I'm so lucky to have been able to publish a great array of talented reporters and writers this year. Here's the best stuff they wrote for Hell World in 2025. Ft: @seantcollins.com @davidjroth.bsky.social @raxkingisdead.bsky.social @parkermolloy.com + ... www.welcometohellworld.com/the-best-of-...

fun announcement for the new year: ill be curating a monthly music doc series at Hot Docs next year, the first one being The Devil and Daniel Johnston at the end of January! hotdocs.ca/whats-on/cin...

i still cannot believe that leonard cohen was like damn i'm about to kick it better put out one of the best records of my extremely long career

we are at last in Famous Blue Raincoat season. Time to get out the good stationary and write letters to the estranged Scientologists in your life

blessed to come upon this loft of lads having a hang on the Feast of Stephen

Don’t forget to leave a brick out for Ben Folds this morning

Muppet Christmas Carol is a movie about all frogs are boys and all pigs are girls

If you need a classic Christmas movie to watch, look no further than Babes in Toyland from 1986, starring Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore, Pat Morita, and the dad from Empty Nest. youtu.be/ri4V5cebc30?...

Today's read is @nikostratis.com's recent memoir! It's been long enough since my memoir binge in the fall that I'm feeling refreshed on the genre, let's give it a spin~

Screwing around with playing "Fairytale of New York" on my mandolin and reminded how this time last year I made @nikostratis.com rank all the "faggot"s www.anxietyshark.ca/and-the-bell...

if I was the Grinch, once everything was cool I would ask those guys to work on another song

i FINALLY found my copy of @nikostratis.com's book in my office - had lost it for months - and opened up the epigraph page to find possibly my favorite moment from my favorite character on my second-favorite show. i am so ready for this read.

wee-woo wee-woo paging dr. christmas 🎄🩺 on.soundcloud.com/R57rFImL6HMX...

The Bridge Over Jamiroquai

We are so lucky to read @maris.bsky.social , simply the best

getting psyched for the Feast of Stephen

The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman (@nikostratis.com, @utexaspress.bsky.social, 2025) A memoir woven with clever music observations, revealing the transformative healing power of music. newbooksnetwork.com/the-dad-rock...

I loved getting to go and see friends in the states on my book tour, and doing an event with the legendary @lukeoneil47.bsky.social at the Harvard Book Store (?!?!) was a dream.

A piece from the funny and moving anthology edited by @nikostratis.com and @tuck.bsky.social featuring dozens of great LGBTQ+ writers on the HBO classic series Sex and the City. www.welcometohellworld.com/sex-change-a...

Every year it's "Paul McCartney this" and "John Lennon that" which distracts from the true reason for the season: The Kinks' perfect Christmas Song about youths jumping Santa youtu.be/fPPCPqDINEk?...

Anyway I haven’t been on text-based socials since Twitter died and talking into the void felt worse than silence. I was offline for the era of great memorials (eg: @nikostratis.com’s piece: www.fridaythings.com/recent-posts...) but I miss being quippy in a soup of professional aquaintances and nerds

Here, my favorite reading experiences of 2025, nodding to writers such as Mary Oliver, @catherinelacey.bsky.social, @baileygaylinmoore.bsky.social, Sarah Manguso, Haruki Murakami, @emilystjams.bsky.social, @nikostratis.com and (my dear) @hollypelesky.bsky.social: aarikdanielsen.com/blog/my-most...

The scariest thing in Pluribus so far has been Carol letting everyone in the world read the first draft of a chapter she wrote before dawn, 19 seconds after it emerged from the HP Printjet on her desk.

New broken man on a Halifax pier just dropped

I wish the Grinch were real just so he could be murdered on television

If you’re not subscribed to @raxkingisdead.bsky.social Patreon you’re missing out. every new round finds me saying “see, she gets it” to all my intrusive thoughts. www.patreon.com/posts/146240...

Something you can do for free is tell your friends you love them any time you want.

For Paste’s Best Music Books of 2025 list, I wrote about @nikostratis.com’s The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman and Ben Ratliff’s Run the Song www.pastemagazine.com/music/best-b...

there were so many books released this year my top 10 list has to be 12! have you read any of them? what did you think?

Honestly, “brought to you by Bank of America” is the funniest way that statement can end.

Bluesky introduces a new feature where you get two friends to sign up, and each of those two friends sign up two friends each, who will then get two new friends each and so on. Everyone gives you their social insurance number. Make $100,000 working from the comfort of your own home, it's fun and ea

an entire generation losing their minds that their children and grandchildren would DARE to do anything they don't understand and turning the full might of the world's imperial powers against the people they profess to love most

I brought Sixpence None the Richer to the Tiny Desk for some holiday cheer (and melancholy) @npr.org youtu.be/sSY_w9odHPk?...

my 2025 has been defined by the release of my debut, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman. I'm incredibly proud of the work that went into it, & everything that has come of it. Incredibly grateful for the team at @utexaspress.bsky.social for their wholehearted support of me and this project.

Thanks to Hanif Abdurraqib, Felicia Viator, Kevin Kruse, Kate Jewell, and Charles Hughes for their wonderful blurbs of my book!

Imagine bring the asshole who shows up to the function with your own corn for popping.

TODAY: @raxkingisdead.bsky.social memorializes the great Rob Reiner. “It’s not just that he made so many great films; it’s that, in multiple genres, he made *the* film, the standard of its type against which others will forever be compared.” flaminghydra.com/r/5c0fb428?m...

HARD BOILED DETECTIVE: another cruel sunrise over the city of the damned. another corpse. another widow. another cup of black coffee to drag my sorry ass back to life- *sputtering* ME: do you like it? it's an ethiopian washed process single origin DETECTIVE: ME: are you getting apricot notes

peak Bluesky to name the trending topic of everyone talking about the exhaustive transphobia of the "oops all media" machine running a Harry Potter campaign as "discontent"

We’re not running out of good ideas, but the tech fetishists who have no ideas other than “but I put a lot of money and emotion into this basket” always do, and their narcissism does not allow them to consider that their failed ideas suck, and the flop sweat is palpable.

someone mentions Dad Rock and my computer just turns itself on

@queerliblib.bsky.social just added “The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman” by @nikostratis.com, and I’m the least patient 43rd person in line you know. I’m also incredibly grateful for generous elders and brave storytellers!

My best books of the year list is up on Culture Studies. Yes, it’s paywalled, but yes, Anne Helen Petersen was able to pay me fairly in return. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to put my words in front of a community of readers. www.patreon.com/posts/very-b...

I need a SAD lamp and then a second, slightly smaller lamp that brings me down a little.

Two things you can do to make your life better: get a copy of @lukeoneil47.bsky.social incredible new book We Had It Coming, and also make a helluva mixtape from this list www.welcometohellworld.com/the-best-50i...

Oh it's cold outside? should we tell everybody? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Parson Brown?

i read (or listened to) a lot of books this year (a lot for me) and i am awarding my favorite book of the year to @nikostratis.com. a beautifully written, emotionally charged journey through songs and life. it absolutely touched me utpress.utexas.edu/9781477331484/

Wrote a newsletter about rebuilding a Walmart overnight, exhaustion, memories of home and the holidays, and why I think "Wonderful Christmastime" is good when heard in the right place.

hey i released a book this year btw. it’s called SLOPPY and it makes a great holiday present for a little sister, open-minded rabbi, or ex-con. here’s a gift link to @alexandrajacobs.bsky.social’s review of it if you’re not sure you want to give it to the slobs in your life