The Victorian Gothic as accidentally heimlich? I love this.

While I am getting loads of attention I wasn't expecting... did you know I run the free education programme 'Romancing the Gothic' which has free online classes from experts around the world every week? Get your tickets here! share.google/tegHFYWn1yp7...

Our very famous madame Lou Graham apparently had a little diamond-encrusted dagger that she used as a hatpin (and also as a dagger for when people would try to rob her) and I love this. (Thank you to writer & historian Hannah Brooks Olsen for this info!)

Listening to a talk about how Seattle was founded on sex work and gambling and honestly, not sure much has changed?

Need a special word to convey the feeling of opening up an exciting advance PDF of a wonderful local writer's book and Acrobat saying: "This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI assistant."

Today is brought to you by discovering they make gluten-free graham crackers, and then eating an entire sleeve of said crackers.

Do you like shadow puppets, weird dreamy art, Macbeth, and/or gruesome anecdotes about Mary Shelley? If you checked any of the above, I've got you covered with a piece on Manual Cinema's latest: www.thestranger.com/TheaterAndPe...

The fact-checker in me has been compelled lately to point out that the subsidies at debate in the shutdown are the *expanded* ones from 2021. They are not *any subsidies at all* or the existence of the ACA in general, whatever Trump may be frothing about. www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-rese...

Being chronically ill is like having a luxury shopping habit that's not actually any fun. And doesn't involve any luxury products.

I was today years old when I discovered that the desire to escape enslavement was once considered a mental illness in some quarters. jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/200...

Spotted @markyarm.bsky.social at the Legendary Easy Street Records, which also happens to be my favorite breakfast joint in town. I love how it's always 1994 in there.

Cool event alert, London edition — this event at the British Library on maps, the mysterious, and the uncanny looks just great. Go in my stead! events.bl.uk/events/mappi...

Still looking for a few brave souls for The Last Word Society — a tiny year-end creative circle for research-based writing + accountability. We’ll meet Tuesday eves, Nov 18–Dec 16, to share work + keep each other accountable. Details → besslovejoy.com/last-word/ password: Research

Glad that if I have to live in the US of A, I live in Washington state. I just got off the phone with my insurance broker, who explained that as a result of some defensive strategies by the state, my health insurance tax credits are increasing significantly — not decreasing, let alone ending.

The neighborhood association that set up an ofrenda in my building's lobby seems to have put a challah out instead of pan de muerto? It's not even Shabbos so I am confused.

Brought to you by the 1.5 hours I just spent interviewing a widow about her amazing husband's career. There were tears, bon mots, a show and tell. This is not an assembly line.

I'm sure this whole "Use ChatGPT and double your output" thing that creatives (ugh) are now pressured to do makes sense superficially, but it does not take into account the bandwidth it takes to hold a subject in your mind/heart and treat it carefully. Writing & art are not factory widgets.

A haunted house but it's a library of empty shelves with signs that you can just get the books on Amazon.

In the Seattle area? Consider supporting this at the Northwest Detention Center/Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma on Saturday.

Sometimes paintings are also short stories. Like this one, Figures in a House by Antonio López García www.march.es/en/palma/col...

RIP to another great place I used to work.

This Peter Schjeldahl quote in a great Jen Graves piece from 2007: "Art is a zone of permanent floating confusion amid the petty certainties of life, and people who can't handle it should really go into the family business and leave the rest of us alone." www.thestranger.com/visual-art/2...

I've been fascinated by the idea of apiaries in cemeteries since hives were set up at Green-Wood in Brooklyn. So I loved writing about the Catacomb Bee Collective at Evergreen-Washelli in Seattle. Can we just agree they have the coolest logo? seattlemag.com/outside/hive...

This will probably get me on some kind of list, but once again for those in the back: Judaism is not the same thing as Zionism. One is a religion and a culture, the other a nationalist ideology. Many, many Jews are not Zionists.

Some excellent points here.

For those of you interested in the discussions around human remains in museums, I wrote about the new policy at the Mütter Museum and the controversy that led to it: www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/10/14/f...

Anyway, I loved what this book had to say about Gray Gardens -- among other things. Highly recommend @leilataylor.bsky.social's latest.

I'm starting to find the phrase "spooky season" grating. I'd start a petition to replace it with "macabre months," but the fact is confining it to a certain season means y'all are AMATEURS

Ooh — I like everything about this call for pitches.

When I wrote my little book Northwest Know-How: Haunts a couple years back, there were a few stories that demanded further exploration. Comet Lodge was definitely one of the most complicated, but I'm happy with how this feature in @thestranger.com turned out. www.thestranger.com/city/2025/10...

I have decided to be the dead chick from Viy for Halloween, and it's the first time I'm dressing up in many years. I'm excited, but would be more so if I could get a flying coffin.

My special talent is working gruesome Mary Shelley anecdotes into almost any piece, test me.

Some fantastic resources here, including tips on reading scientific papers, finding scientists to interview, and more. When I oversaw writers, science stories were far and away the ones people struggled with the most, and a lot of the issues are more preventable than you might think.

Just had an uncomfortable memory of the time I led a boat tour of the weird islands around NYC for Atlas Obscura and, at the end, a man said to me, "You didn't write and research all that yourself, did you?" Now I suspect he wouldn't even ask -- he'd just assume I'd used AI.

Just a little appreciation post here, but I get almost all of my daily news from public radio, and I'm consistently thankful for — and in awe of — the journalists at NPR.

Oooh, I know some of y'all do ...

Had a great time at Evergreen-Washelli cemetery in Seattle yesterday, visiting the bees at the Catacomb Bee Collective. They have about 20 hives on 3 acres, plus a hive near the lobby. There's even a display on the custom of "telling the bees." Best honey ever. Story coming soon in Seattle Mag!

AI hucksters have such boring ideas, at least P. T. Barnum was out there sewing half a monkey to a fish

Nothing about working for my student newspaper prepared me for sending emails that are like "Hey, hope you're doing well. Sorry the National Guard is being sent to your city for no reason. Now, about that invoice ..."

“Most writers are not really sold—they’re told, implicitly or explicitly, to sell themselves.” (@ilanaslightly.bsky.social)

Just another morning in war-ravaged Portland, being terrorized by Japanese confections. (With @billy-sigil.bsky.social)

I know we've all said this before, but the writing on this season of America is just so bad. Like AI could do better than this.

Actually no I'm sorry, the worst thing that happened to me in Portland was when I realized we'd finished this gluten free pizza.

I'm sorry but I go to Portland all the time, stay downtown, walk around at night, and the worst thing that's ever happened is that an irritating person on a bicycle asked if they could read my tarot cards.

Accidentally spelled October "Octobert" and now I want a Halloween spin-off of Bert and Ernie.

Does anyone else have an elderly cat who wants to snuggle in the morning while also hitting them in the face repeatedly, or am I just lucky?

It's important for Bluesky to know that someone has left a potato in front of the mysterious cable building in my neighborhood. It can only mean one thing. (But I don't know what.)

Lately I've been saying that almost everything is better with chickpeas and the NYT just posted a sheet-pan ratatouille with chickpeas that confirms my point. This is the only life hack I have: When in doubt, add chickpeas.

Language revitalization is improving Indigenous physical and mental health, UBC researchers say

One of my many moods. Also what happens when I don't get what I want.