Ryan T. Pozzi

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I think I've mentioned that I'm alternating between my actual TBR and rereading all of the books referred to in my debut. This was a reread.

I know we all love Wilde in total, but I liked this Wilde even less the second time. Too many pages of plodding character development before real conflict.

Perhaps that's mitigated by rotating panels of nine. It seems to me, from a novice perspective, that panel members would have to rotate as well as the panels themselves.

What I want are the objectively best minds to find the solution most (since none can be entirely) immune from partisan influence.

I'd like term limits, but anything that requires a Constitutional amendment (as that would) is probably off the table.

The issue with increased size being the solution is that all of the research to-date tells us that as any working group grows larger than 9, its decision-making efficacy declines.

SCOTUS reform now.
(Or, more probably, after this war and before the next one.)

That said, I AM in favor of transparency. We work in a business that uses information control to discourage labor organization and suppress wages.

I failed already: High sales transparency posts prove it’s possible for some people under certain conditions. They don't prove it’s broadly replicable or statistically likely. Hope matters, take some if you're running low, but hope is not a strategy.

Ope! I almost explained suvivorship bias to the 'transparency posts prove it's possible for all of us' crowd. Time to get off social media until my mood improves so I don't start needless any fights.

Let the sunny optimists do their thing, lad. It's not hurting you.

Am I to understand that it's cinematic, then? 🙂

Good choice. Their open and unapologetic decision to continue to monetize white supremacists was the last straw for me. Glad we're both outta there however it came to pass.

Saddest post of the year.

Flash, the speed reader

Me reading as fast as I can before the Tournament of Books starts in 4 days. #booksky

I'm "from" Houston, but have spent most of my life now in Nebraska and Iowa. I'm 46.

Rereading Dorian Gray. I forgot he was such an a-hole. #ClassicLiterature #GoWilde

Poster for the film "The Fool" (1925)

Me in 2024: Working for nonprofits offered no consistency and no stability. I think I'll write books instead.

Me in 2026: 🤦‍♂️

Robert Haas in 2015

On This Day in History: March 1, 1941
Former US Poet Laureate, National Book Award and Pulitzer winner + one of my favorites, Robert Haas, was born. I met him at an event in D.C. in 2012 and he autographed a tour poster for me that bore a quote from The Privilege of Being.

Working on the manuscript for the next book this afternoon. It's missing some of the magic that made my debut really feel alive.

I wonder if that's part of the usual sophomore slump, a difference in connection to the material, or just my imagination getting the better of me. #writingcommunity

J. B. Lippincott edition of A Study in Scarlet (March 1890‎)

On This Day in History: March 1, 1890
The first U.S. edition of A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle is published, introducing American readers to Sherlock Holmes. The world's first consulting detective crosses the pond and crime fiction in America levels up. #booksky

Is this your FOURTH shortlist? Now you're just showing off. 🙂

It was well worth straying outside my own usual suspects.

Cover of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

My first Stephen Graham Jones. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. These aren't "my" genres, but it was so lauded last year and it's a Tournament of Books selection so 🤷‍♂️.

Engaging and emotionally complex while achieving some v. fun twists. Possibly my best read of '25 or '26 so far.

Each week, I send a free forever newsletter called Life on the Midlist. It's a field guide to the literary middle class.

If, like me, you find yourself somewhere between "I just write for fun" and "award-winning, bestselling, or chosen," then this is your weekly dispatch. www.ryantpozzi.com/midlist

Weekly. I'm not picky about format. I sort of drink in storytelling of all forms, particularly if I'm between manuscripts or in the early stages of a new project. That means TV, movies, live theater, poetry readings, performance art, pretty much whatever I can find that might expand my thinking.

Theatrical release poster for the 1945 film A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

On This Day in History: February 28, 1945
The film adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith premieres, directed by Elia Kazan in his feature debut and starring Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner.

d'Indy, Vincent, circa 1908, Félix Potin company

On This Day in History: February 28, 1904
Vincent d'Indy’s Symphony No. 2 in B major premieres. A reminder that the late Romantic era was still very much alive in France, even as modernism was already circling on the horizon. The real climax of the symphony, of course, was that aggressive mustache.

Cover of the 1896 first trade edition of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

On This Day in History: February 28, 1893
Stephen Crane publishes his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, under the pseudonym “Johnston Smith.” It’s bleak, unsentimental, and far ahead of its time. America wasn’t quite ready. #booksky

All the ironic past tweets and headlines are fun, but lying has always been the strategy. The same ≈ one-third of Americans who believed those lies will still believe them even amidst a war with Iran.

For the 1 in 3 who can accept mass murder and child rape to get their way, another war is nothing.

On This Day in History: February 27, 1919
The first public performance of The Planets by Gustav Holst, at Queen’s Hall in London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. One of my favorites. I’m giving it a listen today to mark the occasion. #Holst #Planets

A nationwide ban on LGBTQ+ books in public schools, FFS?!

H.R. 7661 is bigotry and draconian censorship masquerading as protection. Not an idea original to me, but the folks banning books are never the "good guys."