10% of profits from this special edition will be donated to Mermaids, a charity that works to support trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people in the UK. I'm very happy and excited about this one!

10% of profits from this special edition will be donated to Mermaids, a charity that works to support trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people in the UK. I'm very happy and excited about this one!

Introducing our latest special edition - The Incandescent by Emily Tesh! 🖊️🐦‍🔥🗡️ Head to our Instagram or website for all the details! Pre-orders are open now 💛 litpinsandco.com/collections/...

We didn't talk about THE INCANDESCENT on Bar Cart Bookshelf, but if you wish to pair it with a cocktail, you can't go wrong with Saffy's favorite: a gin and tonic. Much like a magic school, the G&T is a true classic, and a classic is a classic for a reason!

An utter delight! I gobbled up THE INCANDESCENT last week, charming & insightful, playful in the tradition of the school novel, magic both academic & uncanny, and solidly rooted in the experience of the lead character. A magic school book for grownups without feeling pandering. Read it now!

Purchased both Silksong and Hades II today. Excited to be bad at these games.

CHOTINER: And you didn’t know this person - what did you call him again? CELEBRIMBOR GREATEST OF THE ELVEN SMITHS: Right, his name was Annatar but CHOTINER: And you taught him to create a ring harnessing all his malice and cruelty? CELEBRIMBOR: Well I mean I was deceived CHOTINER: So you’ve said

Chotiner: So you chose to kill your slavewomen as well as the suitors who had taken over your home. Why? Odysseus: Well, I was in a frenzy understandably, plus they had probably slept with the suitors. C: Ah. And as slaves did they do this voluntarily? O: I didn’t ask because C: They were dead?

Simply a fact of life that sometimes I just cry at Bluey these days. (It was the cricket episode.)

Many stories I loved, some I did not, and Diana WHERE is the rest of the dragon riding matriarchal polyandry evil wizard dad book.

A bunch of stories we really loved, a bunch of stories we'd love to see more of, and a Lot of stories in which a bad adult gets turned into (metaphorical or literal) bacon: it's time for DWJ's short fiction of the 70s and 80s! zencastr.com/z/1eIt9L0F

It's always hard to keep our rule not to look ahead and NEVER HARDER than in this episode. Hexwood when?!?

My first novella CINDER HOUSE is nearly here! She's been quietly racking up accolades, including an amazing THREE starred reviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Today we did episode 2 of our LotR close reading, this time with a whole lot of walking, a talking fox, Pippin being baby and everyone singing songs.

thank you all so much for all the amazing questions you've sent in for our Q&A!! FOR THE RECORD, although we planned to record that ep today, life events plus the realization that people might have thoughts about the shorts has caused us to reschedule for NEXT THURSDAY 9/25

There are only two kinds of serious writers/readers of SFF today: those who ferociously love the work of Kai Ashante Wilson and want to see a great deal more of it in the world, and those who have not yet read him. Good news, everyone! www.patreon.com/posts/introd...

If you haven't heard of KAW, do yourself a favor and pick up THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS and A TASTE OF HONEY, novellas voted "most likely to make readers of good taste start frothing at the mouth and/or wandering the hallways in somber ecstasy"

At my desk today procrastinating writing a book by reading through listener questions for @eightdaysofdiana.bsky.social and planning the episode we're going to record around them. I feel so lucky that I get to book club my favourite author with Becca and with all of you.

And done.

Here’s a poem called ‘English Roundabouts’.

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Hogwarts" New blog post: hugoclub.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-...

This probably can't be said clearly enough: The Incandescent has big and serious things it wants to talk about, but on a sentence and scene level, it is also just consistently engaging, clever, and often funny, with some tour de force set pieces.

Just turned the last page and: yes, that was excellent. The mix of humour and steel, the balance of the specific and the broadly thematic ... a great concept, executed with great skill. I'm off to read everyone's reviews.

Intergalactic Mixtape is live. It's so nice to see the number of SFF podcasts (so many cakes!) and I'm back on my fanart addiction thanks to KPop Demon Hunters. #IntergalacticMixtape #BookSky

She’s found the best nap spot in the house.

SPIDER in my CAR. big spider! beautifully woven web! inside! the car! spent the drive chanting internally: she is an ANIMAL she is CONFUSED she is probably HUNGRY she is in an UNSUITABLE ENVIRONMENT if she comes anywhere near me I will probably crash this vehicle but that's not her fault

that said, if you're looking for a reading list beyond DWJ herself, this is the episode for you: in addition to Farah's own book (linked below) we discussed fellow critics Catherine Butler, Teya Rosenberg and Martha Hixon, & authors Ruth Manning Sanders, Jo Walton, Hilary McKay, Anne Fine, and more!

transcript available here: drive.google.com/file/d/1pUoT... and in our next bonus episode, we'll be covering the short stories of the seventies and eighties, as collected in Unexpected Magic and Mixed Magics!

for the first of our S2 bonus episodes, we had the absolute joy of talking with critic and historian @effjayem.bsky.social for an hour and a half about historical context, book-hunger, and DWJ as a critical writer of critical texts zencastr.com/z/MEQO-ixY

Intergalactic Mixtape is live! If you took part in my "what books are you looking forward to" thread recently, thanks for helping us build a cool rec list, but also, how dare you. 😂

Oh, you're enjoying Silksong? You like bugs? Huge, violent bugs that inhabit a decaying and strangely beautiful world? My friends-- torpublishinggroup.com/the-works-of...

I was sad to miss out on Joanna Russ panels this year so I decided to create one. Discussing the Female Man; 30th December 7pm GMT Online Farah Mendlesohn, Emily Tesh, Melanie Fishbane, Jed Hartman Join us as we think a lot about this very complex book. fb.me/e/3F0xoFwPh (or DM for an invitation).

I did say this and I said it about the Silmarillion, a book I will love forever.

It varies from project to project, but of late, I've held tight to something that the marvelous Emily Tesh once said of a fantasy classic: that the beautiful world is still broken, and the broken world is still beautiful. There always has to be at least a little joy.

Look what arrived!

Major congratulations to all the Nommo award nominees for 2025! It was an honor to be able to make the announcement virtually at Seattle worldcon. I've read almost all the nominated stories and they represent some of the best of African speculative fiction. You should definitely check them out!

New Review - a smart fantasy that explores the role of the teacher that I strongly recommend The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is out now! www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2025/8/...

Many congratulations to all the Hugo winners and finalists!

The #HugoAward for Best Short Story goes to “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is”, Nghi Vo (Uncanny 2/24).

The #HugoAward for Best Novelette goes to “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, Naomi Kritzer (Asimov's 9-10/24)

The #HugoAward for Best Novella goes to The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler (Tordotcom)

The Lodestar Award goes to Sheine Lende, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido). #HugoAward

The #HugoAward for Best Novel goes The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape UK).

um WHAT

The Astounding Award goes to Moniquill Blackgoose. #HugoAward

me 🤝 ursula k leguin: congratulations diana this is one of your funniest

Today we're wrapping up our second season with A Tale of Time City! a real butter-pie of a book: delicious ice cream froth on the outside, but full of surprisingly rich ideas once you actually bite into it zencastr.com/z/8P9vM1fI

We’re excited to announce the acquisition of @macey.bsky.social 's BLOOD OF QUEENS, a gothic historical fantasy featuring Tudor-inspired court intrigue, necromancy, and an audacious heist. For fans of M. A. Carrick’s The Mask of Mirrors and Holly Race's Six Wild Crowns, this hits shelves Spring ’27!

It feels SO strange to be writing in the Some Desperate Glory universe again.

I find archaeology so dense and hard to read but it also fires my imagination like nothing else. Bogged down in the chronology of the early Aegean Bronze Age like god save me from pottery! but also the vision of the Cycladic islanders encountering the first Near Eastern ocean-going sailing ships…