Pluralistic: 12 Sep 2022 Spotify is a ripoff, a Spotify exclusive


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Pluralistic: 07 Sep 2022 We published an Audible Exclusive about the monopolistic abuses of Audible


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Parenting and Phones, an Empowering Approach

Wisdom from ā€œBehind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (and Adults Are Missing)ā€ by Emily Weinstein and CarrieĀ James

DImage; Jiyoung kim/CC BY-SA 4.0 (modified); Cryteria/CC BY 3.0 (modified)

I am the father of a 14 year old, and it is wild. We have our good days and our bad ones, and the lockdown was hard for all of us, but I learn new stuff from my kid every single day.

Iā€™ve been writing about the intersection of parenting and my kidā€™s digital life since she was two years old, and from the start, Iā€™ve been clear on one thing: itā€™s impossible to completely control how my kid uses digital tech, and so the best I can hope for is to teach her to be as safe as possible, and to cultivate a trusting relationship with her so that when (not if) she gets in over her head, sheā€™ll come to me so I can help her figure it out.

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Pluralistic: 17 Aug 2022: Chokepoint Capitalism Kickstarter is live


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Pluralistic: 27 Jul 2022


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Pluralistic: 26 Jul 2022


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Pluralistic: Why none of my books are available on Audible; Sarah Gailey's "Just Like Home" (25 Jul 2022)


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Dare to Know

What if knowing the exact date of your death was a luxuryĀ good?

James Kennedyā€™s debut novel Order of the Odd-Fish ran like a very successful of dares between the author and himselfā€Šā€”ā€ŠKennedy just kept ratcheting up the weirdness in the book, piling up the comic and surreal, to the point where the book should, by all rights, have collapsed beneath its own silliness. But it didnā€™t!

Instead, Kennedy produced a tale of magic. As I wrote in my review, ā€œThis is what Harry Potter would be if its magic world was truly wondrous and magnificent, as opposed to plain reality with broomsticks and funny robes.ā€

Hereā€™s how I ended that review: ā€œAn epic novel of exotic pie, GƶtterdƤmmerung, mutants, evil, crime, and musical theater, Odd-Fish is a truly odd fish, as mannered and crazy as an eel in a tuxedo dropped down your trousers during a performance of The Ring Cycle.ā€

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Pluralistic: 14 Jun 2022


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Direct: The Problem of Middlemen

Kathryn Judgeā€™s debut book is a hymn to short supply chains.

Back in 2007, I published my second short story collection, Overclocked. I was elated; not just because Iā€™d published another book (the thrill of a new book has yet to pale even today, after dozens of books), but because it was a short-story collection, the kind of book Iā€™d devoured as a kid, the mainstay of writers Iā€™d worshiped, from Harlan Ellison to Spider Robinson to Kate Wilhelm. The publisher was Avalon, which had recently acquired Four Walls Eight Windows, the small press that had published my first short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More. Selling a book to Four Walls had been its own thrill, as they were publisher to Abbie Hoffman, another writer Iā€™d grown up on.

But then, something weird happened.

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