Samuel Martin
@darkartcafe.bsky.social
Writer, teacher, professor. Perpetual student. Author of 4 books. Latest thriller WHEN THE DEAD ARE RAZED (Slant Books, 2021). Winner of ScreenCraft Short Story Award. He/Him
“[Keep] alive the ministry of imagination…”
June 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM
“[Keep] alive the ministry of imagination…”
Reposted by Samuel Martin
“I reach for a book like a doubter
and want it to flare round my hand”
- Seamus Heaney
and want it to flare round my hand”
- Seamus Heaney
December 13, 2024 at 3:27 PM
“I reach for a book like a doubter
and want it to flare round my hand”
- Seamus Heaney
and want it to flare round my hand”
- Seamus Heaney
Character day at school so in honor of finishing #thehobbit and starting #thefellowshipofthering with the boys, I am going as #bilbobaggins. Feeling “Tookish.” #lotr #tolkien #teaching #adventure #middleearth #dragons #worldissues
December 11, 2024 at 1:57 PM
Character day at school so in honor of finishing #thehobbit and starting #thefellowshipofthering with the boys, I am going as #bilbobaggins. Feeling “Tookish.” #lotr #tolkien #teaching #adventure #middleearth #dragons #worldissues
I loved A.G. Mojtabai’s “Thirst,” so I cannot wait to read the whole of this new offering. Her writing can as easily make you smile as bring you to tears. Not to be missed!
Read an Excerpt from Featherless - Slant Books
Plato famously defined a human being as a “featherless biped.” It’s hard not to sense the ironic humor in this definition, a reminder that, for all our talk about human dignity, our condition is conti...
slantbooks.org
December 4, 2024 at 6:58 PM
I loved A.G. Mojtabai’s “Thirst,” so I cannot wait to read the whole of this new offering. Her writing can as easily make you smile as bring you to tears. Not to be missed!
“I personally enjoy the act of research, and while I get tired of beating the drum for historical accuracy, I do believe an accumulation of details grounds and transports an audience, makes it easier for them to believe the metaphysical stuff in the film.” -Robert Eggers #Nosferatu
December 4, 2024 at 1:40 AM
“I personally enjoy the act of research, and while I get tired of beating the drum for historical accuracy, I do believe an accumulation of details grounds and transports an audience, makes it easier for them to believe the metaphysical stuff in the film.” -Robert Eggers #Nosferatu
As #Advent begins it occurs to me how loading pigs is a religious practice. It demands patience, of course, but also allows for something like the Ascension when a pig rams it’s snout between your legs and tosses you high in the air, or the Crucifixion when you step on a nail in the barnyard.
December 1, 2024 at 11:08 PM
As #Advent begins it occurs to me how loading pigs is a religious practice. It demands patience, of course, but also allows for something like the Ascension when a pig rams it’s snout between your legs and tosses you high in the air, or the Crucifixion when you step on a nail in the barnyard.
“Climate as an issue has now become completely marginal, even as we’re seeing more and more climate disasters occurring all around us.”
Amitav Ghosh: ‘Ireland is where the British created all their colonial methods, it’s where they tried it out first’.
The acclaimed Indian writer’s new work explores how the climate crisis has its roots in European colonialism
www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...
The acclaimed Indian writer’s new work explores how the climate crisis has its roots in European colonialism
www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...
Amitav Ghosh: ‘Ireland is where the British created all their colonial methods, it’s where they tried it out first’
Acclaimed Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s new work explores how the climate crisis has its roots in European colonialism
www.irishtimes.com
December 1, 2024 at 10:15 PM
“Climate as an issue has now become completely marginal, even as we’re seeing more and more climate disasters occurring all around us.”
December 1, 2024 at 1:31 AM
Enshittification: “The gradual deterioration of a service…brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.” Case-in-point: the enshittification of Musk’s X and American #evangelicalism under T***p.
‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year
The committee’s honourable mentions went to ‘right to disconnect’ and ‘rawdogging’
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2024 at 3:01 AM
Enshittification: “The gradual deterioration of a service…brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.” Case-in-point: the enshittification of Musk’s X and American #evangelicalism under T***p.
“Rather than meet people where they are, you can locate yourself someplace they will eventually want to be.” A wise and insightful essay on celebrating echo chambers, preaching to the choir, and prophetic action by @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social.
Per @aoc.bsky.social and co., I'm here to celebrate echo chambers and preaching to the choir. Which sings back, beautifully. "The primary assumption behind the idea that we shouldn’t preach to the choir is that one’s proper audience is one’s enemies, not one’s allies." harpers.org/archive/2017...
Preaching to The Choir, by Rebecca Solnit
harpers.org
November 24, 2024 at 1:20 PM
“Rather than meet people where they are, you can locate yourself someplace they will eventually want to be.” A wise and insightful essay on celebrating echo chambers, preaching to the choir, and prophetic action by @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social.
A story of poet and writer Lee McCarthy for those feeling on the outside, trying to find a way in. And this lesson: lift others up.
"Displacement, desperation, and small children. This could describe many new mothers, but especially those who are working long hours, mothering alone, scraping a life together." (via @literaryhub.bsky.social )
Leaving Cormac: Life Lessons From My Correspondence with Lee McCarthy
Like many middle-aged women I know, I spent my summer parsing the rallying calls of personhood and artmaking ringing out from the new roster of divorce books—books like All Fours by Miranda July, L…
buff.ly
November 23, 2024 at 4:44 PM
A story of poet and writer Lee McCarthy for those feeling on the outside, trying to find a way in. And this lesson: lift others up.
“The tyrant persecutes the artist by silencing him or by attempting to degrade or buy him.”
— Iris Murdoch
— Iris Murdoch
November 23, 2024 at 1:51 AM
“The tyrant persecutes the artist by silencing him or by attempting to degrade or buy him.”
— Iris Murdoch
— Iris Murdoch
True story.
You know the rules: I see this one, I have to share it.
November 22, 2024 at 1:30 PM
True story.
“The Forest of a Thousand Eyes” by Frances Hardinge, illustrated by Emily Gravett looks great! Some good holiday gift ideas here. Thanks, @theguardian.com!
Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
A sensational sleigh ride; joyous poetry; amazing animals; a sinister seaside town; a deadly forest; a thrilling heist and more
I Am Cat by Jackie Morris, Otter-Barry, £20
A ginger cat curls up “ammonite tight” and dreams of ranging the Earth as tiger,…
www.theguardian.com
November 22, 2024 at 12:22 PM
“The Forest of a Thousand Eyes” by Frances Hardinge, illustrated by Emily Gravett looks great! Some good holiday gift ideas here. Thanks, @theguardian.com!
I’m glad #AugustaBritt was finally able to tell her story in @vanityfair.com. Her side of things. I hope she finds some peace in that. What a life. Definitely changes the way I’ll read and remember #CormacMcCarthy, though.
Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.”
When he was 42, Cormac McCarthy fell in love with a 16-year-old girl he met by a motel pool. Augusta Britt would go on to become one of the most significant—and secret—inspirations in literary history...
www.vanityfair.com
November 21, 2024 at 2:20 AM
I’m glad #AugustaBritt was finally able to tell her story in @vanityfair.com. Her side of things. I hope she finds some peace in that. What a life. Definitely changes the way I’ll read and remember #CormacMcCarthy, though.
I like Declan Ryan’s take in The Guardian on Sebastian Barry’s ‘Old God’s Time’ as a “woozy rendering of…the difficulty in telling your story as it disappears ‘into old God’s time’, as well as a tribute to enduring love and its ability to light up the dark.” www.theguardian.com/books/2023/f...
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry review – a cop you can’t trust
A murder investigation leads a retired policeman to confront his past in a stately, often dreamlike novel about the impact of trauma on memory
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2024 at 12:48 AM
I like Declan Ryan’s take in The Guardian on Sebastian Barry’s ‘Old God’s Time’ as a “woozy rendering of…the difficulty in telling your story as it disappears ‘into old God’s time’, as well as a tribute to enduring love and its ability to light up the dark.” www.theguardian.com/books/2023/f...
Listening to S.A. Cosby’s (@blacktopkid.bsky.social) ALL THE SINNERS BLEED and thinking of Titus with his dad in the graveyard, after Titus calls out the minister for living large while folks like his dad are actually *being* the church by feeding the hungry. Cuts straight to heart. #preach
November 19, 2024 at 2:45 AM
Listening to S.A. Cosby’s (@blacktopkid.bsky.social) ALL THE SINNERS BLEED and thinking of Titus with his dad in the graveyard, after Titus calls out the minister for living large while folks like his dad are actually *being* the church by feeding the hungry. Cuts straight to heart. #preach
Finally found the used #bookstore in Brockville. What an oasis. Floor to ceiling, back to front books! Comics in one corner, crime in another, #CanLit out front and classics and kids’ books in back, smut to the west and #StephenKing taking up his own whole bookshelf by the cash! It was wonderful!
November 18, 2024 at 2:56 AM
Finally found the used #bookstore in Brockville. What an oasis. Floor to ceiling, back to front books! Comics in one corner, crime in another, #CanLit out front and classics and kids’ books in back, smut to the west and #StephenKing taking up his own whole bookshelf by the cash! It was wonderful!