Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

Not usually one for promoting donating to alma maters, but I genuinely had a wonderful experience with the faculty. They advocate for their grad students more than I experienced anywhere else. Support the English dept. here if you can. tol-edo.org/english

ICYMI: Marisa Mercurio of HOWEVER IMPROBABLE (@marmercurio.bsky.social) joins to discuss Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror about shape-shifting cultists and imperial anxieties that reads a bit like DRACULA's louder sibling! ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/01/12/a...

Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

For the first 2026 episode of @mealofthorns.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social is our guest and guide for Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror-mystery with a lot going on under the carapace:

If you read Dracula & thought “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis & the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual & national anxieties are,” you’re in luck! Editor, reviewer, & scholar @marmercurio.bsky.social talks us through Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE:

😱 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS 😱 📚 With @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay, on the flat affect of cosy horror. 🎢 "Horror is a series of, like, stasis, stasis, stasis, spike, right? And if it's not being delivered, then that becomes a generic problem for the novel."

🎧 Also out with this week’s issue of @strangehorizons.bsky.social:🚨the latest episode of the Critical Friends podcast.🚨 This time I’m joined by @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay to discuss horror, the gothic, and coziness: what can, should and do reviewers look for in these texts? And why?

The reviews are in! Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby reviewed by Marisa Mercurio Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... #speculativefiction #specfic #sff #bookreviews

Splendid review to start the week at SH today - @marmercurio.bsky.social on the curious Neo-Gothic of Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby (@berkleypub.bsky.social). “A novel filled with such potential should be a pleasure to untangle.”

Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.

"When we embrace genAI without examining the domino effect it will have on library workers and users, we fail to do our jobs." @marmercurio.bsky.social networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

"When we embrace genAI without examining the domino effect it will have on library workers and users, we fail to do our jobs," writes @marmercurio.bsky.social for #FeedingTheElephant. How has the embrace of AI affect publishing, research, and teaching. Find out! ➡️ networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

My article with @crimereads.bsky.social on one of the best, longest-running, and somehow overlooked Holmes adaptations. crimereads.com/elementary-i...

Exclusive: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication. My latest. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Let's get vegetable Gothic going as a subgenre. Bunnicula takes first spot.

Wednesday's review is the excellent @marmercurio.bsky.social on Margie Sarsfield's Beta Vulgaris. She goes in excited to discover the vegetable gothic, and finds surprises: "readers of Strange Horizons should know that Beta Vulgaris might not fulfill your expectations of a horror novel."

They're trying to kill Rumeysa Ozturk for writing a fucking op ed

Today at @strangehorizons.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social on Marx and horror in the Pacific Northwest. “Carson Winter shapes his horror novella around the friction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.”