Ryan T. Pozzi

My agency is shopping my translation rights at the London Book Fair this week. That's cool, man.

Not supposed to talk about it since a poor result (always possible) could reflect poorly on the book. Still, my pal @justinhayneswriter.com says you've gotta find joy where you can in this business. 😁

We're very privileged, compared to many, but some days it feels like too much to face all at once.

I've been staring blankly a lot today. I feel wrung out. All I can think to do is to try to start again tomorrow.

I'm happily married and my (possibly doomed because it's a) midlist author career is still intact. I'm grateful.

In the meantime, how's everything else going?
❌ Med bills
❌ Foundation issues
❌ Job stress
❌ Our health
❌ City services
❌ State civil rights protections
❌ National everything, basically

I don't do pity marketing, so this isn't that, but I do believe in transparency. (Why I thought it was a good idea to bring a belief like that to publishing, we'll never know.)

The burdens are heavy today. Our home, our town, our state, the country - it seems that everything is wrong at once. 🧵

Fine, internet. You win.

I'll call blurbs endorsements from now on so you won't confuse them with blurbs.

Frankly, I don't think we should call any of them blurbs. I might just strike the word from my vocab entirely. Jacket copy and endorsements. See? Now it's gone. 🙂

Having AmBetter health insurance in 2025 is one of the top three financial mistakes we've made in our lives to-date.

'Bearded Old Man in a Coarse Robe', by Jan Lievens. This painting was part of the collections of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden and and it has been missing since the end of World War II, in 1945.

Me staring at my inbox, waiting for endorsement responses. (Why am I like this? This is querying misery all over again.) #writingcommunity #skywriters

Do you mean blurb = jacket copy? That's a valid definition. I just happen to mean the other one, blurb = endorsement of the book usually found on the back cover.

I assumed, based on some earlier conversations, that we were already going to do some sort of swapping. Plenty of time to work it out. This boook probably won't go out for beta for months yet.

Guys: I'm not trying to make enemies here, but I don't pay for beta readers.

I appreciate the many offers I've gotten since I mentioned that my second manuscript was well underway, but I mostly trade beta reading with colleagues and then throw in my retired college professor aunt. #writingcommunity

Maybe I'm doing this blurb request thing wrong.

I bet I could get that guy who declared independence and founded the Republic of Slowjamastan on 11 private aces in California.

Historians? Working artists? Respected colleagues? Nah, man. I got the Sultan of Slowjamastan. That should do it.

The thing about conservatism in the US (since at least 1981 - DJT and evil cronies aside) is even if they were 100% right on every policy position, I still couldn't join up.

It's all hatred and fear + public-facing behavior to express the hatred and hide the fear.

Why live like that on purpose? 🤷‍♂️

Cover of Fire Next Time Audiobook by James Baldwin, read by Jesse Martin

Gave this a listen today as part of my rereading project while doing "author admin" this afternoon.

Baldwin's writing about race, religion, and the American myth still feels brutally clear. It’s less like reading an essay and more like being addressed directly. #booksky

I'm pretty sure they're still operating on that 2015 "hypermasculine" Trump logic where any captured soldier deserves what they get.

Cover of The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

Can't remember how this one ended up in my TBR. Excellently constucted narrative nonfiction and now the coolest thing I know about the Cold War.

I still think, based on title alone, it could have been a pretty superb absurdist comedy. Think original Naked Gun, but for bookish spies.

Blurb hunting again today.

I got the advice (from a trusted source) that my original list may not have been long enough given my, uh, nonexistent public profile outside of my own state.

So I've gone back to the well to add eighteen new names for a revised total of 40 requests. (2-3-7 so far)

His projection is so transparent.

First six chapters of the new manuscript (my second book, tenatively called False Idols) are now ready for beta readers! For now, I seem to have broken out of my malaise with this body of research. Huzzah!

It's time to play EVERYBODY'S favorite game:
Is the cabinet secretary on my television lying or stupid?

Reread De Profundis. My last Wilde for now. This is the man at his most naked: pride, humiliation, self-justification, and flashes of real insight all tangled together. Also, we all know his own lines, but damn, he can rattle off quotes from basically every great thinker who preceded him. #booksky

So far, thirty-three J6 defendants have faced unrelated criminal charges since being pardoned, with six of them involving the sexual molestation of children.

Ah yes, the "great" industry consolidation.

So am I, I'm just don't happen to be in this picture. 🙂

Excellent tip!

We're all listening to the @chelseagods.bsky.social song right now to celebrate, right?

This could be the difference. Sent me a postcard from the top of the publishing mountain!

You know, I DID win third place in a local essay contest when I was 11 or 12. That probably counts so I can start calling myself Award-winning author Ryan T. Pozzi, right?

RIGHT?! #booksky #skywriters

Whoa. What happened at Grand Central and Workman? Seventeen and fourteen promotions respectively in a single issue of @publisherslunch.bsky.social?

Either y'all have been storing these up to announce or there's some serious restructuring going on in a few corners of the Hachette ecosystem.

You guys! I got my first scam book club direct email. I feel so special now!

‘J’ is the most recent letter added to the alphabet.