Ricarin & company have just delivered a group of settlers to the border town of Locnai, when the leader of the town council - an old friend - asks them to stay and help defend it. Doing so risks all their lives - and is outside the contracts they've signed.

✨#WIPSnips✨ A Daily Writing Share Tag@wipsnips.bsky.social

Here are the #WIPSnips words for September 28th through October 4th! Synonyms, variations & ✨vibes✨ are fine, please include Alt Text on graphics with the snip text, Trigger/Content warnings if necessary, & no unsolicited editing on posts. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Just backed out of a crit swap because the other person's book was *painfully obviously* ChatGPT. I refuse to waste my time helping someone improve and humanize AI slop. If it wasn't worth their time to write, it's not work my time to critique. Frankly, it's insulting that they would even ask. /rant

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

I've now just about finished A Thoughtful Kind of Monster and am preparing to start querying, but fighting the urge to procrastinate by working on the second book instead. I love everything about writing. I detest self promotion. This is a problem.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

A public service announcement from every resident of #rural #NorthernCalifornia who is sick of tourists adding hours to the time it takes us to get anywhere: Use the turnouts & let people pass. It's not hard.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Just had my sixth beta reader finish the book. The revisions are getting smaller and smaller with the feedback from each pass. At this point several readers have told me that the ending moved them to tears and demanded that I get working on the second book. That's a good sign, right? #writer

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

My least favorite reader is the one who comes to an original work and then gets upset when the work does not fit their preconceptions based on common tropes. I'm sorry Karin / Kevin, I'm not trying to write the same book we've all read 50 times. I'm doing something different. #fantasy #writer

Mathan Campbell reposted

This Bear Eats Fascists
@ursuscalifornica.bsky.social

It occurs to me that one of the most dangerous parts of any political or economic system based on inequality is that the people at the top inevitably end up surrounded by people who depend on them for their livelihoods. And those people can't say "no" without risking those livelihoods.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

One of the things that's interesting to me about my book is that readers seem to have a mental gap between medieval and modern in the fantasy genre. I describe a world where people get around on horseback or by foot and they immediately think "medieval" and act surprised that my characters read.

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Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

There used to be hundreds of small newspapers run by unions and movements, public debates were common entertainment, people talked about ideas and books changed the world. Revolutions happened as a result. And, as soon as they could, elites gutted all that and replaced with consolidated mass media.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

You can see the impacts easily by comparing older books - even cheap novels - to new ones. The language and sentence structures in modern writing have gotten much more simplistic and that trend is accelerating. We're less literate as a society now, not more. So yes, my characters read.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

One of the things that's interesting to me about my book is that readers seem to have a mental gap between medieval and modern in the fantasy genre. I describe a world where people get around on horseback or by foot and they immediately think "medieval" and act surprised that my characters read.

View full thread
Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Example: In Bill Haywood's autobiography (a silver miner and then an organizer for the Western Federation of Miners) he describes how the men would pass books and periodicals around for something to do and have long discussions about history, politics, philosophy, and current events after work.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

None of them had gotten more than a third grade education, but reading and talking about what they read was a major form of entertainment. People radically under-estimate how literate & sophisticated people were in that window after the introduction of free primary education but before mass media.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

One of the things that's interesting to me about my book is that readers seem to have a mental gap between medieval and modern in the fantasy genre. I describe a world where people get around on horseback or by foot and they immediately think "medieval" and act surprised that my characters read.

Mathan Campbell
@mathancampbell.bsky.social

Do they not understand that up until the steam engine the *entire world* got around that way? And even up to the bicycle and the Model T most people got around by foot or on animals. As late as the 1950's my mom rode a horse to get around the rural community where she grew up!