Sean Bugg

Sean Bugg

@seanbugg.bsky.social

Writer at The Back Half (backhalfbugg.com). Realtor. Love reading, playing video games, watching cool stuff, baking cakes, and collecting typewriters. Former editor of Metro Weekly, author of Boy Does World. White, gay GenXer, but not evil. Mostly.

226 followers381 following686 posts

I almost gave up on The Blood of Dawnwalker because of its parry system (I suck at parrying). Then something clicked. A Gen X gamer's review of the new vampire RPG from the Witcher III creators — and a small victory for aging reflexes. #BloodOfDawnwalker #Witcher #gaming #RPG #vampires

open.substack.comReview: The Blood of DawnwalkerIf at first I don’t succeed, die, die again: A Gen X gamer attempts to hone his fading reflexes in a new vampire adventure RPG

Books & Bakes 2026 is a wrap. Twenty books, 6,867 pages, and $2,180 raised for Cake4Kids, way more than my first-year goal. Plus, I accidentally fell into a four-book rabbit hole of Dungeon Crawler Carl and I think you should join me there. #DungeonCrawlerCarl #BookSky 💙📚

backhalfbugg.comReading, Writing, and Dungeon CrawlingBooks & Bakes: Crossing the finish line for my first annual read-a-thon benefiting Cake4Kids with the sci-fi satire Dungeon Crawler Carl

I suspect reading Reinhold Niebuhr won't set my search stats on fire but I'm glad I did — even if his willful blindness to America's race history is infuriating. Led me straight to James Baldwin though, so win-win. Plus a halftime Books & Bakes report. #JamesBaldwin #AmericanHistory #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.comThe American Myth of InnocenceBooks & Bakes: A halftime progress report and a frustrating experience with the invisibility of race in “The Irony of American History”

Just absolute racist fucking bullshit. I’d like to say I can’t believe we’ve gotten to this pathetic point but, yeah, we’ve been on this trajectory for a while now.

CNN@cnn.com

Twenty-five years after the mayor of New York City became the champion of America's grief and resilience at the time of the 9/11 attacks, families of those killed are split on whether the current mayor should attend the annual remembrance. https://cnn.it/4zkKYdc

Mike Flanagan's Carrie is already getting grief from some fans because the actress isn't "fat" or "ugly." I reread Stephen King's first novel for Books & Bakes. The actual text is more complicated than the criticism suggests. #StephenKing #horrorfiction #Carrie #BookSky 💙📚

backhalfbugg.comCarrie, Stephen King, and the Politics of FatnessBooks & Bakes: The upcoming remake of King’s iconic first novel is raising new questions for fans about fidelity and adaptation

A partial list of nasty things that happened during my youth in rural Kentucky: My elementary school friend's father was murdered, shot to death in the cab of his truck. There were 30 kids in my class.

Sean Bugg@seanbugg.bsky.social

I left rural Kentucky as a closeted 17-year-old. I can still tell you a lot about what rural America is actually like and it ain't all pretty fields. Especially when it comes to crime, those folks really need to paying attention to their own backyards, not blue cities that scare them.

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I only lived there until I was 17. In the rest of my life living in D.C. and Virginia, I have not experienced anything like that tally of crime and mishap involving friends and family. I did get mugged at gunpoint in 1993 but once that decade was over, smooth sailing.

A partial list of nasty things that happened during my youth in rural Kentucky: My elementary school friend's father was murdered, shot to death in the cab of his truck. There were 30 kids in my class.

Sean Bugg@seanbugg.bsky.social

I left rural Kentucky as a closeted 17-year-old. I can still tell you a lot about what rural America is actually like and it ain't all pretty fields. Especially when it comes to crime, those folks really need to paying attention to their own backyards, not blue cities that scare them.

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I knew two different people during high school who got their noses partially bitten off in fights. There were about 130 people in my county-wide class.

There was the time Granny almost shot my uncle because she mistook him for a prowler in broad daylight. And the guy who shot his rifle on the high school parking lot. And so on, guns were fucking *everywhere*, even back then.

A partial list of nasty things that happened during my youth in rural Kentucky: My elementary school friend's father was murdered, shot to death in the cab of his truck. There were 30 kids in my class.

Sean Bugg@seanbugg.bsky.social

I left rural Kentucky as a closeted 17-year-old. I can still tell you a lot about what rural America is actually like and it ain't all pretty fields. Especially when it comes to crime, those folks really need to paying attention to their own backyards, not blue cities that scare them.

View full thread

A partial list of nasty things that happened during my youth in rural Kentucky: My elementary school friend's father was murdered, shot to death in the cab of his truck. There were 30 kids in my class.

Sean Bugg@seanbugg.bsky.social

I left rural Kentucky as a closeted 17-year-old. I can still tell you a lot about what rural America is actually like and it ain't all pretty fields. Especially when it comes to crime, those folks really need to paying attention to their own backyards, not blue cities that scare them.

Sean Bugg reposted

Viet Thanh Nguyen's memoir A Man of Two Faces blew me away. I married into a Vietnamese refugee family, so I see the people I love in it. But there's a difference between empathy and experience -- I write about that tension at The Back Half. @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.comA Man of Two Faces: Viet Thanh Nguyen's Beautiful (and Searing) MemoirBooks & Bakes Update - The tension between empathy and experience in the story of a Vietnamese refugee family

Viet Thanh Nguyen's memoir A Man of Two Faces blew me away. I married into a Vietnamese refugee family, so I see the people I love in it. But there's a difference between empathy and experience -- I write about that tension at The Back Half. @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.comA Man of Two Faces: Viet Thanh Nguyen's Beautiful (and Searing) MemoirBooks & Bakes Update - The tension between empathy and experience in the story of a Vietnamese refugee family

Week One of Books & Bakes: Richard Stark's The Hunter. Razor-sharp sentences, an amoral anti-hero, and one of the most heterosexual things I've ever read. Also: we've already blown past my Cake4Kids fundraising goal! #crimefiction #noir #hardboiled #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.comBooks & Bakes: “The Hunter” Is a Razor Sharp Tale of RevengeWeek 1 - It’s hard to write spare, simple prose that thrills but Donald Westlake mastered the craft; plus, what's on deck for Week 2

Sean Bugg reposted

Guaranteed: 1) Black girls will be harassed and demanded to be tested over and over again regardless of how competitive they are. 2) Winners from public schools will be relentlessly hounded by the parents and coaches of losers at private schools, with the goal of making them quit the sport.

Nancy Armour@nrarmour.bsky.social

The ban is heinous for what it does to transgender athletes. But if you think cisgender girls and young women won’t be caught up in the fallout, too, you are woefully ignorant

Sean Bugg reposted

I've lived in Virginia for most of my life. But if you ask me where I'm from, I'm going to say Kentucky. You don't often find Western Kentucky in literature, so I'm eager to dive into Blood River Witch by T.J. Martinson, set in the rural world I came from. #booksandbakes #Kentucky #BookSky 💙📚

open.substack.comBooks & Bakes Preview: My Old (Western) Kentucky HomeA Books & Bakes preview of T.J. Martinson's Blood River Witch — a murder mystery set in the rural Western Kentucky that shaped me as a kid, plus why I don't see enough of that region in literature.

Books & Bakes supporters will receive a free six-month paid-level subscription to The Back Half, where I'll post weekly reviews and updates of what I'm reading, preview upcoming books, and chat with you about what we're reading together!

backhalfbugg.comThe Back Half | Sean Bugg | SubstackPolitics, books, culture, and LGBTQ issues from Sean Bugg, award-winning journalist and author of Boy Does World, navigating the back half of life. Click to read The Back Half, by Sean Bugg, a Substac...

I’ve been cheering for a heart attack or clot to take out Trump, but I’m rooting for Bessent to trip and fall into a fucking wood chipper.

Michael Derby@michaelsderby.bsky.social

Guardian: Trump Treasury chief Bessent called Ukrainian leader fighting existential war against Russians "a 'little f**ker', a 'special-needs child' and 'Mr Bean on crack.'"

I haven’t seen this but if I do there’s a good chance my Gen X queer ass will come through the screen and box some whippersnapper’s ears.

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Heard today... Older White Man: "Do you speak Chinese?" Asian Woman: [pointed pause] "I am not Chinese." Do better, white people, I don't care how old you are.

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“It Happened Today,” R.E.M “Walking on Sunshine,” Katrina and the Waves “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus “Hey Ya!,” Outkast “Everything’s Coming up Roses,” Bette Midler version

“Dancing in the Street,” Van Halen “I Love It,” Icona Pop w/Charli XCX “Fantastic Baby,” BIG BANG “Celebration,” Kool & the Gang “Bound for Hell,” Love and Rockets