Parmotrema perlatum with a tiny Usnea cornuta on a Pedunculate Oak twig, in woodland near Eason's Green, East Sussex

You've heard of looksmaxxing but the new thing is heightminning. Getting smaller every day. Becoming a little lad. A cherub-cheeked Fauntleroy with a big lolly, or perhaps a leprechaun.

May Day is the real Labor Day. Look for events spanning the whole Portland metro area, including this gathering in the South Park Blocks. A better world is possible!

I haven't really been able to write for a couple of months because I've been stressed out about finances. Still no progress on the money front, but today I actually wrote 1000 words on a weird new project! (Which is doubly good, because when I don't write, I get depressed, which worsens anxiety.)

I have Crohn's Disease. At some point, my intestine will begin to necrose. If I then hook myself up to your digestive tract so you have no choice but to drag me around with you wherever you go, would you accept "but you can't disconnect her!

Spent some time today writing about the Weirdness of Jan Švankmajer's ALICE and Haruki Murakami's KILLING COMMENDATORE. It was fun!

The whole "62 million monthly visitors at the website for drugging and r*ping your partners" thing today has combined with the general miasma of news and online grossness to make me feel really done with humanity.

I am getting so excited about tonight's @powells.bsky.social event with @lauracranehill.bsky.social! Her book is so beautiful and she is so smart and cool. So glad I get to help celebrate its launch.

Yet another reason to avoid Starbucks!

Today on Instagram I saw a post on Instagram that mentioned how women's writing often gets miscategorized as YA just because it's by a woman. The post then went on to praise recent YA horror novels ... including my adult horror novel GIRL IN THE CREEK. *head desk*

Candace Nola is incredible and the first to lend a helping hand when people need it. Now she needs us. Please give if you can, and please share far and wide.

Of our horror people -- Candace Nola -- needs our help RIGHT NOW to afford life-saving care. www.gofundme.com/f/urgent-and...

It is tax time so every self-employed person I know is talking about health insurance and the paradox that earning more money to pay for higher premiums then makes you ineligible for the subsidies so you actually end up with less $. Fixing this mess is what our government SHOULD be working on.

As wealth concentrates, so does power — the power to influence elections, shape policy, tilt markets and define the terms of public debate. Taxing billionaires is not radical. What is radical is allowing a system where extreme wealth exists alongside widespread hardship.

"threads so much existential emptiness, human loneliness, and black comedy into these instructions" So grateful to see this kind review by @mariahaskins.com for my flash story, "How To Set Up Your Mourning Robot" in @lightspeedmagazine.com 🙏 locusmag.com/review/light...

“Memphis is now being asked to believe that becoming a hub for artificial intelligence will secure its economic future. But economic development that does not center environmental protection, public health, and equitable access to opportunity is not development. It is extraction.”

Do you like podcasts? Do you like deep talk about awesome books? Then don't miss CONNECT THE PLOTS WITH ERIK & CYLIA! Catch the first episode (an interview with @matociquala.bsky.social !!) where podcasts are podcasted, or on Youtube at: youtu.be/bB6DPXkvjrc

Portlanders! Are you pining for a brain-melting discussion of weird and terrifying mushrooms? Then join @lauracranehill.bsky.social and I at Powell's (Burnside location) at 7 pm tomorrow to discuss her amazing debut novel, WIFE SHAPED BODIES. www.powells.com/events/laura...

I have thought and talked more about popes this year than any time I wasn't taking a history class!

The same week the NYTimes was devoting its significant resources to producing this ridiculous piece about Lauren Sanchez Bezos's call for rich people to not worry and be happy, Ryan Hass, an independent journalist in Oregon, was investigating this horrifying story about a death in an Amazon plant.

Hundreds of thousands of people with Temporary Protected Status followed every rule and built lives here. Now Trump wants to deport them anyway. Tell Congress: stop these cruel TPS deportations and codify these protections immediately.

So happy and excited to see that @sentencebender.bsky.social's wonderful story "Courtney Lovecraft's Book of the Dead" is a finalist for the Locus Awards!! And truly delighted to see that LIGHTSPEED MAG is up for Best Magazine, along with @johnjosephadams.com & I for Best Editor.

Submitted an unsolicited story to a market this morning. I'm pretty sure it will get rejected, and it's a great feeling. It's nice to participate in the old rituals of being a normal-ass writer!

If you didn't know what sort of publisher Skyhorse Publishing was before, well, now you do. #WritingCommunity

Hideous stuff, and important reporting from a new journalism project here in Oregon.

Sure it's late but not too late for a blog update horrorsong.blog/2026/04/13/t...

Happy 20 years of Neil banging out the tunes 🐀🎶🎉

Support Locus and you support writers, readers, reviewers, and publishers in the spec fic world.

Spring has sprung and it’s the perfect time to go mushroom foraging and check out these fungal horror stories by authors like @bitterkarella.bsky.social, @tiffmorris.bsky.social, @silviamg.bsky.social, @tkingfisher.com, and @wnwagner.bsky.social

Powerful people in the US are working day and night to convince us that Trump is unstoppable and he’s never even cracked 50% at the polls. This can absolutely happen here. Granted it would help if Democrats got on board instead of being in the way.

Every win, no matter how seemingly small, no matter how far away, is a cool refreshing drink after crawling through the desert of evil we’ve witnessed this last year and a half. Fuck the fascists. Freedom for all.

BREAKING: Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán has called Péter Magyar to concede defeat in today's election. With 53.45% of votes counted, Magyar's TISZA looks set to secure a super majority. A defeat for Putin, a defeat for Trump, a victory for Europe, and above all, a victory for the Hungarian people.

PREORDER PREORDER THIS SOUNDS SO GOOD

Some days you just have to make a microwave S'more, even if the only crackers you have are Milton's Crispy Sea Salt.

People often posit that the future is dependent on what we do today. And that may be the case. But I am thinking more and more that what we do today actually depends on our image of the future. When I apply this to our current library fight, this crystallizes.

this morning was a whirlwind, let me properly flail now!! HI YES I'm honored that "Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight" is available over at @lightspeedmagazine.com! it's a tragic sapphic space knights story with SO much mess. it's fine!! ✨ 🪐 www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/sain... 🪐

Imagine not understanding the grossness of "only people who pay a lot of money will have access to child actors".

Better than March Madness: this awesome HIVE MIND BRACKET BATTLE. Get in there and vote!

If you are a nerd in PDX, note that The Secret Pizza Society Montavilla has a Pizza Week pizza called THE TAUMOEBA. everout.com/portland/eve...

{endless fucking howling}

The new short story up at NIGHTMARE this week is "The Final Girl Trap" by @acwise.bsky.social -- it's sexy, it's scary, it's bloody! Don't miss it. www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-...

"We firmly believe that dark fiction is a bulwark against the forces of the world eager to reduce our human experience to dollars and cents." From the NIGHTMARE April editorial: www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/e...

This is hilarious!

Oh man. eluki wrote a ton of the formative works of my youth. A massive loss.

Stop using this shit, please💥

Anybody want a highly realistic, life size human skull made from a 3d scan of a 14th century archaeological site in Visby, Sweden? I make and sell these. DM for details.

Let's talk hive minds! The Many comes out 4/21 and it's a hive mind story from the perspective of the "hiveminded" (think reverse Pluribus). First question, what are your favorite hive minds from any kind of fiction? (books, movie, tv, games...)

I posted my latest round of little book reviews, covering my reading in February and March, with stuff I liked by @wnwagner.bsky.social and Ray Nayler and @scumbelievable.bsky.social and @qntm.org and Bora Chung and @joerlansdale.bsky.social (there's also some "life update" stuff at the top)

Despite what North Carolina DOT says in this chart below, biking, scootering, skateboarding, walking, and running are all legitimate, reliable, ADULT ways of commuting.

I think people who are not cyclists do not quite understand how often those of us who bike are told that we deserve to die because we have chosen a mode of transit that isn't a car