September sub window: OPEN 🪟

whoa october is around the corner! reminder that we'll be open again for novellas soon. more info here: www.neonhemlock.com/submissions

Day 3 of our Five Questions with @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social sch and she is making me post this graphic with an anglerfish on it--me, a person who refuses to go beyond ankle-deep in the ocean SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE OF CREATURES LIKE THESE! Thanks, Aubrey. Just buy GRAPHIC RAGE, y'all.

🌹 Claudia Cardinale 🌹 (15/04/1938🕊23/09/25)

Have a rapturous Bi Visibility Day!

I just got four hot new books all at once from Libby, so I’ll see you in a bit.

Equinox, babies!

Team Equinox or Team Rapture? I'm Team Equinox because it has never let me down.

"Tell this new stranger to save you." Read this @maeganpoland.bsky.social story in Monkey Bicycle. The best flash makes you hold your breath until the end. monkeybicycle.net/empty-houses/

We somehow lost our glow-in-the dark skeleton when we moved cross country. This is the time of year when I think of him and wonder what he might be doing now.

Terrible-terrible news day. Year. Anyway this is our actual wedding anniversary (as opposed to our secret date in April, which was done for health insurance.) I don’t feel very celebratory but here is a naturally occurring bouquet.

"I had been trying to write a novel called Gaslit for about 7 years, on and off, and it went nowhere. There's no other way to explain it but a man's voice came to me, and off I went. Gaslit turned into The Stalker." - Paula Bomer interviewed by @frank212.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

I have a new story in Craft Literary, “Two Old Friends and a Ghost Walk Into the Woods”, about the people & places that haunt us. would be so thrilled for you to read this one 👻 🌲 🤍 www.craftliterary.com/2025/09/19/t...

"Maybe when kids like Jessie & John grew up they wanted to be firefighters or teachers or someone that excavates dinosaurs, but you never really knew what you wanted to be because you always had this inexplicable notion you’d be dead." Check out Casey Jo Graham Welmers's 🔥 essay "Conjuring a Life"

There’s a difference between corporations capitulating out of fear and corporations welcoming rising fascism as an opportunity to do whatever in the hell they actually want to do without fear of repercussions.

My first academic article was on the dictatorship of Uzbekistan inventing a group called "Akromiya" that did not really exist but which they used to arrest anyone with whom they disagreed under the pretext of "terrorism". Just bringing this up for no reason whatsoever!

"Just imagine: a hairy little guy who looks embarrassed to be spotted in the world has caused so much historic fuss." A truly delightful piece by @janstinchcomb.bsky.social in Monkeybicycle monkeybicycle.net/little-devil/

"People are often at their worst after terrible things happen to someone." If you want a masterful, disturbing story to accompany our present reality, read this and blame @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social

"To save face, turn away from the sun. Turn away from the spatter of cold rain against the cheek…" www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/safe... Out today for everyone in @nightmare-magazine.com

Yesterday was pub day for my novella collection, ISSUES WITH AUTHORITY. I never know how to convince people to buy things so I figured I'd just talk a bit about the three included stories and where they come from, to mark the occasion.

Wrote a photo essay for @puncturedlines.bsky.social about nostalgia, Soviet-era children’s books, speculative fiction, and a recent trip to the country of Georgia. Come for the picture of baby-me talking into a mall phone. Stay for Svetlana Boym 💗 ➡️ puncturedlines.com/2025/09/16/

"The demon pitied him, which somehow felt worse." Alex Gurtis in @maudlinhouse.bsky.social

Strange Horizons published our first issue 25 years ago this month! 🎉 Thank you to everyone who has ever read, shared, submitted, donated! We wouldn't be here without you and we hope you'll continue to support us into the future!

Guys, I could NOT be more excited to have a story published at Short Story, Long, and I honestly really love this story in a way that I think you love just a few stories you’ve written. Maybe it’s the encroaching nostalgia, maybe it’s just the fun I had with the form, but I hope you’ll read it!

"Before we made love, I had her try on our summer collection." Funny and chilling, @johnchrostek.com in @hexliterary.bsky.social

People are talking about All the President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (& that Twilight Zone episode) but do consider The Way We Were. His character is a polite and well liked and ultimately very dangerous conservative. So interesting.

Forgive me I have to spend the morning on the phone with my sisters grieving the family crush. RIP Robert Redford, actor and activist. We had a huge poster of him hanging in our childhood bedroom.

I post too many pics of this cat who isn’t mine, but come on, pearls on a Monday?

I post too many pics of this cat who isn’t mine, but come on, pearls on a Monday?

My first published comic is up @crucialcomix.bsky.social! 🦜🪶🪺💕 www.crucialcomix.com/comic/birds-...

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

I’m thrilled to have my flash in this issue alongside so many brilliant writers.

hey hey guess what? starting TOMORROW we are OPEN to NONFICTION subs for a month!! get ready to send nonfiction editor David Gilmore your critical, academic, and personal essays on all things death. read more about what we're looking for here: psychopomp.com/the-deadland...

No tricks. Just a treat. Surprise flash contest! Full info, including submission dates and rules (including word count) @ talestoterrify.com/flashcontest

"Pete the Cat Finds Joy, in which he learns how to love being alone, and eats vegetarian crunchwrap supremes in his car. He's happy, he really is." "Pete the Cat: All Grown Up & Alone In His Car" by Emily Dressler, new poetry out today at OKD. 📝

Currently reading to take a break from the badness. I know a lot of you would enjoy reading about and remembering these movies.

Link to my short story, just called "beautiful and touching." www.3lobedmag.com/issue45/3lbe...

"We didn’t know if his name was Jerry or Jeremy, and we never bothered to find out. To do so would have granted him personhood, and an upsetting place in our tenuous, paper-doll world." - Casey Jo Graham Welmers mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Congress is considering bills that could strip protections from gray wolves in 44 states. Losing these safeguards would leave wolves vulnerable to hunting and persecution. Tell your Senators & Representative: oppose anti-wildlife riders. Take action: 👉 bit.ly/3VIlH9Z

The left isn’t “dancing on Charlie Kirk’s grave,” we’re just pointing out that, thanks to rhetoric like his, a lot of other graves exist.

Tornado by William Beeker maudlinhouse.net/tornado/

On this day in Horror/Sci-fi History, THE X-FILES premiered on television in 1993.

It's the time of the "-Ber" Months and we're celebrating with @aabalaskovits.bsky.social's #shortstory collections, MAGIC FOR UNLUCKY GIRLS and STRANGE FOLKS YOU'LL NEVER MEET! Get 30% off your total purchase by entering #summerreads" at checkout! buff.ly/3pPOviA @susanschulman.bsky.social

Lately I’ve been doing interviews for my new book, and I keep getting some variation of the same question: How do you stay hopeful? In truth, a lot of the time I’m not. September’s comic is about what it feels like to be losing hope. You can read it here: aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/the-storie...

If you missed it last week, I have an essay about how ghosts manifest in our landscapes up at Heat Death: heat-death.ghost.io/cherry-scent...

It's my birthday! It's also, coincidentally, release day for THESE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT. Happy book birthday to a short story collection of monstrous infants, feral children, talking dolls, classroom-bound cosmic horrors, and more. Buy wherever you like to buy books: books2read.com/u/mq2V06

📚📚 ANNOUNCING: POOL PARTY BOOKS!!! 📚📚 Pool Party is open for book submissions!!! We will have two reading periods and publish two books/year. The first reading period runs from now until December 15th, 2025. Visit our website for details 🔥

Join Our Team! 💌 Paranoid Tree is looking for a new Assistant Editor. This paid position will be local to the Twin Cities. More details and our application can be found at the link in our bio! Apply by September 19 🥦⚡️

A new flash inspired from pickleball titled The curse up in @maudlinhouse.bsky.social maudlinhouse.net/the-curse/

It’s my birthday! Everyone who preorders Tell Me Yours from Stillhouse Press today (9/9 till 11:59pm ET) will get a signed—and, if you want, respectfully doodled in—copy! And one lucky duck will also snag this sexy, sparkly “cool S” pin. iykyk!