If you love science fiction, fantasy, and horror you MUST already subscribe to Locus Magazine... Right? linktr.ee/locusmagazine link in bio!

This week on Planetside… Our series Writing from History continues with “Unearthing Timbuktu’s Legacy: Using West African Manuscripts in SFF Worldbuilding” by Jason Collins, read by @geekartzentner.bsky.social: sfwa.org/2026/05/19/u...

Happy Book-Birthday, Multitude! Book is a book! You can get it anywhere, and also here: www.apexbookcompany.com/products/mul...

Here’s something I didn’t know I needed.

Slightly diminish a book: M.A.C. Foundation and Empire

I'll be guest-editing the special Speculative issue of Inlandia Journal - submissions opening in May.

Want to help humans travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond? Here are four ways you can work with NASA right now. science.nasa.gov/get-involved... #astronomy #biology #hamradio #scienceathome #citizenscience

The happiest of book birthdays to The Language of Liars by @slhuang.com, a story of secrets, body jumping, and the power of language! Speak another people's language. Know them. Become them. And discover you've destroyed them.

👀 I’ve been waiting for this since 2018.

This week on Planetside… Our series Writing by Other Means continues with “Using a Newsletter Platform for Serial Fiction” by @angeliqueauthor.bsky.social , read by the author: www.sfwa.org/2026/04/14/u...

A short thread about what this story means to me and why I hope readers continue to find their way to it: www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/thro...

Of course! And guess who’s open to submissions right now? @translunartl.bsky.social 👀

I remain incredibly proud of my work here! With a week left in the Hugo nom period, I'd be honored if you'd consider this work about connection, power, identity, and the erosion of all those things: "Because I Held His Name Like a Key".

Writer’s Lament: For the 2nd time IN A ROW, I discovered during a (character vs theme) revision I needed an entirely new or different antagonist / conflict…DAYS before a submission deadline. Good luck rewriting Acts II and III, Chana! 🤦🏾‍♀️ 😢

"What It’s Like To … Build Space for African Speculative Fiction from Nairobi" www.okayafrica.com/what-its-lik...

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Is the movie we all need to see right now. 👌🏾 Better than EEAAO and I love Michelle Yeoh. For heaven’s sake, do NOT miss this one m.imdb.com/video/vi3734...

Time to polish your stories - or write one if you don't have something ready!

Every time I write a non-Western, non-European story, I have to go thru to remove my Western filter: all those social ideas from a US upbringing that just don’t exist in this hemisphere or language. I’m afraid a Western reader will judge as primitive or backward. Too bad. 🙄 Writing it anyway.

Writer’s Lament: Oh, to behold the first complete rough draft. Something that began in your head like Michelangelo’s ‘David’ but looks more like Michael Bay’s Optimus Prime 🙄

I don’t know if any workshops are listening… I need a class that teaches how to develop great log lines and elevator pitches ASAP. 💰 Just that. Thanks.

Applications to join my next short story cohort are due on March 5. During the three-month period, you'll learn, write, receive critique, and polish stories for submission. I hope you'll consider applying: maryrobinettekowal.com/short-story-...

It’s grueling sometimes making our protagonist deserving / giving them that ‘unavoidable’ ending. I think last night’s class with @maggiestiefvater.bsky.social and @odysseyworkshop.bsky.social on four-act structure made things waaayy clearer. 🔦⏳🛟

Great Episode. Great Article.

My only interaction was as a freshman, he came to my university to speak. He found out there were 5-6 of us in the audience who had turned 18 after we started university. He brought us on stage and registered us to vote. I remember he had a very warm, ‘uncle’ atmosphere about him. 😭

📣 Check out the Feb ‘26 issue of @translunartl.bsky.social for this epic group of short stories (so many great ones that didn’t make it also)!

New on the @odysseyworkshop.bsky.social blog: excerpts from a Q&A with author & Your Personal Odyssey guest lecturer @henrylienauthor.bsky.social, who talks about nonlinear storytelling & the relationship between unreliable narrators and linearity odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/q...

A Writer’s Lament 😢 : So many interesting, new ideas percolating; so much time to get that working draft. (Me: Primal Screaming). Feel better now. Liat, liat (one day at a time).

I wrote a thing about short stories, why they get rejected, and what you can apply to your own work. clhellisen.beehiiv.com/p/a-view-fro...

Attention Pittsburgh-adjacent SFF writers! The Confluence writing workshops with ME are open for registration!  https://confluence-sff.org/writing-workshops The 30th annual Parsec Short Story Contest opens on January 1st and closes on March 31st.  

There’s a collective feeling of joy and unified relief in Jerusalem right now (both Israeli Arabs and Jews). If that troubles you, you should choose silence. You don’t know as much as you think you do.

👩🏽‍💻👩🏽‍💻👩🏽‍💻

Please boost! Applications for Odyssey's Online Winter Classes close on 1/18! Apply today!! www.odysseyworkshop.org/odyssey-onli...

I wholeheartedly support the great work Jeanne is doing for developing writers. It’s not too late if you can help ❤️

COMPACT Writing that refuses to perform will always be mistaken for opacity by readers who expect to be entertained instead of engaged. Modern writing is obsessed with performance. It is more important that you are seen writing, obliterating the difference between being heard and being understood.

Pluribus. 🍎 📺 Well written. Worth the watch. m.imdb.com/title/tt2220...

👀

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 430: Read. Read widely. Read what you love, and what you don't. Read what you know, and what you don't yet know. The wider your reading, the better your chance of avoiding the limitations of being influenced by only one author, one genre, one culture, one time.

🥹 I’m pretty sure I had a breakthrough today with my MC’s emotional arc (yes it does change the plot and rewrites the opening, but I hope your 💔 for his dilemma). Needless to say I owe this 💯 to what I learned in @odysseyworkshop.bsky.social

I’ll be judging this year’s Afritondo’s Short Story Prize! The theme is “Transition.” Open to African & Black writers. Cash prize $1,000. Deadline Dec 24. Guidelines below👇🏾 www.afritondo.com/call2026

Time for self promo 🙈 My scifi flash, up on Manawaker Podcast, is on the Nebula reading list 🎉🎉🎉 So please give it a go, and if you are in SFWA and enjoy it, maybe a little push? Flash + audio is a rare and precious mix that needs more support ❤️ open.spotify.com/episode/4Sqd...

Our submissions portal closes tonight at midnight US Eastern Time (UTC:-4:00). If you have a speculative fiction story of 5000 words or under, be sure to submit before then! translunartravelerslounge.com/submissions/

👀 ICYMI

Hari Seldon was right. 👑

"Glory" Common & John Legend #resist #resistance #resistancemusic #resistancetunes youtu.be/HUZOKvYcx_o?...

🧐 Curious about @odysseyworkshop.bsky.social? Check out my graduate interview:

Cadwell Turnbull shared on this Insta that his secret hack to writing was when he began setting a "floor instead of a ceiling".

This is pretty cool. science.nasa.gov/universe/exo...

Highly recommended reading 📖 💫

Yes, this: "There's this idea that the future inevitably lies in space, that the future inevitably involves super-intelligent machines. There is nothing inevitable about those visions and a great deal of reason to doubt them."