Rosalind Brown
@rosalindbrown.bsky.social
First novel PRACTICE out now (Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Blessing Verlag). Represented by Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency. Most recent work in The Paris Review and Harper's.
rosalindbrown.com
rosalindbrown.com
and either they assume 'ordinary people' have no interest in these things too, which is unbelievably insulting to pretty much everyone,
OR (/and)
they believe any 'good' art (= already canonical) will be able to make a profit and therefore doesn't need funding, which is ignorant and wrongheaded
OR (/and)
they believe any 'good' art (= already canonical) will be able to make a profit and therefore doesn't need funding, which is ignorant and wrongheaded
Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 12, 2025 at 4:43 PM
and either they assume 'ordinary people' have no interest in these things too, which is unbelievably insulting to pretty much everyone,
OR (/and)
they believe any 'good' art (= already canonical) will be able to make a profit and therefore doesn't need funding, which is ignorant and wrongheaded
OR (/and)
they believe any 'good' art (= already canonical) will be able to make a profit and therefore doesn't need funding, which is ignorant and wrongheaded
the black ribbon on her wrist 👏
Jean-Étienne Liotard - Portrait of the artist’s wife, Marie Fargues, in Turkish dress (1756 -1758) (Rijksmuseum)
November 12, 2025 at 1:07 PM
the black ribbon on her wrist 👏
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
You shouldn’t have to work if there’s a bird outside you want to watch
September 28, 2023 at 6:38 PM
You shouldn’t have to work if there’s a bird outside you want to watch
amazing
October 30, 2025 at 5:33 PM
amazing
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
June 19, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
Bankersin Action
https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19601
https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19601
October 23, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Bankersin Action
https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19601
https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19601
'Despite AI’s popularity, 62% of the students said it has had a negative impact on their skills and development at school, while one in four of the students agreed that AI “makes it too easy for me to find the answers without doing the work myself”.'
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Pupils fear AI is eroding their ability to study, research finds
One in four students say AI ‘makes it too easy’ for them to find answers
www.theguardian.com
October 15, 2025 at 1:49 PM
'Despite AI’s popularity, 62% of the students said it has had a negative impact on their skills and development at school, while one in four of the students agreed that AI “makes it too easy for me to find the answers without doing the work myself”.'
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
I am shocked to my very core by this news.
Stanford researchers found that AI-generated "workslop" is actually making people less productive, in part because workers have to correct errors or decode the useful information/intent buried in a flood of auto-generated garbage:
AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity
Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...
hbr.org
September 29, 2025 at 7:00 PM
I am shocked to my very core by this news.
"A more courageous Labour government could have helped with what might be called structural fact-checking: calling out the lie that migration is to blame for Britain’s declining social services and widening wealth gaps", etc.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
Claire Wilmot | Fascistic Dream Machines
Part of the misunderstanding of the deepfake threat stems from the idea that it is a problem of bad information, rather...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 26, 2025 at 12:23 PM
"A more courageous Labour government could have helped with what might be called structural fact-checking: calling out the lie that migration is to blame for Britain’s declining social services and widening wealth gaps", etc.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
What I don't understand about the rush to AI is why people don't *want* to think. Thinking is the most pleasurable, gorgeous, exciting, sophisticated thing I do, and skipping that to get to an output and have more time to spend, I don't know, on my phone or something just seems insane to me.
September 21, 2025 at 5:34 PM
What I don't understand about the rush to AI is why people don't *want* to think. Thinking is the most pleasurable, gorgeous, exciting, sophisticated thing I do, and skipping that to get to an output and have more time to spend, I don't know, on my phone or something just seems insane to me.
"Using LLMs makes your work bland, vague, and wrong, and impedes the development of skills ... That development only happens with sweat, practice, shitty first drafts, errors, time, and revision."
it makes your work BLAND, VAGUE, AND WRONG
against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...
it makes your work BLAND, VAGUE, AND WRONG
against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...
Syllabus Language - AGAINST AI
(looking for persuasion rather than edicts? here's one template)
against-a-i.com
September 21, 2025 at 5:22 PM
"Using LLMs makes your work bland, vague, and wrong, and impedes the development of skills ... That development only happens with sweat, practice, shitty first drafts, errors, time, and revision."
it makes your work BLAND, VAGUE, AND WRONG
against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...
it makes your work BLAND, VAGUE, AND WRONG
against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
this exists it is called thinking
September 20, 2025 at 12:15 PM
this exists it is called thinking
Do other writers out there have opinions about using a thesaurus? I'm using mine a lot at the moment, but am wondering whether it's reducing my own ability to think of vocabulary (which seems like a pretty essential skill). Am always wary of 'shoulds' around writing, but your experience is welcome!
September 11, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Do other writers out there have opinions about using a thesaurus? I'm using mine a lot at the moment, but am wondering whether it's reducing my own ability to think of vocabulary (which seems like a pretty essential skill). Am always wary of 'shoulds' around writing, but your experience is welcome!
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
I am now offering writing teaching and mentoring! See my website for details ...
(spoiler: I probably won't tell you to delete your adverbs)
rosalindbrown.com/teaching-and...
(spoiler: I probably won't tell you to delete your adverbs)
rosalindbrown.com/teaching-and...
Teaching and mentoring
My approach as a creative writing mentor is informed partly by the teaching I received during my Creative Writing MA and PhD, partly by teaching I have done myself as a qualified secondary school t…
rosalindbrown.com
May 29, 2025 at 10:25 AM
I am now offering writing teaching and mentoring! See my website for details ...
(spoiler: I probably won't tell you to delete your adverbs)
rosalindbrown.com/teaching-and...
(spoiler: I probably won't tell you to delete your adverbs)
rosalindbrown.com/teaching-and...
“benzimidazobenzophenanthroline”
I reviewed the new Dan Brown. It is (I note admiringly), weapons-grade bollocks.
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end
Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness
www.theguardian.com
September 9, 2025 at 12:13 PM
“benzimidazobenzophenanthroline”
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
Two Women Teaching a Child to Walk https://www.wikiart.org/en/rembrandt/two-women-teaching-a-child-to-walk
September 9, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Two Women Teaching a Child to Walk https://www.wikiart.org/en/rembrandt/two-women-teaching-a-child-to-walk
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
Come see this face in person this Saturday!
Just a couple of days until our taster day introducing you to the craft of writing non-fiction. It's hosted by our very own founding editor @andrewkenrick.bsky.social, in person in Norwich, this coming Saturday. We still have tickets available. Beginners welcome! www.eventbrite.com/e/hinterland...
August 26, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Come see this face in person this Saturday!
THIS. The water and electricity consumption of LLMs mean we should NOT BE USING THEM, even to critique/mock them – there are plenty of examples of them being terrible, we don't need to generate any more – just boycott them now.
You can add up all the enjoyable pursuits of LLMs and the work productivity hacks and none of them, separately or together, will be more important than AI’s ecological costs or political disruption.
“We” is more important here.
“We” is more important here.
August 24, 2025 at 6:53 PM
THIS. The water and electricity consumption of LLMs mean we should NOT BE USING THEM, even to critique/mock them – there are plenty of examples of them being terrible, we don't need to generate any more – just boycott them now.
Three days until this – can't wait! Harriet's book TO REST OUR MINDS AND BODIES is brilliant and you should definitely read it
I will be at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year! talking with novelist Harriet Armstrong (whose book I am excitedly about to start reading) and Sasha de Buyl.
Thursday 14 August, 5.30pm, in the mysteriously named "Venue B". Tickets on sale from Saturday!
www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...
Thursday 14 August, 5.30pm, in the mysteriously named "Venue B". Tickets on sale from Saturday!
www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...
Harriet Armstrong & Rosalind Brown: Lessons in Inner Life
From Thu 14 Aug - Two razor-sharp debut novelists talk with Sasha de Buyl about the fitful, lurching paths we take on the coming-of-age journey…
www.edbookfest.co.uk
August 11, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Three days until this – can't wait! Harriet's book TO REST OUR MINDS AND BODIES is brilliant and you should definitely read it
PRACTICE is one of @theguardian.com's paperbacks of the month!
"The great strength of Practice is Brown’s gift for the romance of the quotidian... The character of the solipsistic, over-earnest, pretentious, self-consciously ascetic Annabel is brilliantly done"
www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
"The great strength of Practice is Brown’s gift for the romance of the quotidian... The character of the solipsistic, over-earnest, pretentious, self-consciously ascetic Annabel is brilliantly done"
www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
This month’s best paperbacks: Gabriel García Márquez, Craig Brown and more
Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some great new paperbacks, from a posthumous novel to an absorbing account of how nationalism shaped a country
www.theguardian.com
August 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM
PRACTICE is one of @theguardian.com's paperbacks of the month!
"The great strength of Practice is Brown’s gift for the romance of the quotidian... The character of the solipsistic, over-earnest, pretentious, self-consciously ascetic Annabel is brilliantly done"
www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
"The great strength of Practice is Brown’s gift for the romance of the quotidian... The character of the solipsistic, over-earnest, pretentious, self-consciously ascetic Annabel is brilliantly done"
www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
The former Attorney General of Israel, Michael Benyair is now calling Israel's actions in Gaza genocide.
"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"
"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"
July 29, 2025 at 12:46 AM
The former Attorney General of Israel, Michael Benyair is now calling Israel's actions in Gaza genocide.
"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"
"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"
Wrote one (soon out in this lovely paperback!), and currently reading the other. At least I'm consistent.
July 22, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Wrote one (soon out in this lovely paperback!), and currently reading the other. At least I'm consistent.
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst https://www.wikiart.org/en/remedios-varo/saljendodel-woman-psychoanalyst
July 3, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst https://www.wikiart.org/en/remedios-varo/saljendodel-woman-psychoanalyst
Didn't realise how materially and rhythmically the LRB punctuates my life until my paper copy of the last issue didn't arrive and I was edgy like an addict in withdrawal
Issue 47.13 is now online, featuring:
Adam Shatz on the Israel-Iran war
Jackson Lears on the legacy of the war on terror
Barbara Everett says farewell to 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘵
Huw Lemmey: Who’s afraid of Palestine Action?
Anthony Grafton on libraries
a poem by Kathleen Jamie
Read online at www.lrb.co.uk
Adam Shatz on the Israel-Iran war
Jackson Lears on the legacy of the war on terror
Barbara Everett says farewell to 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘵
Huw Lemmey: Who’s afraid of Palestine Action?
Anthony Grafton on libraries
a poem by Kathleen Jamie
Read online at www.lrb.co.uk
July 16, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Didn't realise how materially and rhythmically the LRB punctuates my life until my paper copy of the last issue didn't arrive and I was edgy like an addict in withdrawal
Reposted by Rosalind Brown
the more i understand cyanide, the more hesitant i am to eat it
this, to me, is a paradox
this, to me, is a paradox
July 14, 2025 at 2:33 PM
the more i understand cyanide, the more hesitant i am to eat it
this, to me, is a paradox
this, to me, is a paradox