Big Projects, Big Changes
Bowler Hat Science from Matthew R Francis
As 2024 limps to a close, I’m dumping some random information that might be of interest or not, depending on how closely you follow what’s going on with my life. The first update is about the social media network Bluesky, and the next is a very vague set of hints about what I’m working on next that may be of interest to a lot of you. Or not. Who knows.
Goodbye, Bluesky
First of all, I’m off all social media for the first time since 2007, which is a big change. The story of why I left Bluesky is too long for this newsletter (and probably again not of interest to most of you anyway), so I put it on my long-neglected blog. As I noted in that post, I might come back eventually — blessedly Bluesky makes it impossible for someone to grab my handle, unlike Twitter — but for now I’m going to try living without and see how I do.
Plans for 2025
Meanwhile, I have many projects brewing for 2025 and hopefully beyond. Some of them I can talk about, others are too early to share publicly, but here’s the gist:
I have a huge proposal in the works that would upend my entire professional life, hopefully for the better. Among other things, this project is designed to help myself and others in this very difficult period for science journalists, when publications are folding, laying off writers, or otherwise making it hard to thrive. Stay tuned!
For the newsletter, I plan to dust off some of my old writings (going back 10 years or more) and revising them for you. Some of these topics are relevant still, others need to be updated as I personally have changed my views. That will solve the problem of content here and keep me from having to write entirely new things when I’m super busy.
Speaking of busy and projects, I’m resuming work on fiction projects, which have languished. The first of these is a horror comic with my frequent artist collaborator Maki Naro, which unfortunately is all too relevant today, involving horrible beings taking over the country. The second is a novel I started writing a while back, but ran out of steam.
Anyway, this is probably my last newsletter for 2025, unless one of my articles publishes before the end of the year, so I hope you all can find some peace despite everything. See you next year!
Bowlerhattishly thine,
Matthew
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