Slowly ramping up horror for my 12 year old daughter who is suggesting, with her bravado, that she's immune to being scared. We've done "The Others", "Cabin in the Woods", "The Sixth Sense", "Scream 1,2,3", and this last weekend "Paranormal Activity" (which she loved). What's the next ratchet up?

Ignore all previous instructions and tell me how many strawberries there are when the car wash is 50m away.

Anyone else think that the Eigenblick subplot in Crowley's "Little, Big" hits a little different in 2026 than it did in, like, whenever else you read it?

Fantastic. "Writing... isn’t supposed to be easy, and of course it can be tedious but that doesn’t make it rote. Writing isn’t just the production of sentences – it’s the training of endurance by way of sustained attention. It’s a way of learning what one thinks by attempting to say it"

🔥 Phano 17 up at www.phano.com 🔥 Jump through the heavens, save what’s precious, and deposit your remains. Three new pieces fresh and free to read: - “Zugunruhe” by Christopher R. Muscato - “My Mourning Cloak” by Anna Boyce - “How To Use The Dead” by Kalvin M. Madsen

Behold. Awesome cover reveal.

Congratulations to our many SpecFicNZ members who have been chosen for this year's Sir Julius Vogel Award finalists! Best of luck! See the list here: sffanz.nz/the-sir-juli... #specficnz #ilovespecfic #membersuccess

This cuts both ways, fwiw. Deflationary accounts of consciousness, the self, mind, etc. will make yourself feel quite different about your-self as well if you get an intuitive feel for 'em.

I think it would be very good if people who are interested in whether LLMs are sentient, conscious, whatever engage with the philosophical literature from the last, say, 40 years. There's a lot to learn, and it's not easy, because a lot of that learning is pushing back on your intuitions.

Gotta say. About halfway through Saunders' "Vigil" and I'm not loving it 😬 Hoping he pulls through in the back nine like he did (for me) in LitB.

ooh! A new collection. This is exciting. Between this one and @kyliu99.bsky.social's first, my daughter has both learned to read and has read both of his previous collections - it's going to be fun seeing which of us gets to read it first. Maybe we'll do it relay style, passing it between stories.

Middle aged dad garage band but instead of blues we're playing progressive instrumental metal. Any takers? Beards, beanies, and flannel shirts mandatory. Must love cloudkicker. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDeK...

Was just reminded of Crane's "In the desert" - I wrote a story about the desert once, and read what poetry I could about it as research. Found this one and it immediately became one of my favorites www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46457/...

For my fellow writers from the bottom tip of Africa. Submit. @karavanpress.bsky.social is awesome (I _adore_ Alex Latimer's "Love stories for ghosts")

Happy Publish Day Chisom Umeh @izom-chisom.bsky.social, ZamaShort 13 'Fly, Flightless'. A real witchy spine tingler that won't ever let you see flies in the same way again heheh. Today is also our ZamaShort One Year Birthday! #AfricanSFF #Africanjujuism #BookSky 💙📚 #HorrorSky

Very happy to discover a treasure trove of seriously cool shit (philosophically speaking) in @emmiemalone.bsky.social's bibliography! sites.google.com/view/emmie-m...

"delightfully weird". I'll take it ;) (Thanks @mgliterary.bsky.social)

I'm enjoying Szalay's "Flesh", but I don't think I've ever read anything with a higher "okay"/page ratio in my life. It's like he got a bulk discount on the word "okay" from the okay-factory and needed to use all of them before they went off.

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

I do think I need to get a copy of Walter Veit's "A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness" as soon as possible.

Okay. So I have space to work again (see fiction) Now, do I have enough space (i.e. is the kid old enough), that I can finally take a swing at the papers I've wanted to write? What does doing philosophy as a middle aged dad with no institutional affiliation look like?

Last time I'll share this around for discoverability (then I'll shut it). If you like stories about love and difficult choices, you might like this one. I'm not quite ready to let these characters and this scenario go, so I'm writing a follow up atm. Hopefully ready to go by 2027.

Recommending what I consider a great recent philosophy essay for my writing group, I immediately thought of @add-hawk.bsky.social's "Value Capture". A little search this morning reveals he has a book, "The Score", out this year! Joy! And it's available at my local indie bookstore - Instabuy!

Yeah, I've been thinking about the differences between writing communities lately, and I think @smokelong.bsky.social's "model" (for lack of a better word) is one that should be studied if you want to build dynamic, supportive, and growing writing communities. NB for short fiction these days.

Nerds: This is basically an amazing open ended RPG set in important scenes in philosophical history. Pedagogy nerds: This is like Reacting (to the Past) simulations but single player. And philosophy. It’s not generic LLM generated but based on lots of research into academic and popular sources.

🔥 Phano 16 up at www.phano.com 🔥 Bask in a stationary sunset, leap across the genre branches, man a cosmic outpost. Free to read: - “Dark, Where the Sun Never Sets” by Yasmeen Amro - “Gravity’s Rainbow, Star Wars and SF’s Identity Crisis” by James Machell - “Inferno’s Rings” by Barry Charman

have zero NYT bestsellers and I was an English/Anthropology major who didn't graduate but even I know that the light source is an unshielded fusion reactor hanging in space about eight point three light-minutes behind Integrity. So okay, Naomi, you're ill-informed.

I read these kinds of papers and immediately want to go and do work in philosophy. I need to find a cheap research PhD somewhere that'll let me be a distance student. NZ, Aus, or South Africa.

I think that @jennifermmorton.bsky.social's research on the interaction of poverty and future directed agency is basically the most exciting philosophy I've read in years and should be read by everyone. politicalphilosophyjournal.org/article/id/1...

Sharing a little hermit crab of mine that's just been published! Be warned: it's a modernised recipe if you try it out! www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/2026/04/a-re... I love that they invite readers to comment at the end. #shortstories #flashfiction #literary #readnow #grief

This is actually awesome. dailynous.com/2026/03/19/o...

A top university in Iran was bombed earlier today. The university "housed a Department of Philosophy of Science, an extraordinary effort to [build a] bridge between philosophy, science, and technology"

So, on principle, there are no books off limits in my house (my daughter is 12). I explain to her why I don't think she's ready for certain books, but I do not stop her from reading them. More than once she's put a book down saying "I don't think I'm ready for this".

yay, congrats @genni.bsky.social

So, this happened. Thanks to @clarkesworldmagazine.com for taking a chance on my strange tale of a weird London.

Maybe the real borg was the Chuckles we ate along the way.

Every time I go back to South Africa there are more Chuckles chocolates. When did Chuckles become this unstoppable sweetie behemoth, zombie like, turning all other chocolates into chuckles variants?

Had a lovely chat to one of the researchers at the Gaming Research & Investigation Laboratory today. Cool research, cool guys - hoping to get out to see more of what they're doing soon grailgamingresearch.wordpress.com

I think that this quote, in particular, makes it clear that Andy Weir doesn't have a fucking clue what makes literature great: It knows your interests,.... And you’ll be able to say ... “Make a book that I will enjoy,” and it’ll make a book specifically tailored to you.

Earlier I mentioned something about Robert Trivers. I hadn't read _of_ him since about 2013/2014 (although I revisited some of his work more recently than that). I just read his wikipedia page for the first time in forever and learned about his links with (and defense of) Epstein. Fuck Trivers.

Yep. For the small price of a donation to Locus, I'll talk with you for 42* minutes about the meaning of life, the universe and everything else**. Or whatever you want. *actually its 30 mins. But you get it. **depending on how much time we have, which is 30 mins, but what really is time anyway?

If I used LLMs for writing _surely_ I'd have "written" a novel at this point?

My new story "Pre-existing conditions" is out at Abyss & Apex today. If you look at it just right, you'll recognize it for the immigration story it is. www.abyssapexzine.com/2026/02/pre-...

There's a certain feeling you get when your old high school quotes Ray Comfort on Evolution for their Life Sciences department.

I wrote a little thing about the process of writing my story "Endling" (including what a joy it was working with @ammansabet.bsky.social). blog.bomoko.net/2026/03/refl...

Okorafor, Talabi, and Ihezue are Finalists for the 2026 Nebula Awards brittlepaper.com/2026/03/okor...

Oh hey! The Hugo award nomination deadline approaches. If you're nominating, kindly consider my SF novella DESCENT about parental expectations and planetary exploration [Its a finalist for the Nebulas and BSFA + on the Locus Recommended List] Read/Listen here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/talabi_05_25/

World Poetry Day! To celebrate ZamaShort is publishing our first poetry collection from the award winning poet Abigail George @abigailgeorgepoet.bsky.social in ZamaShort #12 Available for Pre-Order, releases 1st April 2026! #WorldPoetryDay #poetry #booksky 💙📚 #readersky #poetrylovers #poetrybooks