Matthew Ferrence

I do enjoy when an office messes up your appointment time, and then acts like you're the biggest a#@+-$ in the world when you show up at the time they told you to show up.

Blue pen sketch of a thick tree. It twists around itself and has short, leafless branches that poke out like sharp fingers.

Today's sketch: this fabulous tree. Drawing trees and rocks are two of my most cathartic, satisfying topics. #oseiarts

Round pizza-like ganoderma fungi

Looks like pizza on the lawn, but is a cool fungi #ganoderma #mushroom

me standing next to a big paper mache mushroom about as large as me

made a giant mushroom

Just, y'know, thinking about how physical media like paper books are stable artifacts that can't be deleted or changed mysteriously overnight. And can be shared easily in non data-tracked ways. And are also fun and enjoyable to simply hold.

We oughta resist the shallow desires inherent in AI's withered vision of human (anti)flourishment and focus, instead, on the things of vibrancy. Curiosity. Creativity. Nerdiness. Compassion.

Becoming educated, and continually seeking one’s own deepening of the mind, is (imho) most valuable as a practice of liberation. The Profit First folks have lampreyed themselves onto everything though: edu-tech, assessment, outcomes metrics, job readyness, “innovation.”

to places that have been hollowed out again and again by other waves of economic development) is to make themselves richer while making the rest of us drones of limited capacity.

So:

The core goal beneath those who proselytize AI (the Uber-wealthy making a mint on the grift of it, while sucking up electricity, and wasting water, and wrecking rural landscapes with data centers sold as economic development...

Pre-semester thoughts on AI, freedom, and the human self ,as the tech is being deployed to wipe out the most human of activities (creativity, deep thinking) in the service of mechanistic profit-mongering.

TL;DR f* AI

Late summer sound in Northern Appalachia.

A few years ago I - a rural person - threw caution to the wind and took the DC metro alone, late at night. It was wild. I walked to the station. Got on the train. Road it to where I wanted to go. Then I got off and walked to my hotel. Wild, I tell you.

I Hate It Here, Please Vote For Me received a wonderful review in the Appalachian Journal!!

Ferrence’s experience and commentary on the current polarizing political landscape feels particularly relevant, and Josh Howard agrees. Read the rest in the Summer 2025 issue.

#politics #politicalbook #gop

Tag away! I love it! (Oof, my writerly narcissism emerges like...like...a cicada...)

🗃️ Submission to “Student AI use is inevitable so let’s lean into it” BY HISTORIANS is confounding. Thought we all knew about contingency: nothing is inevitable, the past, present, or future. AI is not a foregone conclusion. As present day historical actors, we can make choices, incl not using AI.

Indeed!

B&W photo of tree lichen

Backyard beauty #lichen

Footnote: AI will make email as useful as landline phones, ringing constantly with offers to become rich by scam after scam after scam

AI is awesome and I see no downsides. (See footnote)

And, oh, now it’s just a fellow author randomly emailing with a “no obligations” thank you for writing such an important book.

And, oh, we see you read the last email, why didn’t you respond.

And now, creepy emails dropping book specifics with that uncanny AI twang, “just to thank me” for writing my last one. And, oh, if I’m interested they could send me a marketing plan to boost my online presence.

Canvas just became one of the most powerful surveillance, IP theft, & data monetization tools in the world.

OpenAI bought a user-base locked in to long-term contracts.

But they can’t make us use their trashware.

Boycott. Luddify. Open source.

Don’t let them have your work or your students.

Pitching a think piece: I mean, yeah, it looks bad, but you gotta remember Obama wore a tan suit once

Zoë Gadegbeku presented at the African Book Festival in Berlin this past weekend!

She sat on various panels and read from Blue Futures, Break Open, which was released In March!

A few clips from her presentations can be viewed on our Instagram.

Congratulations Zoë!! 🌊🌊

Crime Ink: Iconic—our new queer crime fiction anthology—is packed with stories inspired by legends like Baldwin, Wilde & Rapinoe. Blurbs from S.A. Cosby, Megan Abbott, & Lisa Gardner. Want an ARC? Msg me! Preorder: johncope.squarespace.com/order-crime-... #CrimeInk #QueerCrimeFiction

I live where the Rust Belt meets Appalachia and fear yet ... In north-west Pennsylvania, the Maga agenda puts lives and livelihoods at risk

On jetting sewers and the BBB's promises to rural America: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Flag of Canada and a bottle of NB Moosehead beer.

Thanks!

Considering the books we publish are actively being stolen to train LLMs, I think we technically count as helping AI and should still get our $25k lol