All the mini T***ps were waiting in the wings to come out, the main villain just gave them permission to exercise their worst impulses and worst values.

Poetrio Reading at Malaprop's in Asheville, NC: Alexander Dickow, Christopher Shipman, Maria Garcia Teutsch, Blake Lynch: Sunday April 12, 4:30pm. Please join us for poetry!

This.

Mingus, the peak of that era of jazz, to my mind. There are a lot of other greats too, but: Mingus.

I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again. Universities are roughly 1000 years old. They predate most operating models including capitalism and have lasted for a reason. Installing insecure, helpless managers who ape business methods results in bad businesses, not good universities.

Does it work properly? No. Are the people making it acting in good faith? No. Have they ensured it can't be used maliciously? No. Does it make people's lives better? No. Will it make people's lives better? No. Is it profitable? No. Is it popular? No. Is it harmless? No. The argument for AI.

COVER REVEAL www.abramsbooks.com/product/hord...

“The VA General Assembly voted to give over half a million public sector workers collective bargaining rights. But not me. I'm an adjunct faculty member who was just left behind to endure the exploitation of higher education.” @abigailspanberger.com, please correct course & add us back in.

Forgive me, for I have found Sinners boring and DNF. Glad you all dug it, but I just didn’t.

As ever, a great listen. Especially glad to hear @dickowalexander.bsky.social speak more about French SF, which as he mentions he looked at for the recent SH Criticism Special - a great essay which I commend to you, especially on the subject of the different SFs available to us.

Duh of the year, mod dem pundits are assholes who don’t represent what people want. David Brooks go fuck yourself.

Yay! Many thanks to @casella.bsky.social and @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org for this fabulous conversation.

Hey #AWP26 attendees interested in French-language literary goodies: in DC there’s a bookfair shindig, the Salon du livre francophone, on March 7 (Saturday), 2-5pm, at the Ven hotel on Embassy row. I’ll be there with my books (in French, but I’ll have copies of things in English…). Come by and chat.

Join me on Saturday, March 7th at the Salon du livre francophone, where I will present my work alongside many fine authors. Info below. www.instagram.com/p/DVRrSm-lG7...

Just say no to noisome Newsom.

I’m reading from my book The Distance, and You In It (BlazeVOX, 2025) tomorrow Friday at 7pm at Green Feather Books in Norman, Oklahoma. Please come join us.

… no comment

This is actually fairly well known; hum people don’t have much overhead and administrators are idiots

Biggest present scourge on humanity? I vote techbros.

💯

Je serai présent le samedi 7 mars au Salon du livre francophone à Washington, DC; voir les informations au lien suivant: www.eventbrite.com/.../deuxieme.... J'aurai plusieurs de mes livres avec moi; venez les découvrir, ou simplement pour bavarder.

"Sure, ICE is bad, but we need to deport illegal immigrants" No you don't. If immigration enforcement leads to concentration camps and roving death squads, maybe it's time to just get rid of the concept of illegal immigration entirely. You've tried it, it's a bad idea in practice, so bin it.

I’m thrilled I’ll be reading some of my latest poetry at Malaprop’s in Asheville, NC on April 12, 2026. Love that shop!

If/when this ends, Democrats must make sure concentration camp prison guards don't see a dime of their pensions

Fuck you, Atlantic.

McGregor was found liable for sexual assault in 2024 and the jury ordered him to pay the victim $257,000. He lost all his appeals.

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

The billionaire class wants to decimate the white collar workforce. Because white collar workers are expensive. And because white collar workers—who historically sided with billionaires—are questioning that alliance. Which makes their knowledge and resources a huge threat to billionaire power.

YES: "Translation is the only remedy to our near-sightedness, and the mission of translation is the same as that of speculative fiction: to take the human imagination as far as it can go."- Alexander Dickow in @strangehorizons.bsky.social strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... #SFinTranslation

February 5, 2026 6:30pm-8pm EST LIQUIDBOOKS II zoom-based poetry reading with Ariel Clark-Semyck, Catherine Anne Daly, Alexander Dickow, Jesse Glass and Sandra Simonds. virginiatech.zoom.us/j/88651526809 (In a sinister voice:) JOIN US

the Epstein files make it very clear why the MeToo backlash was so extreme and why so much of elite society preferred Donald Trump ruling us like a king to the barest hint of accountability

There's a whole lot here that looks fascinating

does anyone else feel like SFF criticism is in a really good place right now? perhaps I just wasn't paying enough attention before. reading through the latest Strange Horizons and thinking about all the cool conversations I've seen and all the books I've picked up because of them. thank you critics.

So that’s the 2026 @strangehorizons.bsky.social Criticism Special. Themes were legion: the interface with politics, the shadows of history, the lines between traditions. Hope you found thoughts to chew on.Thanks to our writers for sharing them. Shout out to the SH proofreaders: heroes every year.

A must-read: open.substack.com/pub/bullhorn...

"French science fiction, even at its least realist, tends to bear a simultaneous concern for formal and stylistic invention—sometimes with downright hallucinatory results—and for the ideological Message, tending even toward a clunky didacticism." A really eye-opening view of a literature in this.

The theme of this essay is politics and aesthetics, and how the balance between them can play out differently in varied contexts. Very rich seam. “‘Preachiness’,” Alexander argues, “is not a function of political messaging, but one of aesthetic integrity.” Really hope this sparks further chat.

Wednesday! Today’s Criticism Special essay is from @dickowalexander.bsky.social on francophone SF. Note this is not a piece on SF in translation - a lot of the works in this essay are available only in French. If like me you don’t have the language … well, a whole tradition is opened up here.

This is an extremely good piece. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

Read my essay in the new Strange Horizons, if you like! Thanks to Dan Hartland! @danhartland.bsky.social and in excellent company too!

it is my first amendment protected opinion that the statement "nazis deserve to die" should be neither controversial nor legally actionable, if anyone were to make such a statement

Stop the death squads

defund ICE, defund Schumer, impeach Trump

I think at this point it's reasonable to call them death squads and Democrats should have to explain why they're voting to fund the death squads.

No factor contributes to T’s rise and persistence more than Americans’ grotesque and naked worship of wealth and the wealthy. We are a failed people of greed and infamy.

🚨 As we enter the weekend, let it be known that the coming Monday is not just any Monday … it’s the annual @strangehorizons.bsky.social Criticism Special Monday. Five essays! Five reviews! Poems! A roundtable, a podcast, a veritable trove of critical insight. Also, ducks. Be there!

I am thrilled to announce the publication in October 2026 of my translation of Alain Damasio's Horde du Contrevent, under the title The Horde of the Counterwind. It's been a long wait, but it's finally going to appear; it's official!

Je me réjouis d'annoncer la publication en octobre 2026 de ma traduction de La Horde du contrevent d'Alain Damasio, sous le titre The Horde of the Counterwind. J'ai dû attendre longtemps, mais cela va enfin paraître, c'est officiel!

Over the last year the entire "free speech on campus" beat has been revealed as an utter fraud. Years of punditry puked out in ignorance and bad faith. Yet even as the fraud becomes undeniable we still get stories about wide-eyed idealists who just wanted 'ideological diversity' and 'open debate'.