Sean Michaels
@swanmichaels.bsky.social
Writer: DO YOU REMEMBER BEING BORN? 💐 (2023), THE WAGERS (2019), US CONDUCTORS (2014) • Founded 🎶 http://saidthegramophone.com • http://www.byseanmichaels.com • he/him
thursday!
Every so often I do this thing called Writers' Room, where writers of Montreal are invited to get together in one room. The next one is on February 5. Friends and mutuals, it would be great to see you.
February 2, 2026 at 1:15 PM
thursday!
Every so often I do this thing called Writers' Room, where writers of Montreal are invited to get together in one room. The next one is on February 5. Friends and mutuals, it would be great to see you.
January 19, 2026 at 7:57 PM
Every so often I do this thing called Writers' Room, where writers of Montreal are invited to get together in one room. The next one is on February 5. Friends and mutuals, it would be great to see you.
Reposted by Sean Michaels
My book Live to See the Day is out today. I hope you read it. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/645965...
Live to See the Day by Mark Medley: 9780771062261 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
An imaginative study of human nature, Live to See the Day is a globe-trotting exploration of what drives certain people to pursue a dream beyond all logic, reason, or reward. Why do...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
January 6, 2026 at 2:37 PM
My book Live to See the Day is out today. I hope you read it. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/645965...
crazy and beautiful-sounding—is it Anakana's gormenghast??? only time will tell!
PREORDER CANADA ALERT 🚨
Fabulous Cover Alert 🔔
Save a bedraggled writer prompt 🎺
Thank you for sticking with me stamp ❤️
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/555536...
Fabulous Cover Alert 🔔
Save a bedraggled writer prompt 🎺
Thank you for sticking with me stamp ❤️
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/555536...
Library of Brothel by Anakana Schofield | Penguin Random House Canada
The long-anticipated, wildly inventive new novel by the Irish-Canadian writer whose previous work was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Ethel Wilson Prize and the Goldsmith’s Prize (UK).
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
December 29, 2025 at 8:40 PM
crazy and beautiful-sounding—is it Anakana's gormenghast??? only time will tell!
Reposted by Sean Michaels
this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.
December 15, 2025 at 8:18 PM
this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Reposted by Sean Michaels
it's december! life is sometimes bleak! here are my 100 favourite songs, and a man's fumbling swerves about why he loves them so much.
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
December 2, 2025 at 1:19 PM
it's december! life is sometimes bleak! here are my 100 favourite songs, and a man's fumbling swerves about why he loves them so much.
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
it's december! life is sometimes bleak! here are my 100 favourite songs, and a man's fumbling swerves about why he loves them so much.
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
December 2, 2025 at 1:19 PM
it's december! life is sometimes bleak! here are my 100 favourite songs, and a man's fumbling swerves about why he loves them so much.
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/bes...
happy to be reading tonight from Zsuzsi Gartner's BEST CANADIAN SHORT STORIES at De Stiil—celebrating works by Kaitlin Reuther, DF McCourt, Grant Buday & others alongside Eliza Robertson, Cat Leroux, Neil Smith, Paige Cooper etc!
November 24, 2025 at 1:28 PM
happy to be reading tonight from Zsuzsi Gartner's BEST CANADIAN SHORT STORIES at De Stiil—celebrating works by Kaitlin Reuther, DF McCourt, Grant Buday & others alongside Eliza Robertson, Cat Leroux, Neil Smith, Paige Cooper etc!
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Truly love this article about how there are tons of bad short stories being published because they are lucrative!
The Sad Case of the Contemporary Short Story; Short Story Collections (Published 1928)
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Truly love this article about how there are tons of bad short stories being published because they are lucrative!
Reposted by Sean Michaels
I'm watching the irate responses to this development roll in & I am baffled. 1) Authors can opt out. 2) People don't understand that in 3 years (or sooner?) this will all be moot. As soon as the courts rule that AI use is fair use, which is how this is trending, everything will be up for grabs.
I am composing my response to my publisher regarding the below post and the more I write the harder I am finding it not to use the word "fuck"/"fucking" every other sentence and there is no way this is gonna be shorter than 2,000 words. bsky.app/profile/crai...
I received this mail from Arcadia Publishing, the company which now owns Belt Publishing, who originally published my book in 2022.
Belt's authors are not the sort of people who are gonna be cool with this. I feel really bad for whoever is answering the emails at Arcadia next week.
Belt's authors are not the sort of people who are gonna be cool with this. I feel really bad for whoever is answering the emails at Arcadia next week.
November 3, 2025 at 2:12 PM
I'm watching the irate responses to this development roll in & I am baffled. 1) Authors can opt out. 2) People don't understand that in 3 years (or sooner?) this will all be moot. As soon as the courts rule that AI use is fair use, which is how this is trending, everything will be up for grabs.
happy st viateur's day to all who celebrate
October 21, 2025 at 2:57 PM
happy st viateur's day to all who celebrate
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Montreal, come hang: WRITERS' ROOM #4, November 7 2025.
October 15, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Montreal, come hang: WRITERS' ROOM #4, November 7 2025.
whooooooooa!!!! yes, please!
October 16, 2025 at 5:02 PM
whooooooooa!!!! yes, please!
Reposted by Sean Michaels
« Two years ago, Stephen Shiller — a real estate magnate — donated $850 to Martinez Ferrada. Shiller’s firm, Shiller-Lavy, used rental hikes to drive out small businesses from its properties in the Mile End before flipping the buildings at a massive profit. »
therover.ca/municipal-el...
therover.ca/municipal-el...
Municipal Election: Will Ensemble Montreal Fight for Tenants or Developers? – The Rover
Soraya Martinez Ferrada wants to be “the housing mayor” while surrounding herself with Montreal’s biggest developers
therover.ca
October 16, 2025 at 2:07 PM
« Two years ago, Stephen Shiller — a real estate magnate — donated $850 to Martinez Ferrada. Shiller’s firm, Shiller-Lavy, used rental hikes to drive out small businesses from its properties in the Mile End before flipping the buildings at a massive profit. »
therover.ca/municipal-el...
therover.ca/municipal-el...
Montreal, come hang: WRITERS' ROOM #4, November 7 2025.
October 15, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Montreal, come hang: WRITERS' ROOM #4, November 7 2025.
Happy 20th birthday to Wolf Parade's APOLOGIES TO THE QUEEN MARY! I was so honoured to write the liner notes for the deluxe edition, released in 2016—which everyone should buy, if only for the reminder that you're the one-eyed feather (you're the lion's mane).
wolfparade.bandcamp.com/album/apolog...
wolfparade.bandcamp.com/album/apolog...
Apologies to the Queen Mary (Deluxe Edition), by Wolf Parade
25 track album
wolfparade.bandcamp.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Happy 20th birthday to Wolf Parade's APOLOGIES TO THE QUEEN MARY! I was so honoured to write the liner notes for the deluxe edition, released in 2016—which everyone should buy, if only for the reminder that you're the one-eyed feather (you're the lion's mane).
wolfparade.bandcamp.com/album/apolog...
wolfparade.bandcamp.com/album/apolog...
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Montreal's Martha Wainwright was on Fallon last night and chose one hell of a song to play: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-e...
Martha Wainwright: Save the Country | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
YouTube video by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
www.youtube.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Montreal's Martha Wainwright was on Fallon last night and chose one hell of a song to play: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-e...
Reposted by Sean Michaels
"For publishing professionals watching from the sidelines, this represents a masterclass in how AI companies are treating copyright disputes as manageable business costs rather than existential threats." www.linkedin.com/pulse/anthro...
Anthropic's $183 Billion Valuation: The Authors' Pyrrhic Victory Settlement Has Investors Drooling
The publishing industry must now contend with a reality where its primary asset - copyrighted content - has been effectively commoditised by companies with access to virtually unlimited capital and a ...
www.linkedin.com
September 6, 2025 at 1:51 AM
"For publishing professionals watching from the sidelines, this represents a masterclass in how AI companies are treating copyright disputes as manageable business costs rather than existential threats." www.linkedin.com/pulse/anthro...
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Unfortunately, I expect that the fact they won a pretty resounding fair use victory is going to be lost in much of the coverage. They lost on downloading & storing the LibGen dataset (straight infringement!), but the act of training on copyrighted material (+ making their own ebooks) was a win.
Breaking: In landmark agreement, AI firm Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright lawsuit brought by book authors and publishers. Story to follow.
September 5, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Unfortunately, I expect that the fact they won a pretty resounding fair use victory is going to be lost in much of the coverage. They lost on downloading & storing the LibGen dataset (straight infringement!), but the act of training on copyrighted material (+ making their own ebooks) was a win.
"This will never work": PARCHMENT (@parchmentmag.bsky.social), a literary journal devoted to contemporary Canadian Jewish writing, is returning to print.
I joined the editorial board because I don't feel "Jewish writing" needs to mean what it usually means, especially lately. 1/5
I joined the editorial board because I don't feel "Jewish writing" needs to mean what it usually means, especially lately. 1/5
August 29, 2025 at 2:02 PM
"This will never work": PARCHMENT (@parchmentmag.bsky.social), a literary journal devoted to contemporary Canadian Jewish writing, is returning to print.
I joined the editorial board because I don't feel "Jewish writing" needs to mean what it usually means, especially lately. 1/5
I joined the editorial board because I don't feel "Jewish writing" needs to mean what it usually means, especially lately. 1/5
Reposted by Sean Michaels
Big IP slop is one of the pipelines to genAI slop; denaturing the vitality of the arts for corporate interests. Good to see an actor speak about it honestly.
THE MANDALORIAN was so badly written that it broke Katee Sackhoff’s sense of self
![CINEMA BLEND
It broke me. It just broke me where I started doubting everything about myself. I'm not a strong auditioner on tape and I was having to put myself on tape. I wasn't booking anything, and for three years, I basically didn't work... I broke down. I was crying one day with [Michael Trucco] at his kitchen counter.
And he was like, 'You're going to be fine. You always work! And I was like, I'm not okay, man.
I'm not working. I'm so broken. I've got no confidence left. I don't know what to do. I'm lost!
KATEESACKHOFF
'THE SACKHOFF SHOW'](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kxlggazepmhqyrmswwuxunip/bafkreicu7kyf744b3hpzcsg6sb2jdddqlyk277oj5bqab2ttquinn7vyb4@jpeg)
August 21, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Big IP slop is one of the pipelines to genAI slop; denaturing the vitality of the arts for corporate interests. Good to see an actor speak about it honestly.
speaking of stomp and clap—remember this one?
Forest Fire's "Slow Motion"
What a smoulder, what a treasure.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1d...
Forest Fire's "Slow Motion"
What a smoulder, what a treasure.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1d...
Forest Fire - Slow Motion
YouTube video by von_kond
www.youtube.com
August 20, 2025 at 6:02 PM
speaking of stomp and clap—remember this one?
Forest Fire's "Slow Motion"
What a smoulder, what a treasure.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1d...
Forest Fire's "Slow Motion"
What a smoulder, what a treasure.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1d...
Reposted by Sean Michaels
BREAKING: Downing Street has warned Sally Rooney risks committing a terrorist offence if she funds Palestine Action
It comes after the author said she would continue to support the group financially
It comes after the author said she would continue to support the group financially
August 18, 2025 at 12:22 PM
BREAKING: Downing Street has warned Sally Rooney risks committing a terrorist offence if she funds Palestine Action
It comes after the author said she would continue to support the group financially
It comes after the author said she would continue to support the group financially