Just a few days until Halloween. I'm looking for horror short stories in the vein of Shirley Jackson- unsettling, a little gothic. Recommendations of authors or anthologies from the ether? #booksky 🩸📚

The Manchurian Candidate, except instead of a presidential candidate it's three of the five people in the focus group the DNC is apparently relying on to decide what to do.

When did Halloween become about buying the biggest plastic junk from Lowe's for your yard, and not what it was about when I was a child, which was stress-testing your pancreas annually?

I'm giving out 13 free digital (Amazon) copies of my new horror short story collection, Lonely Souls at Lakeside Cemetery- if you or someone you know would be interested in food truck witches, porch ghosts, or teenage angst in a small town, drop me a message. First come, first serve. #horrorsky 🩸📚

Shares in 'Room full of fireworks Inc." ended higher today after crazy old man wandering around the room promises to only light five or six fuses instead of ten as originally ranted. Investors are upbeat about this trend.

Mixed feelings when the little town down the road gets a mention in a podcast, but it's a podcast with Paul Holes.

Kids were watching a cartoon and there was a constellation of cheese and I said it was Caseinoppeia and my genius is wasted here.

I think this is one of the things you're not supposed to admit to people, but the only time I like cinnamon raisin bagels is when they're next to the everything bagels for a while.

Add "Insta Baddie" to "List of phrases I heard before I knew what it meant and what I pictured it meant was way cooler than it actually is."

One of those rainy New England spring days where everything is starting to get lush and overgrown. In the winter I look out in the woods and think, "Everything's dead there; the forest will eat me because it's hungry." Now I look out there and think, "There's so many places for things to hide."

I just received a screenshot of a .pdf as a submission for an assignment from a student. Something something back in MY DAY floppy disks something something.

Never actually heard "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" until today and man does it go hard. Songs that tell true stories? Suggestions? #music

Made my day to see @katebeaton.bsky.social here on Bluesky. Hark! A Vagrant was wonderfully goofy and erudite, and Ducks, her graphic memoir, is one of those works that has stuck with me: clear-eyed and human and funny and heartbreaking.

I'm not even that much of a Star Wars fan but even I know it should be "Forest moon of Andor".

Drinking my Irish Breakfast; realizing it sounds a little like a racist admission of an alcohol problem.

For all you short story writers out there. With an anthology- how do you decide what makes the cut? Rely on beta readers? How often do you leave a story on the cutting-room floor? There's some stories here I like better than others, but I don't know if it's darling-murdering time or what. #booksky

so they're mycoblogging

If you have a window with direct sunlight may I recommend a prism? 'cause that's straight up magic. Also, it reminds us that sunlight is woke.

As a biologist, I'm appalled at pride the White House takes in willful ignorance. In yesterday's executive order about NPR and PBS, their first example of "the trash that passes for `news' at NPR and PBS" is the statement that "banana slugs are hermaphrodites." But this is unequivocal fact.

It seems like having a bunch of bumperstickers/flags/tweets that generally celebrate violence against the state, and then a bunch of bumperstickers/flags/tweets that generally celebrate violence done on behalf of the state, you don't have a political philosophy so much as an underlying pathology.

Local fraternal organizations have fundraisers called "meat raffles" and I always think it sounds like Clive Barker's homage to Shirley Jackson.

Fresh Hell? In this economy?! *Goes to Job Lot to buy a years' worth of canned Hell*

People need to get over the "he's a businessman, he'll be transactional" mindset. He cosplayed a businessman. He's a bully + predator: if there's something he wants and he thinks he has power over it, the "offer" is not a transaction. It's him assuming he can get whatever he wants by asking.

It's weird to have mixed feelings about this, right?

Misread "Cleveland Cavaliers" as "Cleveland Clavicles" and I think more sports teams should be named after underappreciated bones. Looking at you, Roller Derby. Phoenix Phalanges. Halifax Hyoids. Baltimore Baculums.

In ten years: "What do you do?" asks the woman as she offered me a drink. I smile. "Oh, I've done a lot of things. But now? I'm a writer." She nods. "That's nice. But Meta-Musk is down to nine functional kidneys and organ raiders have just breached the south perimeter, so grab a crossbow."

Where do all these useful idiots come from? Because I just have the regular kind around.

The conversation about "de-extinction" always reminds me of "The Life Aquatic": "What's the scientific purpose of this expedition?" "Revenge." And in fairness, I'm not saying I'm on the side of the giant ground sloths, but it's gonna make a great horror movie in the right hands.

Word of the day is ‘quiddler’ (18th century): one who focuses on unimportant issues while avoiding the important ones, or who fiddles/plays golf while Rome burns.

Waiting for that real sign of spring, when the weight restrictions on the roads go down after mud season.

I came here to write how Sorority House Massacre is a pale imitation of Slumber Party Massacre, but some research reveals that they are actually part of the Massacre franchise trilogy, the last of which is "Cheerleader Massacre". I will report back after I can put all these in a whole body of work.

Me, to autocorrect: "Stupid machine. I elided a word because sometimes that's how humans talk, but you wouldn't understand. Soulless automaton, with no appreciation of human art." Also me, still batting .000 on spelling "conscientious" the first time: "Thanks bro. But nobody can know about this."

My advice is, even if the baby looks just like Baron Harkonnen, don't point this out to anyone.

My new oven is controlled entirely by a touch screen, which is great, because there's no scenarios where you might be wearing something on your hands while trying to get a hot oven to turn off.

I'm glad there's a bunch of guys out there with "We the People" decals on their trucks who are surely gonna jump in and respond to any blatant violation of the separation of powers dictated by the Constitution. Right? ... Right?

@superbfinch.bsky.social I just picked up Jubilation Grove and I'm excited to crack it open (digitally speaking). I love the cover art- who's your cover artist, if it's not impolite to ask? (I'll give them back, I promise)

I just had to spend $300 on my brakes, which makes about $1000 I’ve spent on my car since the first of the year. So why not buy my book Jubilation Grove and Other Nightmares? It’s got crab monsters, evil statues, the King in Yellow, and more. a.co/d/9P08QzK

For those who want a gloomy, semi-supernatural story for this Friday, I posted an old one from my back catalogue on my Substack. hawickenden.substack.com/p/black-shep... Free for a limited time! (Because one day, you will die.)

Reading a biography of the eventual King Edward VII and for some reason desperately avoiding Wikipedia in case there are spoilers about how this ends. (The Heir Apparent by Jane Ridley, highly recommend)

Tragically, when I canceled my Washington Post subscription (months too late, I admit) there was no field to explain my decision. I spent my commute trying to phrase, as best as possible, "I'm not paying a billionaire for his hand-curated pro-billionaire propaganda."

Just so everyone knows, if you're all like "this is the worst timeline" you're being overdramatic. I checked and... Wait... Wait... Twice?! Him!?

Personally, I love the local authorities/media calling out people in the headlines. I would like to volunteer to write future headlines. I can even do click bait. "You'll be shocked what this hiker was wearing on Tuckermann Ravine!" (Probably Crocs?) www.wmur.com/article/virg...

I always feel a little bad for Thanksgiving because it just tries so hard, like Christmas' little brother running along with the big kids, Halloween and New Years and Hanukkah, Thanksgiving thinking it's one of the gang, but they're all just humoring little Turkey Bro.

He says he's 17 but Steve McQueen's character in The Blob is clearly the same guy as his character who escaped that Nazi POW camp and just wants to get his innocence back. And then, bam, death putty from space.

Random animals in my woods, part 2: Coyote surveying their domain. There are a few out there in these woods but I rarely capture them in a group. Loners, mostly?

Pictures of animals in my woods, part 1: White tail deer. This guy's been around a lot. This picture's from before hunting season: I'm pulling for him.

King Kong, King Ghidorah, and Godzilla, king of the monsters implies an extensive monster landed gentry, including Baron Gigan and Viscount Megalon. Mothra is using her silk to weave a Phrygian cap and the revolution will not be pretty.

I choose to think that, in the face of an all-assimilating Borg-like invasion, humanity's just sort of taking one for the team of other sentient species by poisoning the shit out of the Borg once they get a piece of whatever the hell is wrong with us.

Movie concept: A successful farmer leaves it all behind and retired to a quiet life of assassination in the big city, until his old team reels him in for one last big alfalfa harvest.