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STOP … … … … … Valentime

Roses are red / Violets are a boon / Now kiss me until I squonk like

For #ValentinesDay, I'll be posting #HistoricalHearts. Let's start with this life-size papier-mâché heart by the French anatomist Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux from the 19th century. Photo: Alex Peck.

we live in the ruins of a greater civilization

This is like a childhood memory of lipstick.

It's official - my debut art exhibition will be at this year's @easterconuk.bsky.social 🥳 Come and see fun UV paintings, space octopuses and adorable robots. I will also be selling some jewellery and clay pieces. #eastercon #art #spaceart #wirewrap

I’ve decided that this is the year I release BLACK DOE into the wild. I still have a couple of irons in the fire, but if they fizzle out, she is ready to go. I’ve done loads of work on this book with @annasmithwrites.bsky.social at @thewriteadvice.bsky.social and I want you to be able to read it.

Surely that should be ‘Skeleton Wins Olympic Gold In Matt Weston’?

Someone saying the Left is too dismissive of the dangers of AI. We are not. We understand that the dangers are fiscal, social, environmental, even neurobiological (because that shit will fuck your cognition up). We are dismissive of the science fictional claims of the snake oil salesfolk.

Angela is a fantastic writer.

Get this on your radar, and keep it there. It's special, and it'll be out this year. #historicalfantasy #fantasybooks

I’ve decided that this is the year I release BLACK DOE into the wild. I still have a couple of irons in the fire, but if they fizzle out, she is ready to go. I’ve done loads of work on this book with @annasmithwrites.bsky.social at @thewriteadvice.bsky.social and I want you to be able to read it.

Today I am the 4th Darwin quote down.

Hurrah! MORTEDANT'S PERIL has the Tchaikovsky seal of approval!

I'm reading poetry subs at Strange Horizons this month. You can submit up to 6 speculative poems in a single file or separate files. I recommend separate files, because we allow simultaneous submissions and it's easier to withdraw individual poems. Guidelines: strangehorizons.com/submit/poetr...

US Olympic Curling Team member speaks out against ICE: "I'm proud to represent Team USA. But we'd be remiss if we didn't mention what's going on in Minnesota and what a tough time it's been. What's happening is wrong. There's no shades of gray."

Hey look! A new book! Some of you may have caught The Packet serialised in ParSec magazine but this is its first outing as physical book. If you like stormy sea voyages and sci-fi, this is the one for you. Out in April, opening for pre-order now. www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.as...

Terry and Dune

The inspiration and the poem Photo: Irena Buzarewicz

Okay, fam, this book here. Let's talk about it. I had it on my desk, I went in hard at auction, and unfortunately lost out. If fucked-up bone lesbians are your jam, and you want some weird mash-up of Gideon the Ninth and fucking Gormenghast, then get this on your radar. Out in March. It's sublime.

Is this true of my poetry process? Maybe in that it always takes waaay f*cking longer than it should, and leaves a right mess. And it doesn’t always taste how I expected or wanted it to. And sometimes it makes people sick, or sad. Or you have to just abandon it completely.

Something compelled me to make this

Met a fellow dog walker this morning who I often say hello to as we pass. This time my brain couldn’t think what to say, so I just announced how many poos my dog had done so far, and then carried on walking.

Plans to invade Greenland have just been cancelled after this

Today in cursed ebay listings: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/19800722...

He’s yelling RRRRJJJ! I WANT TO COME LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE! @rjbarker.bsky.social

My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.

It’s Black History Month in the US and LGBTQ+ History Month in the UK. I’m a citizen of both, and I have a book that’s both Black and queer, like me.

Yes. In fact I have so far written two books about it, which you should immediately buy! (bsky.app/profile/nick...)

For those of you looking for a more optimistic poetry workshop, my friends at Bending the Arc magazine are running the following soon: www.dialect.org.uk/coursesworks...

The Crimson Diamond is 25% off for Steam Typing Fest 2026! 🎉⌨️ It's a text parser cozy mystery adventure set in early 1900s Canada! If you've never typed "open door" to open a door, this may be the perfect time to see if your brain is wired to love that! ❤️‍🔥🧠 store.steampowered.com/app/1098770/...

I’m a week late posting this for reasons, but on Burns Night week, we did a passage from “The Needfire” by @mkhardywrites.com. The students (16-18yo GCSE English resit students, mostly non-readers, hair, beauty, motor vehicle, carpentry, electrical, childcare etc) responded SO well to the text. 🦌 ❤️

remember when everything was possibly cake and we were driven mad by the possibility that everything was cake? don't you wish everything was possibly cake now instead of probably ai? we were such fools to squander a cake-based reality.

Here’s the monologue on its own, but the whole interview is great.

This is superb. Ian McKellen delivers a blistering pro-immigration monologue written by Shakespeare, that makes you want to punch the air with exhilaration. Wow, wow, wow. An absolute must-watch. (Starts at 20:10 but the entire interview is a joy.) youtu.be/2l2RqzVG4ag

"It shows, frankly, how 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘨𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 Trump has become - and how low standards in American public life have sunk." Watch the moment Donald Trump snaps at a female reporter who dared ask him a question about Epstein victims… @maitlis.bsky.social | @lewisgoodall.com

First mentioned in Roman sources over 1,700 years ago as a collective name for troublesome, barbaric peoples, the Picts went on to become the dominant kingdom in northern Britain 💪 On 12 February, explore their southern kingdoms at this online event: www.digitscotland.com/events/east-...

The Spring #NorthSeaPoets course starts tonight! Missed out on tickets? Want first access to new courses and events? Subscribe for reflections on poetry, poetics and the writing life that complement our online courses and events delivered to your inbox ✉️ northseapoets.substack.com #PoetrySky

We've had two orders this year which is frankly unsustainable from a business and income standpoint 😅 So uh, check out all our cool products like gelly cube soaps (with full dice set inside) at www.tabletoptinkering.com Free UK shipping over £30! #smallbusiness #ttrpg #dice #dnd

MAGIC HOOTON

🚀 Fission #6 - Call for Submissions Opens 12am Feb 13th - Closes at 11.59pm Feb 27th. We're looking for sf stories (including all subgenres/hybrids) between 1k and 5k words that have not been published before in an English language source. Find out more:

One of my GCSE English resit students took a notebook out at the end of class today and showed me that he’d taken the story he started in class last week and copied it in there to work on. 😭😭😭😭😭

“So it was, on that misty morning, that Brenda set off for the capital. She knew not what she would find there, only that the time had come to move on - away from small-minded rural attitudes and people who called her ‘Oreo’ and ‘the wide panda’ - to seek a more fulfilling life.”

“Ointment” is a good word, isn’t it?

I’m only a humble science fiction writer but this seems like a terrible terrible idea.

Please spread this far and wide, as stories don't get much bigger than this. When the government blocks even the intelligence services from telling us we're heading for environmental catastrophe, you know we have a problem. A very big problem. Thank you. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Please Don’t Say Mean Things about the AI That I Just Invested a Billion Dollars In www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ple...

tag yourself i’m I AM MANOEUVRING WITH DIFFICULTY