Our book reading of "I am a Marble!" will be with mom before our final goodbye at funeral home. Mom would have been proud her grandchild wrote this and we will bury the first printed copy with her. 😭

A 94-year-old man traveling solo in Lhasa, capital of the Xizang Autonomous Region, has wowed netizens after revealing he has visited every Chinese province, municipality, and autonomous region, using AI to plan his trips before booking his own tickets and hotels.

Before Hollywood, I was living in a van in Hawaii and waiting tables at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. One day, the incredible Rae Dawn Chong walked into the restaurant, and naturally, I went up to her table and said, “Hey, you’re a movie star! What are you doing here?” She asked if I could act, and I said, “Fuck yeah, put me in your movie!” She asked for my phone number. The only problem was I didn’t have one. So I gave her my buddy Mike’s number instead. A couple days later, Mike casually mentions, “Oh, by the way, someone called you.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME, MIKE?! I called her back, and sure enough, she was serious. I drove over to pick up the script, went back to Mike’s house, and read all 120 pages three times in a row. First script I’d ever read. My character's name was Devon, and I remember thinking, “Sweet! I could totally play a Devon!” I showed up to the audition with every line and inflection mapped out in pencil. Rae told me I could act and offered me the part. I asked if we were shooting in Hawaii. Nope. Los Angeles. I had about $60 to my name, a bag of clothes, and some rollerblades. Then Rae told me they'd fly me out. And I remember thinking right then and there, my life just changed forever. I'm going to be an actor. That little movie was Cursed Part 3, a low-budget horror comedy that opened the door to Hollywood for me. I'll forever be grateful to Rae for taking a chance on a kid working at a shrimp restaurant. Everybody starts somewhere, and this is where it all began for me.

In 1986, two NYPD detectives pulled a young man over, handcuffed him and put him in the trunk of a car. It wasn’t an arrest. They were delivering him to a mafia boss who was paying them to do it. Six years later, one of those detectives went on daytime TV to sell a book about being an honest cop, and the young man’s mother was watching. In the video below, you can see the real 1992 talk show appearance that started his downfall. Louis Eppolito spent over 20 years in the NYPD and was one of its most decorated detectives. His father was a Gambino family associate. He even had a small part in Goodfellas. His book was called “Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob.” The truth was the opposite. Since 1985, he and his partner Stephen Caracappa, who worked in the NYPD’s own organized crime homicide unit, had been on the payroll of Lucchese underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso. Casso later said he paid them $375,000 for police secrets and murder contracts. The young man in the trunk was Jimmy Hydell, a mob associate who had tried to kill Casso. The detectives handed him over, and Casso tortured and killed him. His body has never been found. Prosecutors said the two cops were paid $45,000 for that job. His mother had seen two men circling her house the day he vanished. Six years later, she saw one of them on Sally Jessy Raphael. The host asked him if he ever lost sleep at night. “Oh no, not at all.” She bought his book and recognized his partner in the photos. Then she stayed silent for 11 more years. Who do you report two cops to? In 2005, both retired detectives were arrested at an Italian restaurant in Las Vegas. They were charged with taking part in eight murders, one of them an innocent man shot because he had the same name as the real target. Eppolito got life plus 100 years and died in federal custody in 2019. If one mother hadn’t been watching daytime TV that day, would they have died as decorated heroes?

“England: we're going to have to opt out of that one.” This has aged magnificently. It speaks to astounding talent that they could make 17th-century geopolitics hilarious to a 21st-century audience.

Chinese period drama explaining modern finance. This is how Chinese use AI

Looking forward to "Be Water: An Evening of Poetry" with poet Grace on Wednesday, November 4, 6:30pm-8:00pm, at Upstart & Crow, Vancouver, BC asiancanadianwriters.ca/2026… #asiancanadian

Throwback to one of the CUTEST moments from the Pokémon Japan Championships 2026! 💕 Grass 🌱, Water 💧, and Fire 🔥 types turned the arena into an adorable dance party, and we're still not over it! Which Pokémon stole the show for you? 👀 #Pokemon #pjcs2026 #PokemonJapanChampionships #Cute

Visit the #ArtsyRaven #podcast and @DarkHelixPress @CanConSF! #ottawa specfic literarycon

The work of Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder (1931-2021) #WomensArt

This guy shares some English alternatives to the phrase “you’re stupid”

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#AlisonGadsby shares how she balanced raising three children while returning to school to study English, and why community plays such an important role for writers. artsyraven.com/ @guernica_ed #speculativefiction, @riverstwriting @UBC @YorkUniversity

#BrianCeci shares his experience growing up Hard of Hearing, and explains why patience is one of the most valuable qualities a filmmaker can develop. artsyraven.com/ @TELUS, #documentary, #Canadian,  #deaf,  @Discovery,  #OMNI

M. C. JOUDREY discusses the importance of safeguarding copyright for creatives, and why both community and professionalism are essential for writers to succeed. artsyraven.com/ @guernica_ed, @CBC , #ManitobaBookAwards, #Manitoba, @atbaypress, #canlit,@riverstwriting

The sequel to a $239 million movie fell apart over a $110,000 offer. And the writer who walked away just got handed the entire franchise. Crazy Rich Asians cost Warner Bros $30 million in 2018 and grossed $239 million worldwide. First studio film with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. A sequel should have been greenlit before opening weekend ended. Instead the franchise went dark for seven years. The unraveling started with the pay offers. Co-writer Peter Chiarelli, the veteran who wrote The Proposal, was offered $800,000 to $1 million for the sequel. Adele Lim, the writer Jon M. Chu brought in to give the script its cultural voice, was offered around $110,000. Chiarelli offered to split his own fee with her. She turned it down, said what she makes shouldn't depend on the generosity of the white-guy writer, and quit. Warner Bros came back months later with an offer near parity. She passed on that too. Without her, the sequel never recovered. Chu left to make In the Heights and then Wicked. Two separate sequel attempts collapsed. The most bankable rom-com of its decade produced nothing for most of a decade. Now look at the structure of what got announced. The HBO series runs through Lim's own production company, 100 Tigers, with Lim as showrunner, writer, and executive producer. Chu and Kevin Kwan are EPs on her show. Constance Wu, Henry Golding, and Michelle Yeoh are all back. In 2019 the studio wouldn't match her co-writer's $800,000. In 2027 the same studio is putting the whole franchise in her hands. Walking away from the biggest credit of her career looked like a terrible move for a first-time feature writer. It turned out to be the trade that got her everything.

Happy 69th birthday to Rumiko Takahashi. She is the creator of Inuyasha, Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, One Pound Gospel and many legendary mangas that got turned into animes.

Thanks to everyone who came to the last Quick Reads of 2026!.Our next event is going to look a little... different. Details coming soon! Here at SW-SW it wouldn't be the end of the year without MadLibs! But we're still getting our pteredactyls in a row. 😅

Caught up with @JFGarrard, Author, Publisher, President of Canadian Authors Association Toronto at Word On The Street. JF interviewed me on her The Artsy Raven podcast where I read from my comedy novel, THE SUFI SURFER: youtu.be/7c-L1TEiuSE?si=ODQz… #TheSufiSurfer #WOTS #TorontoAuthor