Gearing up to start promo for our next novella series! This will be another set of novellas alongside a short story collection, with an especial interest in queer speculative fiction. You can sign up here to get notified when we go live: www.kickstarter.com/projects/dav...

For years I have misremembered the War for the Oaks bad-relationship-commentary lyric "You always seem to love me best/ when I'm 100 slippery miles away" as rueful-but-genuine "I always seem to love you best..."

new ascribed format unlocked!

Explanations I have provided in the airport about my case of Warhammer minis: * It's like a cross between Legos and chess. * These are not toys for sale. * This is not a pet.

This primary season, we asked #A2Council candidates to tell us their positions on housing. You can help by nudging them toward completing the questionnaire. And tell them how important housing is to your vote this year! Go to moreneighborsa2.org/2026Election to get involved!

Nice piece from @profnoahgian.bsky.social !

Yessss, justice for Fanny Price!

heyyyyy #SFWA #Nebulas attendees! reminder that you do not have to eat like garbage in Rosemont docs.google.com/spreadsheets... (and thanks @bingingout.bsky.social for adding to this) anyway, last time I promo this cause I *will* forget :D have fuuuuun

I newslettered a couple of days ago! buttondown.com/yarntheory/a... The ARB Kickstarter is over now, but there's lots of other stuff here, including cutting-room-floor worldbuilding through food and a note about the math consulting I did for @reasie.bsky.social's latest book.

A thing I really wish mainstream media would understand about AGI is that it's a play by post for absolute dweebs. If someone is talking to you about what AGI will do to/for humanity: that is a dweeb telling you about their GURPS campaign. It isn't news because it isn't real.

Hard agree. You should read these.

woke up at 6:15 to take my spouse to the train station, and the worst part is, I feel so happy and productive.

Reading my bookshelves: The Squirrel on the Train by Kevin Hearne and North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher. Two novella-length books, one is a fun fantasy mystery with a dog point of view, and the other is a set of loosely linked science fiction stories that are just brilliant.

I missed out on the pre-order swag for @reasie.bsky.social 's Multitude, but my spouse was on it.

🎙️ Throwback to April 2025. Full house at Fantastic Fiction at KGB in New York City. Got to read alongside Ursula Witcher that night, and the room was everything. Sharing this now because The Redemption Center Is Closed On Sundays drops May 26. Feels right to look back before the next chapter lands.

It's VERY important to understand what's happening with the NASA 🔭 budget. White House proposed cuts to everything *but* Artemis. The GOP-led House proposal restores the size of the budget BUT shifts spending, which is to say *House committee and White House agree on cutting NASA astrophysics* 🧪⚛️

Wow, this isn't just "we're banning you for 1 year," it's "future work can't be posted until it's peer-reviewed", i.e.,you can no longer use the arXiv for preprints.

In theory, my writing notebook and my math research notebook are different. In practice, my writing notebook has notes from leading a math anxiety workshop and my research notebook has the notes from my last conversation with @laurenbajek.bsky.social .

Recently, FamilySearch digitized and uploaded tons of microfilmed records, including many from 18th-century Massachsuetts. They're using some sort of AI to transcribe/summarize the handwritten documents. I've noticed that the AI strips out references to race and enslavement in 18thc documents.

Tashan Mehta's THE MAD SISTERS OF ESI (Calvino-esque (reductive) meta galactic fantasy), Ursula Whitcher's NORTH CONTINENT RIBBON (exoplanetary sf mosaic novel, rich in political/cultural verisimilitude), Deena Helm's OUR CUT OF SALT (heartbreaking Palestinian haunted house story, not out yet).

On April 6, 2026, the US bombed Maryam Mirzakhani's alma mater. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/... Iran's Ministry of Science and Technology had already identified 30 institutions that had been attacked *before* April 6.

ARB's fundraiser is down to two days (and there's still one signed copy of RAKESFALL up for grabs in the rewards)

For women in math day, let's remember that the US just bombed Maryam Mirzakhani's alma mater.

3 days left in our fundraiser! We've hit our first stretch goal and are excited to share our plans once it's wrapped up, but: still rewards left! Still cool possibilities to make real, with your help! Shares appreciated!

The author sent me a copy, and it's really something to behold in person.

For a while in grad school I was obsessed with a cover of Dar Williams' "February," for reasons that were somewhat obscure to me, because I thought of myself as a straight woman, in a committed relationship with a man, who didn't suffer from seasonal depression. (1/n)

It's official: "Beyond the Standard Model" is a Rhysling finalist.

The CDC is really is no where to be found because of its deliberate destruction. You CDC cruise ship inspectors were laid off in April 2025. No surprise it has been crickets from HHS and CDC leadership on the situation with the Hanta virus cruise ship situation. www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-cru...

Swung by @literatibookstore to pick up my copy of @lollardfish.bsky.social's Public Scholar, and signed a copy of North Continent Ribbon while I was there!

Y'all have FAILED me, I should not have had to rely on Kieron Gillen's newsletter to learn of the existence of a band called the Shimura Curves.

Monthly ebook releases on Amazon were basically flat before the release of ChatGPT and other LLMs. Now around 2/3 of all ebooks released on Amazon are fake.

Fantastic news! With a week left to go, we've hit our first stretch goal for ARB's fundraiser! Thank you to everyone who's chipped in and/or helped spread the word; let's see how far we can get in our final week! Rewards and more still available:

I'm reading Jinwoo Park's Oxford Soju Club. And I'm picking up @lollardfish.bsky.social's new book tomorrow!

Thread continues: "I am getting rejection emails for papers I didn't submit."

We just released an updated FAQ page thanks to our amazing volunteers. It's more helpful than ever for sharing information with friends and neighbors. Take a look! #A2Council #AnnArbor #housing #affordability #sustainability #equity #urbanism www.moreneighborsa2.org/faqs

My version of the newly-described “Cretaceous Kraken”, Nanaimoteuthis. I created this as a shirt design for my TeePublic shop.

To celebrate Star Wars day I write up what lessons you can learn from Han Solo when wanting to play a character who really doesn't want to go on this adventure, thank you very much.

Talking worldbuilding with friends; one example of worldbuilding that wins is @yarntheory.bsky.social 's Closer Than Your Kidneys (buff.ly/8JPpMWl ). Everything is integrated so deftly, building upsetting & never letting the reader feel lost, feeding information at a perfect pace. And the LANGUAGE.

And on to year 3! Presenting the Queersar not an award for excellence in queer SFF 2022. Ten more brilliant titles! Nothing from the Tor mothership! Majority indie pubs! Gay, bi, lesbian, trans, and ace characters galore! ...and the single best novel I've read in the past decade. Dive on in.

Kinda tired of the "historians will say they're close friends" meme. Babe, we've been screaming about how gay everyone is for *decades*. Funding for history keeps getting cut as a result. There are entire moral panics about it. You just haven't read any history since highschool.

Seeking participants! Speculative Insight will host a roundtable discussion of Cameron Reed’s What We Are Seeking. Have you read it, or intend to? Do you have Thoughts, or expect that you will? Apply (forms.gle/YYgJAU1vByws...) by Mon, 11 May. Remuneration of AUD150 to be paid when discussion wraps.

Leon Botstein, longtime friend of pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has resigned as president of @bardcollege.bsky.social. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/u...

I didn't read Ursula Whitchers (@yarntheory, though it seems not active here anymore...) "North Continent Ribbon" on purpose on May 1, but you totally should - it's the right book for the day. I bought the book because the blur reminded me of Angelica […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

"The confusion is a feature, not a bug." By creating more administrative hurdles for those with disabilities, the Trump administration is effectively cutting benefits. via @lollardfish.bsky.social www.ms.now/opinion/soci...

"It amounts to around $190 for every U.S. household. It means that, in two months of war, the Pentagon has spent down more than its annual budget for munitions."

Code and Codex is miiiiine!

Comics people! This year if you want to vote in the Eisners (and didn’t receive an email saying you’re already registered), YOU MUST APPLY BY 13 MAY. Make your voice heard! Historians, educators, ✨ librarians ✨ and comic / webcomic creators should apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Nominating "How to train your sponge" as today's best scholarly paper title.

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

A chart from a textbook published in 1600 matches letters and numbers. What was it for, and what does it tell us about the process of mathematical discovery? Read "Puzzling Like the Seventeenth Century" by Ursula Whitcher. Read more: https://mathvoices.ams.org/featurecolumn/2026/04/01/puzzling/