Owen Booth
@owenbooth.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.1K following 1.2K posts
Moderately attractive sometime writer. You should go do something useful instead of posting here.
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Since we’re all politely reintroducing ourselves: I’m the idiot who accidentally wrote these two books and some other stuff
(As long as you don’t expect to be paid)
Make art or shut up.

(Both are viable options)
(And obvs no writers are going to be actually able to *earn a living*…)
The stuff about “track” rings horribly true! New writers should probably avoid going anywhere near mainstream publishers for *at least* their first couple of books - except that indies are really struggling at the moment & can’t afford to take the risks they used to either.
Reposted by Owen Booth
Writers! Here is an incredibly bleak read about the state of publishing. Pretty soon it seems all books will be written by AI or posh people who don't really need the money

thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...
The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem | The Walrus
Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it
thewalrus.ca
Reposted by Owen Booth
It’s the most important one!
Reposted by Owen Booth
Would Hooklanders in London exile like to hear me talk in an East End pub about the origins of the county and its folklore next year?
There are very specific rules for what makes a good short story owen-booth.com/2017/10/24/2...
Reposted by Owen Booth
Writing "what you know" is memoir, not fiction
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
Reposted by Owen Booth
And there I was thinking Thomas Pynchon was an aburdist novelist. Turns out he was documentarian all along.
Time to tune in to some analysis from Antifa expert…Chef Andrew…Gruel?…founder of…American Gravy Concepts?
Standup comedians, podcasters, tv presenters and broadsheet journalists do not make very good novelists. But then neither does anyone else.
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
Reposted by Owen Booth
There are more than enough books already
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
If you don’t appreciate how hot I am now, you don’t get to appreciate how hot I was then
"Post you from a different era" is middle-aged Bluesky code for "lemme see you when you were hot"
Good old Mac’s Smoke Shop 🚬
The lovely neon sign on the front of Mac’s Smoke Shop in Palo Alto at dusk
They are, they are. I’d have to choose The Long Goodbye as my fave (not least because it’s the longest)
Prose is still great. Feels a bit slower than I remembered but I think that’s just because books have sped up in the intervening period.
Books! They’re great, aren’t they? Except for the terrible ones!
For no particular reason and in no particular order, here’s some things I’ve recently been reading/re-reading