We've waited so long to yell this: IF YOU'RE A SUBSCRIBER OR KICKSTARTER BACKER, ISSUE 1 IS IN YOUR INBOX! 🪐🗡️ Issue 1 will be free to read online March 15th, but if you can't wait, get your hands on it RIGHT NOW! Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/othersidespe... Patreon Shop: www.patreon.com/othersidespe...

A decent chunk of my political philosophy is embodied by the phrase "It's never okay to kill children."

Does anyone have *personal* good experience w. any trans relocation orgs, before I tell people to send them money. I have had a not-great experience last year (just general total unresponsiveness - I know people are overloaded, but a "sry we're overloaded" would've been nice.) Feel free to DM

So if you (like me) are incredibly sad / mad / furious about Kansas stripping trans people of rights with no notice, please donate to the Trans Continental Pipeline. www.zeffy.com/en-US/donati...

Let me say this: There's a fairly high chance that a court will take a look at this and stay the law and you will forget about the fact that the Kansas Legislature tried to criminalize nearly every trans person in the state. That will be a mistake.

So I feel (both as a reader & author) like discoverability of new books is down lately, especially for the midlist. Please tell me some recently published (past year-ish) SFF books you loved that are midlist/overlooked/deserve more hype! (And please share your recs/this list!) My recs in reply!

Wow Gogo was second in the free skate!!!

Booksellers are total heroes who keep us falling in love with reading. They are vitally important to our communities. So I'm delighted that for the next 2 days sales of the audiobook of Lessons in Magic and Disaster via @libro.fm will benefit BINC, which helps booksellers in need 🥰 libro.fm/binc

It's also on sale for $2.99 w/ Canadian e-book retailers (at least with Kobo and Amazon) so now's the time to get on the Asunder train! (Do you like body-sharing? Do you like weird and compelling worlds? Do you want to fight the gods? Try Asunder!)

one of the greatest human triumphs of my lifetime is the relentless, unceasing, heroic effort by DECADES' worth of doctors and scientists to find a cure for a disease much of the world didn't take seriously for years because it predominantly affected a community they thought kinda deserved it

the children are protesting from inside the camps. i hope they know that we hear them.

YOUR PHONE CALLS TO THE SENATE ARE WORKING. KEEP CALLING. 202–224-3121 Three Democrats who previously broke with the party and voted with the GOP are now saying they will not vote for the bill. That’s enough for the bill to be unpassable right now.

Still, call your senators and tell them NO FUNDING FOR ICE AT ALL and stress to them that they must vote NO to any "reforms" like "training" and body cams that would give more money to ICE. NO. DEFUND AND ABOLISH. THAT'S IT. You can find your senators here: reps.fyi

In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.

Good morning to everyone but especially our friends in Minnesota bravely organizing a general strike & protest in -20F weather. In their honor, no wishlist posting today. Please check out standwithminnesota.com for ways to help them! 💕

I think it's important to boost news of the general strike in Minneapolis today and it's possible to do it without the hyperbole that nobody in the media is covering it It may not be getting the attention it deserves! Posting links to reported stories is one way to combat that!

Call your reps. Let them know that if they vote for ICE funding, you will not vote for them ever again. Representatives need to feel the heat. NO on ICE funding. No excuses.

I don't want to share a photo where the child's face isn't blurred out, but that image of that 5 year old boy in his little beanie and backpack being taken out of his home in Minnesota by ICE will haunt me. What are fucking doing. Anyone arguing this is a good thing should be tried at The Hague.

If someone tries to tell you that what’s happening now is only about capturing undocumented people, just, no. Among many things that are happening, they are stealing our children, shipping them across the country, and imprisoning them. Liam is FIVE.

This is CRITICAL. I know you’re all putting your back into mutual aid & a thousand other great things, but if there’s anything left here, so many folks depend on these front-line lawyers right now.

Every time I see someone say "why are people afraid if they aren't breaking the law" I want to force them, Clockwork Orange style, to read 100 articles about people who were legal immigrants! with work permits! with no criminal history! who were kidnapped by ICE. Anyway donate to this guy please

For ease of navigation and sharing, I have turned my little list into a website: standwithminnesota.org

Hey I'm posting this again to keep it rolling. I'm a Kobo reader now and I really appreciate Kobo plus

This is a brilliant book. Absolutely one of the high points of what you can *do* with fantasy.

"I'm not in Minnesota -- what can I do to help?" A list of ideas!

You need to be willing to plant trees knowing you will never sit in their shade

Everyone’s been doing hockey romance recs — and good thing! — but I’d like to also take a moment and point out that there’s a ton of great Asian-Canadian contemporary romance writing happening right now too!

Wow. None of my boycotts have ever gone anywhere. But Target is hurting and now Spotify reversed itself. (I was one of the people who quit Spotify and told them why.) Still though, annoyed Goya and Walmart aren’t bankrupt yet.

u heard sharon, everyone post about their esoteric interests right fucking now. for the good of the community, we need to be hyperfixationmaxxing.

More updates have been made to the eligibility and recommendations link post. Just look at all the fabulous things people have done this year! acwise.net/what-have-yo...

*whispers* Alecto Halloween?

Oh hey, Indigo has Mercutio among its "most anticipated books of 2026", so it is 30% off until Jan. 11. ($18.89 CAD for the paperback, which comes out in August). I'd love this novel to find its readers, and pre-orders help, so Canadians, please check it out if you can www.indigo.ca/en-ca/mercut...

10% of profits from this special edition will be donated to Mermaids, a charity that works to support trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people in the UK. I'm very happy and excited about this one!

Worth noting that even as Trump bombs Venezuela to unilaterally seize Maduro on domestic US charges, the ICC judges who voted to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan face such severe US banking sanctions that they are for all intents and purposes excluded from modern life.

I don’t love you and I’m not holding your hand: call your Senator and tell them that the must shut down the government on January 30th until this ends, a thing that Democrats have the hard power to do at this very moment.

My attitude on this is that I'm not calling them because I think I can change their minds. I'm calling them because it is unthinkable to let them do this without hearing how evil and awful they are. My spite powers me. If I can get just 500 people a day to join me, we could fuck up their day.

This is a dangerous and irresponsible response. Cheering the illegal abduction of a foreign head of state and celebrating U.S. control over another country is wrong. Canada cannot pick & choose when international law applies. If the rules only matter when it’s convenient, they don’t protect anyone

You don't have to give a big speech. They're counting numbers - seeing how many constituents care enough to call in. Just tell them to impeach for this illegal war. Also, make sure you only call YOUR reps - they don't care about out-of-district calls. You can do this. It'll just take a minute. 💪

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

🏳️‍🌈SOME QUEER SHORT SFF - NOVEMBER 2025🏳️‍🌈 I round up over 15 stories by @arielmarkenjack.bsky.social @marisca.bsky.social @sarahpinsker.bsky.social @nicowritesbooks.bsky.social @yoakeim.bsky.social @renanbernardo.com @authorizedmusings.bsky.social & MANY MORE!!! www.patreon.com/posts/147084...

2025 was by far the strongest year ever for novels by trans writers from major publishers -- and that's before you get down to smaller presses and self-published stuff, which were also cooking. God, I hope it sustains in 2026 and beyond. A lot of these books sold well! The audience is there!

Today only, Automatic Noodle e-books are on sale for $2.99 on all platforms! Grab one while they're still hot and chewy! bookshop.org/p/books/auto...

If you're wondering whether the "open letter about AI" on file 770 is worth reading and engaging, it is not. The whole thing is rhetorical mush so it was no surprise when I got to the end and she admitted "her" letter was itself written by AI. Useless bait.

Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season! There’s only one week left in the year—which means we are ONE WEEK away from opening to fiction and poetry submissions on January 1st! Get your original fiction and poetry ready ✨ othersidespec.com/guidelines/

They actually linked to the tags for the 10 most popular ships, so if you write hockey rpf you might want to lock your ao3

New from me: The storied fiddler Ashley MacIsaac wanted to play a show at a Nova Scotia First Nation. It got cancelled because Google's AI search summary incorrectly called him a sex offender. Now he's worried for his safety www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...

The survey is open to non-members (I am not one) and to readers (who here is not &c.) so I encourage you to share your feelings on the matter. Don't assume that everyone already understands that AI is bad or why! I mean, people *should*, but you could say that about a lot of things.

If you -- perhaps due to some recent television-watching -- are looking for some secret relationship-type content, that is also funny (those footnotes!), romantic, and contains fascinating fantasy worldbuilding/magic, I highly recommend this!