John MacNeill Miller
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John MacNeill Miller
@snarlsdickens.bsky.social
1.8K followers 720 following 860 posts
Writer and former English professor. Author of *The Ecological Plot: How Stories Gave Rise to a Science* (Virginia 2024). Death positive. Interested in animals, environments, and all things Victorian.
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snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Two attempts to draw the same yellow warbler, one before and one after I took a course in nature journaling. Art education has an impact!!
A pencil drawing of a warbler, with only moderate detail (especially in the legs/branch) and dubious proportions (it looks like a cartoon of a finch). Notes about questionable features are written around the sides. A second pencil drawing of the same warbler with much more accurate proportions, improved definition, and more detailed shading.
September 25, 2025 at 12:58 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Happy first birthday to *The Ecological Plot*!!! I am so proud of you & how far you’ve come. When you first entered the world as a series of poorly organized Word docs on my laptop, I couldn’t believe you would blossom into the obscure, esoteric monograph you are today. Never change—I love you!!!
A photograph of *The Ecological Plot* wearing a celebratory headband with plush candles on top that spell out “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”
September 24, 2025 at 1:23 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
“And so you see, Senator, I had to fire the head of the CDC because I’ve always struggled with the Liar’s Paradox.”
Transcript of RFK Jr’s congressional hearing stating he fired the head of the CDC not because she refused to comply with his demands about vaccination schedules but, in his words, “because I asked her ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said ‘No.’”
September 5, 2025 at 1:15 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
*running breathless into the room* You guys!! YOU GUYS!!! The omniscient-but-unexpectedly-compassionate Victorian third-person narrator has come back!!!!
Screenshot from Lucas Schaefer’s 2025 novel *The Slip* with these two sentences highlighted: “Oh, Nathaniel! If only this prisoner of pubescence had the foresight to understand he hadn’t been sentenced to life.”
August 29, 2025 at 8:54 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Welp, I guess that makes it official: I am a Writer
A lanyard for the Deep Water Literary Fest that reads “WRITER 2025”
June 20, 2025 at 10:30 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
NBD, just my book sandwiched among some Percival Everett and Isabel Allende titles at our local bookshop
Picture of a book display at the Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, PA that includes The Ecological Plot among (much better) books by Percival Everett and Isabel Allende
May 20, 2025 at 12:37 AM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
What a steal! If Amazon were selling my book The Ecological Plot for any cheaper right now, they’d practically be paying you to take it off their hands
Screenshot of Amazon page for *The Ecological Plot* showing a price of $16.79 for the paperback (a discount of 48%)
May 16, 2025 at 7:59 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
What a steal! If Amazon were selling my book The Ecological Plot for any cheaper right now, they’d practically be paying you to take it off their hands
Screenshot of Amazon page for *The Ecological Plot* showing a price of $16.79 for the paperback (a discount of 48%)
May 16, 2025 at 7:57 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
A crudely altered poster of Jordan Peele’s 2022 horror film Nope, with the initial “N” edited to look like a “P”
April 23, 2025 at 3:24 AM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Dedication page of the new Ray Nayler novel goes hard
Photo of the dedication page of Ray Nayler’s 2025 novel Where the Axe Is Buried, which reads “For everyone who has lost a country”
April 12, 2025 at 12:43 AM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a
Screenshot of one of the unsecured text messages on Pete Hegseth’s chain that responds to the Yemen bombing with emojis for a punching fist, an American flag, and fire
March 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
You gotta hand it to Harper Lee. She’s the hardest working dead writer out there. The Tupac of mid-twentieth-century American fiction
Advertisement from Penguin touting a new short story collection from Harper Lee due out in fall 2025
March 6, 2025 at 8:05 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Percy knew how it felt
Screenshot of Percy Shelley’s poem “England in 1819,” moving from an assessment of the parasitic terrors of oligarchy to a fragile hope that this might be the moment when things change.
February 3, 2025 at 2:07 AM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

18/20
Cover image of The Ecological Thought by Timothy Morton
January 3, 2025 at 4:03 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

17/20
Cover image of A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, with A Theory of Meaning by Jakob von Uexküll
January 2, 2025 at 9:11 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

16/20
Cover image of Against Nature (A Rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans
January 1, 2025 at 11:17 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

15/20
Cover image of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
December 31, 2024 at 6:55 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

14/20
Cover image of A Book of Surrealist Games, compiled by Alastair Brotchie and edited by Mel Gooding
December 30, 2024 at 8:55 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

13/20
Cover image of Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer by Vik Muniz
December 29, 2024 at 3:46 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

12/20
Cover image of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
December 28, 2024 at 5:04 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

11/20
Cover image of The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs (illustrated by Edward Gorey)
December 27, 2024 at 8:23 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

10/20
Cover image of A Spicing of Birds: Poems by Emily Dickinson
December 26, 2024 at 2:26 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

9/20
Cover image of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, edited by Camille T. Dungy
December 24, 2024 at 2:58 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

8/20
Cover image of Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
December 23, 2024 at 2:13 PM
snarlsdickens.bsky.social
nothing gets me energized for the day like a hefty helping of bacon
Picture of a hand holding Francis Bacon’s book, The New Organon
December 22, 2024 at 3:49 PM