Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖
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kirkrafferty.com
Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖
@kirkrafferty.com
5K followers 5.1K following 1.2K posts
Dad, husband, award winning author, killer of darlings (he/him)
Links: https://linktr.ee/kirkraff
Represented by @jessicaberg.me at Rosecliff Literary
Co-host of the podcast @badlitfriends.bsky.social
‬with @thecrumpet.bsky.social‬
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kirkrafferty.com
Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 26d
Our interview with debut author Amber Hamilton is UP! You're going to want to listen to this one. Everything from querying to writing a second book on deadline! BAD LIT FRIENDS is available wherever you get your podcasts.

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #Romantasy #yaromantasy #darkacademia
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 26d
Goooooood MORNING BLUESKY!

Our latest episode of BAD LIT FRIENDS is up in the podonets! Have a listen to our interview with Amber Hamilton, author of her debut novel, SEVEN DEADLY THORNS, a fairy tale where love's true kiss is deadly.

And drop a line here, tell us what you think!
#WritingCommunity
kirkrafferty.com
There's no feeling quite like this feeling. Congrats, @thecrumpet.bsky.social !!!!

#WritingCommunity
November 8, 2025 at 9:14 PM
kirkrafferty.com
New BAD LIT FRIENDS is up! 🔥💥🎉

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 3d
NEW BAD LIT FRIENDS EP! 2 IN 1 WEEK! YES THIS SCHEDULE WAS ON PURPOSE!*

In this episode, we kick off a three part series: So You Want to Write a Novel—Really? (no really, why would you do this?) We talk reality checks, genre panic, POV disasters & some salty Hot Goss. #writesky #podcast

*it wasn't
Spotify – Web Player
open.spotify.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:14 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Holdup

#WritingCommunity
November 7, 2025 at 2:00 PM
kirkrafferty.com
November 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM
kirkrafferty.com
A literary agent on TikTok convinced that a query letter was written by AI, and proceeds to read the offending lines to the world.
#WritingCommunity #amquerying

1/3 🧵
November 4, 2025 at 5:06 PM
kirkrafferty.com
So your search engine can offer up an AI slop summary while providing links to AI slop mingled with AI slop ads.

#AIWriting sucks.
A Bluesky account promoting How to use AI to Write Blog Posts That Answer Search Queries
November 4, 2025 at 2:50 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Y'know what I love about 🦋? I don't have to see an endless feed techsplaining that I'll be buried by a technology I refuse to use in my writing, that is ruining society and the planet. I don't need 🦋to be a sewer of sealioning. I'm happy to engage positively with my tribe.
I puffy ❤️ blocklists.
willoremus.com Will Oremus @willoremus.com · 7d
Blocking hatemongers is one thing but this trend of using mass block lists to avoid hearing from people who might or might not hold points of view you expect to disagree with is unhealthy imo and hurts the platform.

Bluesky was better off with folks like Margaret Mitchell and Giada Pistilli on it.
Margaret Mitchell, who was famously fired from Google after co-authoring the seminal "Stochastic Parrots" paper, has been posting on X lately because she is caught up in mass blocklists of AI industry people on Bluesky, making the platform borderline unusable for her. Here she's on X quote-tweeting fellow AI ethics researcher Giada Pistilli, who is in the same boat. Pistilli said: I really wanted 🦋 to work, but it looks like I’m on the worst block lists out there. Oh, well. Mitchell said: I think what many 🦋 Bsky users may be overlooking is that they’re blocking people in positions of influence *who want to listen to them*. As someone influentialish in AI ethics, it’s important for me to know what creators, critics, Luddites, etc., are thinking and seeing. Mitchell added in a second post: I’m an advocate in tech directly aligned with a lot of their values in the very spaces where decisions that affect them are being made. I need the stats, articles, hot takes…all the deets they can give me so I can be prepared when talking to regulators,academics, techies, etc
November 3, 2025 at 9:38 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Number one rule of #amquerying: follow the rules.
helenlane.bsky.social Helen Lane @helenlane.bsky.social · 7d
I've had 15 queries sent to my inbox today. I'm not open to queries via email. Which means that's 15 queries that have been deleted because people decided not to follow instructions. Why do this? I would have read them on QM.
November 3, 2025 at 4:55 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Oh hey! New BAD LIT FRIENDS podcast is up!

We're talking about editing in this episode. I love editing, Meagan...not so much. #WritingCommunity, where do you stand? Do you enjoy writing or editing more?
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 7d
New BAD LIT FRIENDS podcast is up! 🔥💥🌶️🚸 (help we don't know how emojis work!)

This week on BLF, editing! Yay?! Also Penguingate. (not that Penguin) We're on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you get your podcasts!

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #Writesky

open.spotify.com/episode/0aBf...
Spotify – Web Player
open.spotify.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Change one letter, ruin a candy

Knickers
writerlaurabee.bsky.social Laura Bee @writerlaurabee.bsky.social · 11d
Change one letter, ruin a candy

S&Ms
October 30, 2025 at 1:56 PM
kirkrafferty.com
It is devastating to see publishing execs throw authors and books under the bus, to an unproven tech that undermines their own business. Imagine if banks had embraced NFTs in the same way publishers are embracing AI slop.
#WritingCommunity #AI

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
AI can help authors beat writer’s block, says Bloomsbury chief
Publisher last week reported jump in revenue in academic and professional arm thanks to AI licensing deal
www.theguardian.com
October 29, 2025 at 1:36 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Messing with a scammer who claims to "strengthen my book's visibility" on Amzn (throwaway email). I sent a random link on an older book by an author who hasn't published in about 8 years. This is the free "report." 😂 Still trying to find out how much they want to charge.
@victoriastrauss.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:42 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Seen on Threads.

I would be very cautious about #amquerying an agent who wants to control your process. (Advise? Recommend? Yes please! Demand? No.) Your book should speak for itself, no matter how you arrived at the finished product.
#WritingCommunity
October 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Not my usual genre. From a spooky short story I'm writing for a contest.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #Halloween
I barged out the front door and onto the sidewalk. Behind me, music thumped, and people laughed, oblivious. Of course they were. They hadn't just watched their boyfriend shove his tongue down some fairy princess's throat. It was late. Even the trick-or-treaters had gone home. I pulled up the Rideo app and ordered a ride. The little car icon appeared instantly. Less than a minute away. That was…lucky? Weird? Whatever. I just wanted to go home and cry. I shivered. It was Fall, and my costume—black dress, fishnets, cat makeup—wasn't exactly built for warmth. My cat-ears headband was lopsided.
October 28, 2025 at 3:01 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Uhhh…don’t do this. No agent ever has wanted a video pitch.
writerlaurabee.bsky.social Laura Bee @writerlaurabee.bsky.social · 14d
Note the present tense. Note they aren't telling you how they got their agent. Because it hasn't bloody well worked.
Querying? Many agents ask for a standard written query. I send a video pitch right along with it. Stand out where you can. That slush pile doesn't want your pitch, your readers do!
October 27, 2025 at 11:25 PM
kirkrafferty.com
What’s it like inside your head?

#WritingCommunity
October 23, 2025 at 5:07 PM
kirkrafferty.com
New BAD LIT FRIENDS is up! Pitch contests, book pirates, and bears, oh my!

Get it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts! With @rytingwithcats.bsky.social and @thecrumpet.bsky.social

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 19d
New Bad Lit Friends has dropped!!!

It's all about pitch contests! The good, the bad, the mood boards.

Also: Book piracy. Is it bad? (uhhh...yeah, duh)

Wherever you get your podcasts...you know the drill!

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #PitchContests #BookPiracy

open.spotify.com/episode/3w80...
Pitch Perfect (S01E12)
open.spotify.com
October 22, 2025 at 2:13 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Thought I'd do something a little different this time.

Editing has been a slog, and during the hardest parts, I sometimes wondered if it would ever come together. So here's a snippet from one of my beta readers about my WIP. Please clap. 😀
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #HistoricalFiction
This was such an elegantly told, taut, and beautifully written start to this historical espionage story. It is cinematic, meticulously researched, and propelled by a heroine who commands attention from the start. What stands out most from the opening chapters is your control over tension and atmosphere. The Moscow of 1950 feels fully realized; it is oppressive and cold, with the danger of betrayal in every shadow. I loved your prose for evoking the grounded, sophisticated tone of John le Carré, blended with the kinetic immediacy of Greg Rucka or Olen Steinhauer, and for reminding me of the lush, emotionally charged aesthetic of The Americans. It is a spy thriller and a psychological study of identity and trauma.
October 22, 2025 at 1:34 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Excerpt from one of the scenes I'm currently editing. One of my favorite passages, and although it takes place in 1950, it seems timely in this era too. 🇺🇦
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #HistoricalFiction
“When the Bolsheviks came demanding their grain, the villagers had hidden some of it beneath the floorboards of the church.” Anna’s voice takes on a distant quality as she recites from memory. “When the soldiers found it, they lined up the men in the square.” She continues stirring, her eyes fixed on the swirling liquid. “The commissar shot the first man, then the second. My grandfather stepped forward and told him he knew where more was hidden, then led them to a well two kilometers from the village.” Anna’s lips curve into a small, sad smile. “There was nothing but water in the well. But it gave the village enough time to move the children and grain deeper into the forest. When the Russians returned, they came back to an empty village.” She picks up both mugs, turning to face Jo. “They beat him, and then they shot him. They threw his body into the well so that nobody could drink from it. “I asked my grandmother why he did such a thing. She said, ‘It wasn’t courage that drove him to give his life. It was stubbornness. Ukrainians are too stubborn to die, even when Russians tell us to.’” She turns to face Jo. “I won’t go back.”
October 21, 2025 at 2:41 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Tried to have edits finished before today...and failed. Spent a good part of the day pushing ahead, and I'm soooo close. Maybe even finished tonight! I'm a terrible writer, but a decent (if slow) editor. 😀

What's your favorite part of creating a book, #WritingCommunity? The writing or the editing?
a black cat is using an apple laptop with the words deadline is coming written below it
ALT: a black cat is using an apple laptop with the words deadline is coming written below it
media.tenor.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:57 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Why haven't I been very active on BSky lately? I am deep in edits, desperately trying to get this in shape before next week.

POV: My characters looking up and seeing my edits:
#WritingCommunity
a man with long hair and a beard is sitting in a car and says `` we could kill everyone . ''
ALT: a man with long hair and a beard is sitting in a car and says `` we could kill everyone . ''
media.tenor.com
October 17, 2025 at 5:17 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Love it when an author does the right thing. Keep AI out of books and off of covers. GenAI is theft. Authors and writers work hard, and should distribute their works in a manner of their choosing.
#WritingCommunity #AI
chucktingle.bsky.social Chuck Tingle @chucktingle.bsky.social · 25d
while it may not seem like it to someone scrolling by with a cursory look, what i am creating is not ‘ironic’ nor a ‘get rich quick scheme’ and it is certainly not AI GENERATED. it is a genuine expression of my heart and my beliefs about sexuality and art and love and freedom and curiosity and joy
October 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM
kirkrafferty.com
Our interview with debut author Amber Hamilton is UP! You're going to want to listen to this one. Everything from querying to writing a second book on deadline! BAD LIT FRIENDS is available wherever you get your podcasts.

#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #Romantasy #yaromantasy #darkacademia
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 26d
Goooooood MORNING BLUESKY!

Our latest episode of BAD LIT FRIENDS is up in the podonets! Have a listen to our interview with Amber Hamilton, author of her debut novel, SEVEN DEADLY THORNS, a fairy tale where love's true kiss is deadly.

And drop a line here, tell us what you think!
#WritingCommunity
October 15, 2025 at 2:31 PM
kirkrafferty.com
WRITER POUNDED BY THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY THAT HIS ELECTION IS COMPLETELY LOCKED UP - an erotic tale by @chucktingle.bsky.social
lonevoice.bsky.social lonevoice.bsky.social @lonevoice.bsky.social · 27d
Why @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social, @chucktingle.bsky.social et al won't is clear: they THINK their reelection is locked up. They know the Americans who care don't have another option. And the second level leadership in the party is doing what they did with Biden: pretending nothing is wrong!
October 14, 2025 at 2:44 PM
kirkrafferty.com
We had such a great time speaking with Amber, and I know you're going to love this episode! We talked about querying agents, writing the next book under deadline, and everything in between. It drops tomorrow!

#WritingCommunity #amquerying #Podcasts #YA #Romantasy #SevenDeadlyThorns
badlitfriends.bsky.social Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 27d
NEW BAD LIT FRIENDS drops tomorrow! 🔥💥🎉😱

And damn, this is a good one! We spoke with Amber Hamilton, whose debut novel is SEVEN DEADLY THORNS, a fairy tale retelling where true love's kiss kills.

Have a listen wherever you get your podcasts!
#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #YA #Romantasy
October 14, 2025 at 2:07 PM