# little book (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 5 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover little book. Page: Feed: --- ## [New Worlds: Do You Have a Flag?](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1139218.html) _2026-08-21 · Swan Tower_ The comedian Eddie Izzard has a bit in her show Dress to Kill where she characterizes colonialism as sticking a flag in the ground to claim a place, then ignoring the assertion of the locals that their home is their own because, well, they don't have a flag, do they? While obviously exaggerated for the purpose of comedy, the idea in play there isn't without basis in fact. Nowadays, flags are the… ## [Help a friend out?](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1139146.html) _2026-08-19 · Swan Tower_ As I said on Bluesky, I utterly hate that the American social safety net in the 21st century seems to consist of "start a GoFundMe" campaign. But that's where we're at, so. My friend Emily Dare is very much in need of help. To recap what I say over on the campaign: she has been largely out of work since January 2025, despite continual job-hunting; the contract that was supposed to give her… ## [Help a friend out?](https://www.swantower.com/2026/08/19/help-a-friend-out/) _2026-08-19 · swantower · Swan Tower_ As I said on Bluesky, I utterly hate that the American social safety net in the 21st century seems to consist of “start a GoFundMe” campaign. But that’s where we’re at, so. My friend Emily Dare is very much in need of help. To recap what I say over on the campaign: she has been \[…\] The post Help a friend out? appeared first on Swan Tower . ## [Big Feelings, Little Books](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/big-feelings-little-books-268) _2026-08-17 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ Augusts Theme: Wild Weather, Changing World: Understanding Weather & Climate ## [après le déluge](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1138438.html) _2026-08-14 · Swan Tower_ My apologies to everybody whose friendslist was suddenly inundated with posts from me! A couple of years ago, the plugin that cross-posts from my Wordpress site to here stopped working correctly: it wouldn't transfer blog posts unless I remembered to schedule them for at least fifteen minutes after I wrote them, but it would transfer absolutely everything else I put up on my site (so if you've… ## [Fit for purpose](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1138429.html) _2026-08-14 · Swan Tower_ There is a simple but deep pleasure in finding the right object for your needs. I've been thinking for a while that I really ought to get rid of a bunch of my jewelry, because I almost never wear it except when out in Performing Author Mode, and then it tends to be a limited set of possibilities. But a few weeks ago I suddenly lost all patience with the assortment of boxes I was storing my jewelry… ## [website addition: Statement on AI](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1138142.html) _2026-08-14 · Swan Tower_ Since it's good to have my feelings on the matter stated clearly in a more prominent place than scattered across various blog posts, I've added a statement on AI to my website. Next task: updating the copyright page in all my BVC ebooks to state that I do not grant permission for them to be used in training AI models, and any such use is prohibited. (originally posted at Swan Tower:… ## [Our Toxic Friend](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1137854.html) _2026-08-14 · Swan Tower_ We've all got a friend like this. They used to be great . Always there for you, super helpful whenever you needed a hand with something. They were the friendly gossipmonger, full of news about how friends were doing, and they even got you into some new hobbies and communities where you made a ton of new friends. And in turn, when they had a problem or two, you of course did what you could to help… ## [New Worlds: Heraldry](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1126568.html) _2026-08-14 · Swan Tower_ Heraldry is a peculiar mix of localized and universal. By "localized," I mean that it's very specifically a medieval-and-later European phenomenon. The idea of individuals or groups having emblems is vastly older and more widespread, but that isn't heraldry per se; it lacks the hereditary element that turns idiosyncratic choices into an organized system. In Europe, that system started forming… ## [New Worlds: Heraldry](https://www.swantower.com/2026/08/14/new-worlds-heraldry/) _2026-08-14 · swantower · Swan Tower_ Heraldry is a peculiar mix of localized and universal. By “localized,” I mean that it’s very specifically a medieval-and-later European phenomenon. The idea of individuals or groups having emblems is vastly older and more widespread, but that isn’t heraldry per se; it lacks the hereditary element that turns idiosyncratic choices into an organized system. In \[…\] The post New Worlds: Heraldry… ## [Watch Chovy Code Live (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/N54uOlTeNsYn) _2026-08-14 · **Sponsored**_ Join live coding streams with real-time collaborative screen sharing, open source and free. ## [(Part 2) Phonics without the Pressure: Helping a PDA Child Begin to Read](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/part-2-phonics-without-the-pressure) _2026-08-08 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ Evidence-Informed, Low-Demand Phonics Strategies for Helping Autistic and PDA Children Learn to Read at Home ## [another Little Book! . . . belated!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1126314.html) _2026-08-07 · Swan Tower_ \[I just noticed this failed to cross-post from my website, so here's what didn't come through.\] Having dusted off my Onyx Court -developed skills for the Sea Beyond , it made sense for the next Writer's Little Book to be about the process of research! That is out now in ebook format, available from a variety of retailers . (And while you're at it, you can also pre-order The Writer's Little Book of… ## [New Worlds: Uniformity](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1126020.html) _2026-08-07 · Swan Tower_ Uniforms aren't purely a military thing. Sports teams wear them; so do students at certain kinds of schools. Some jobs mandate uniforms for their employees, including servants in the past wearing the "livery" of their masters. But we associate this idea so much with soldiers (and with the not entirely unrelated police) that being "in uniform" can be shorthand for military service, "uniforms"… ## [New Worlds: Uniformity](https://www.swantower.com/2026/08/07/new-worlds-uniformity/) _2026-08-07 · swantower · Swan Tower_ Uniforms aren’t purely a military thing. Sports teams wear them; so do students at certain kinds of schools. Some jobs mandate uniforms for their employees, including servants in the past wearing the “livery” of their masters. But we associate this idea so much with soldiers (and with the not entirely unrelated police) that being “in \[…\] The post New Worlds: Uniformity appeared first on Swan Tower… ## [another Little Book!](https://www.swantower.com/2026/08/04/another-little-book/) _2026-08-04 · swantower · Swan Tower_ Having dusted off my Onyx Court-developed skills for the Sea Beyond, it made sense for the next Writer’s Little Book to be about the process of research! That is out now in ebook format, available from a variety of retailers. (And while you’re at it, you can also pre-order The Writer’s Little Book of Readings, \[…\] The post another Little Book! appeared first on Swan Tower . ## [Books read, July 2026](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1125776.html) _2026-08-04 · Swan Tower_ Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day , Amishi P. Jha. Discussed here and here . Sheine Lende , Darcie Little Badger, ill. Rovina Cai. Prequel to Elatsoe (which I really loved), ergo takes place in a world where magical stuff is openly known, though not always talked about -- Shane is cautioned to watch out who she lets know that she can raise the spirits of dead… ## [Bringing Stories Down To Earth](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/bringing-stories-down-to-earth) _2026-08-04 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ Ray Bradbury & Kurt Vonnegut, Senior Doggos, and a Little Free Library in The Mission ## [A Month of Mindfulness](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1125547.html) _2026-08-03 · Swan Tower_ A few weeks ago, I posted about Amishi P. Jha's Peak Mind , and the possibility that I would see greater returns from meditation if I sat for the length of time she recommends, as frequently as she recommends. I'm glad to say I succeeded in my experiment! In fact, though Jha says the minimum is five days a week, I managed all seven for four weeks straight. I also followed the techniques she… ## [A Month of Mindfulness](https://www.swantower.com/2026/08/03/a-month-of-mindfulness/) _2026-08-03 · swantower · Swan Tower_ A few weeks ago, I posted about Amishi P. Jha’s Peak Mind, and the possibility that I would see greater returns from meditation if I sat for the length of time she recommends, as frequently as she recommends. I’m glad to say I succeeded in my experiment! In fact, though Jha says the minimum is \[…\] The post A Month of Mindfulness appeared first on Swan Tower . ## [New Worlds Theory Post: Worldbuilding for Other Media](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1125228.html) _2026-07-31 · Swan Tower_ There's been an implicit assumption in most of my essays -- and often an explicit one in certain craft-0riented theory essays -- that I'm talking about worldbuilding in the context of prose fiction: short stories, novels, and the like. That isn't terribly surprising, given that when I started this Patreon, prose fiction was very nearly the only thing I'd written. But even then, I'd done a bit of… ## [Never miss a game (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/AI9CNg97D4Yh) _2026-07-31 · **Sponsored**_ Follow any team; get an hour and one-minute web and email reminders. ## [New Worlds: Time to Exercise](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1124614.html) _2026-07-24 · Swan Tower_ Given that my job mostly involves sitting at a desk, I have to devote particular effort to getting exercise if I want to be in good health. This is not a modern phenomenon, but it is something of an elite one. If your day involves heavy physical labor in the fields or a factory, if you're a laundress or a dyer hauling around sopping masses of fabric on the regular, if you're a warehouse worker or… ## [New Worlds: Physical Disability](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1124592.html) _2026-07-17 · Swan Tower_ This is honestly closer to a theory-type essay, as I've already talked about more concrete angles like prostheses and assistive devices (in Year Four ), and this time around I'm looking more at the dynamics of presenting physical disability in fiction. Activists for better representation of disability often object to worldbuilding that imagines magic or advanced technology has erased that issue… ## [two more Writer's Little Books!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1124205.html) _2026-07-16 · Swan Tower_ As I promised when The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes got republished, I am continuing on with the series! And as you can guess from the fact that the first two are focused on writing advice and the sociolinguistics of naming , the series will continue eclectic. Next up -- and fairly timely, given the release of The Eye of Leviathan -- is The Writer's Little Book of Research , now available… ## [two more Writer’s Little Books!](https://www.swantower.com/2026/07/16/two-more-writers-little-books/) _2026-07-16 · swantower · Swan Tower_ As I promised when The Writer’s Little Book of Platitudes got republished, I am continuing on with the series! And as you can guess from the fact that the first two are focused on writing advice and the sociolinguistics of naming, the series will continue eclectic. Next up — and fairly timely, given the release \[…\] The post two more Writer’s Little Books! appeared first on Swan Tower . ## [Fast Fiction and Avoiding AI](https://www.swantower.com/2026/07/15/fast-fiction-and-avoiding-ai/) _2026-07-15 · swantower · Swan Tower_ Recently Bona Books posted a discussion of how they unwittingly bought an AI-generated story for an anthology — more than one, actually, but one of them from the (now infamous) scammer Bella Chacha. There is understandably a lot of distress right now in publishing over how to catch these things and how to deal with \[…\] The post Fast Fiction and Avoiding AI appeared first on Swan Tower . ## [Happy book day to The Eye of Leviathan!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1124063.html) _2026-07-14 · Swan Tower_ My latest M.A. Carrick collaboration with Alyc Helms is out today! Retailer links for all formats are on our site . . . In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, where the map becomes the territory and mapmakers are the architects of reality, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the world’s most precious resources for their own gain. Determined to discover how… ## [Amishi P. Jha's Peak Mind](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1123596.html) _2026-07-12 · Swan Tower_ This is a piece of July reading, but I'm pulling it out from the usual booklog (which will come in August) both because I have more than usual to say about it, and because in this case, there's good reason to mention it before next month. What this book is: a very cogent discussion by a neuroscientist specializing in the study of attention -- and, as knock-on effects from that, memory, emotional… ## [New Worlds: Climate Change](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1122973.html) _2026-07-10 · Swan Tower_ Climate change is on everyone's mind's lately, to the point where "climate fiction" is now a recognized subgenre -- both within speculative fiction and without. Given my focus in this Patreon, however, I'm not going to attempt to spin scenarios about what our world might realistically look like in fifty or a hundred years, or how we're going to respond to it; other people have already done that in… ## [Books read, June 2026](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1122048.html) _2026-07-09 · Swan Tower_ The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains , Reena McCarty. Something about the marketing of this one -- the cover art, the cover copy, and so forth -- made me think it's a cozy novel. It absolutely is not . Which isn't to say it's grimdark, because it isn't that, either; just that the stakes here are higher than cozy reaches for, and the trials the characters go through have sharper edges. Which for… ## [Helping Your PDA Child Fall in Love with Reading](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/helping-your-pda-child-fall-in-love) _2026-07-09 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ A practical, evidence-informed guide to supporting early reading at home ## [Trade Bitcoin and Ethereum Today (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/vO5xalbcA8kP) _2026-07-09 · **Sponsored**_ Buy, sell, and margin trade BTC and ETH with EUR, USD, CAD, GBP, or JPY. ## [The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes returns!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1121959.html) _2026-07-07 · Swan Tower_ Following on last month's re-release of The Writer's Little Book of Naming , The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes is back out in the world! “Show, don’t tell.” “Murder your darlings.” “Write every day.” Certain pieces of advice are widespread in the writing community — but what do they really mean? And are they nuggets of universal wisdom, or do they only apply to some writers in some… ## [New Worlds: How's the Weather?](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1121544.html) _2026-07-03 · Swan Tower_ Weather tends to show up in novels merely as a background detail -- all too often as an example of the pathetic fallacy, where e.g. it's raining because the protagonist is sad. Every so often, it rises to the level of plot device: there's a snowstorm so characters can get snowed in somewhere. Speculative fiction honestly has a dearth of weather worked into the general description of a scene,… ## [FIFA, UFOs, and LFLs in Kansas City](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/fifa-ufos-and-lfls-in-kansas-city) _2026-07-02 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ ETs, Soccer and Free Books! ## [I Didn't Need to Bring School Home. I Needed to Leave It Behind.](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/i-didnt-need-to-bring-school-home) _2026-06-30 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ Why home educating my PDA child meant rethinking everything I thought I knew about learning. ## [Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky Trilogy](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1121409.html) _2026-06-29 · Swan Tower_ Over the years I've picked up a few books by Zilpha Keatley Snyder that I remembered loving as a kid -- specifically, The Egypt Game and The Velvet Room . But the one I kept wondering about was Below the Root and its sequels ( And All Between and Until the Celebration ), which form the Green Sky trilogy, and recently I found I could get them all in ebook from my library. So I did a binge! And… ## [New Worlds: Gold Rushes](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1121255.html) _2026-06-26 · Swan Tower_ I live in California -- specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place whose history is indelibly shaped by the gold rush of 1848. And, having proposed in last week's essay a speculative path to industrialization involving the discovery of some kind of unobtanium, I find myself led naturally to the notion of a rush: a sudden influx of hopeful miners to the location of a newly discovered… ## [The Cost of Coping](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-coping) _2026-06-20 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ Masking, school-based anxiety, restraint collapse and burnout in PDA children who appear to be managing school ## [New Worlds: Industrialization](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1120826.html) _2026-06-19 · Swan Tower_ There's a particular type of alternate history whose premise is: what if \[fill in the blank past society\] industrialized? (Rome is a particular magnet for this.) The challenge of such speculation is that we have precisely one data point for what de novo industrialization looks like. Many parts of the world have industrialized, but they've done it by adopting the concepts and technologies developed… ## [My Lightspeed story is now free online!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1120742.html) _2026-06-18 · Swan Tower_ I mentioned at the start of this month that I had a new flash story in Lightspeed ; now it is free to read online! Or you can follow the same link to listen to it instead, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. As the title implies, "I Cut Off a Monster’s Arm. AITA?" is modeled after the type of Reddit post where someone posts about an incident in their life, seeking reassurance that they're not the one at… ## [The Writer's Little Books return!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1120494.html) _2026-06-16 · Swan Tower_ After a hiatus in which it wasn't on sale anywhere, The Writer's Little Book of Naming is now available once again! This is a micro guide to things you might think about while coming up with personal names, place names, and in-world terms for your fiction; it's a deeper dive than my Patreon essays, in one neat little package. And yes, this means there are more Writer's Little Books coming! The… ## [I'm part of the Strange Horizons fund drive issue!](https://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/1120080.html) _2026-06-15 · Swan Tower_ Continuing the trend of June being the month of All The Things, I now have a new poem in Strange Horizons ! They're running their annual fundraising drive right now, and "The Dream of Jeannie" has been unlocked as part of the special fund drive issue -- you can read it online right now! This poem, I should note, is inspired by a piece of artwork by Pleasure Faith . It's also of a type my fellow… ## [ADHD Task Initiation & Time Blindness Toolkit](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/adhd-task-initiation-and-time-blindness) _2026-06-15 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ This months downloadable resource is here... ## [The Call of Clarion Alley](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/the-call-of-clarion-alley) _2026-06-09 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ On the Joy of Murals and Books ## [From ‘Difficult Employee’ to Business Owner: Navigating Work as a PDA Autistic Adult](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/from-difficult-employee-to-business) _2026-05-31 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ Fire me. I dare you. ## [Neuro-Affirming Conversation Starters](https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/neuro-affirming-conversation-starters) _2026-05-22 · SENDinMama · SENDinMama_ This months downloadable is here... ## [Bisbee Badassery: Bigfoot and Free Books!](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/bisbee-badassery-bigfoot-and-free) _2026-05-21 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ On the Thrill of the Hunt in Arizona ## [A modern AI reboot for my website and blog](https://smartypantscoding.com/blog/a-modern-ai-reboot-of-smartypantscoding/) _2026-05-16 · smartypantscoding.com_ How I finally got around to rebuilding this site after nearly a decade — it only took an AI revolution in development for me to finally have the time to get it done. ## [A Little Free Library in the Ancient World](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/a-little-free-library-in-the-ancient) _2026-04-30 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ An Unexpected Trip Takes Us to the Times Square of the Puebloan Southwest ## [Delight As A Form of Resistance](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/delight-as-a-form-of-resistance) _2026-03-17 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ Finding Joy and Strength in Little Free Libraries ## [Little Free Libraries in the Land of Enchantment](https://littlebookhouse.substack.com/p/little-free-libraries-in-the-land) _2026-03-05 · Candy Shue · Little Book House_ Celebrating Ancient and Modern Stories in Santa Fe