I had quite a bad fatigue relapse early December that coincided with two weeks off beer. And now I’ve started Dry January, I’ve had another sip. The science is in: beer is good for you.

Baby’s new favourite game is playing the drums on my Christmas belly. I have mixed feelings about this.

George Saunders: "Becoming a better artist, in my experience, is a matter of learning, over and over, what you *just plain like*, no reasons needed, and then doing that thing as if it’s all that matters."

We're open for fiction submissions! We publish unsettling bad time stories that straddle the horror, fantasy, and science fiction spectrum. But genre is made up so if you have a dark weird horrible story that could be a fit, send it in and let us worry about it. No closing date, open indefinitely.

For 2026 let’s remind ourselves what really matters: weird fiction

Oh, just saw a nice mention for Weird Horror in Best Horror 17, edited by @datlow.bsky.social and out today!!

Wild Flor in Hove is really fucking good, if anyone in or around Hove was looking for somewhere really fucking good to eat. My mother decided she wanted to celebrate NYE with us today at lunchtime. A good decision. It was really good. www.wildflor.com

In 2025 I didn't publish any fiction or poetry — not for lack of trying! — but did publish one decent interview with @anneursu.bsky.social about households with chronic illnesses on @lithub.com.web.brid.gy

Fascist Scrotum Peroxide (mentioned near the end) discontinuednotes.com/2025/12/31/d...

‘Complete 100 push-ups on January.‘ Make me.

One of the comments: 'Have you tried reading Brandando Sandanderson? His magic system will make you so hard that it will temporarily cure your ADHD while you are reading his voluptuous books.'

fucking fantastic no idea what it means

For 2025 read 2026.

I love Reddit. A thread I saw today: 'Is Kafka's intent to bully people with ADHD?'

People who have turned down OBEs, MBEs etc: Roald Dahl, JG Ballard, Aldous Huxley, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Robert Graves (twice), Lucien Freud, LS Lowry, Benjamin Zephaniah.

New story complete but for final edits. Started and finished in very rough draft in the pub after the last day of term. 1200 words of workplace nastiness featuring kettle descaler. I’m quite pleased.

Sneaking one last story into 2025! I've got a new piece up at The Archive today! The Monument is about art and memory and was inspired by "The Matter of Time" installation by Richard Serra I saw at the Guggenheim in Bilbao this year www.sanspress.com/the-archive-...

A little bit of self-promo as it's my birthday 🙂 I had 4 stories published this year: a dog food infertility story, a 🪼jellyfish🪼 story, one about fairies, and one about a hitman who badly needs a nap. If any of that sounds like your thing, please have a read and let me know what you think! 🤘 ❤️

Got a quote from Rob the Bastard inside the front 😎 w/12 others inc Wendy Erskine, Heidi James, Susanna Crossman, Lee Brackstone, Naomi Booth, Robin Ince. Read em all here. stuhennigan.substack.com/p/blatant-se...

Seeking suggestions for blogs about SFF/publishing that have RSS feeds. I have 770 already, who else do you recommend? I need more writing world in my feed reader.

Keshed by @stuhennigan.bsky.social is the next book you'll buy. Either that or you're stu pid

The Guardian partnership with OpenAI ticking along nicely. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

From yesterday: a 14 hour overnight bulk with a quarter of starter I usually use, unfed from the fridge, and a short proof on the counter.

Good Threads, Bad Threads

‘Earlier this year, a story in Compact magazine…’ Not compact enough was it

#palestine #gaza #palestine-action #israel #hunger-strikers #UK #zionism #protest

Baking update: I got a really nice ProCook bread knife for Christmas, with which I immediately nicked the knuckle of a thumb already bearing a plaster from the razor, or lamé, with which I’d scored my dough the other night. The thumb I nearly lost to a thrnip earlier this year. Be safe out there.

Only one game of football on boxing day. Because of woke.

Aye discontinuednotes.com/2025/09/07/g...

I was choosing between Vampyr and Penda’s Fen last night; and reading about the latter after watching it, discovered that David Rudkin wrote a BFI book on Vampyr. A sign, I think.

‘Some hideous angel of technocratic death?’ Merry christmas.

Happy holidays, folks. I hope next year is a little kinder.

‘Some hideous angel of technocratic death?’ Merry christmas.

A cheerful Christmas story for Christmas eve.

Why can I send and receive DMs on Instagram but on here to do so I must pretend to be French? Much as I like pretending to be French.

Dudes Rock

5) Patients felt that it was pointless contacting their GP if new symptoms emerged or existing symptoms worsened, presuming that they would be unable to help: ‘You just give up and treat yourself’.

Shots from Ken Russell's rarely seen psychedelic 1981 short 'The Meadow'. I so, so wish they'd put this back on iPlayer. Personally I think it is right up there with Penda's Fen as a lost English classic.

At 19.5c this was, according to the various time & temp charts, supposed to take 12-16 hours to hit 90%. Instead it doubled in 8 hours 🧐

Need to bake this now if I want some bread for lunch but the dutch oven needs a clean, I’m lying down, and the kitchen is so faraway.

Telling the baby to check his pretty privilege.

One of the things I love about baking is that it’s way of engaging with the genius of our species. Leavened bread is a marvel. People are wonderful. This neither cancels or obscures the abundant awfulness & exorbitant horror of life, but it’s part of the picture, without which any picture is false.

Off work for Christmas, thank god, so today’s plan: 40 minute autolyse with 620g and 1kg strong white, water at 30c. 200g rye starter, 2gm salt, 4 sets of half hourly stretches and folds.

New work at the site tomorrow / which means tonight is the best possible time, of all those times remaining to you before tomorrow, to read or re-read @seanbirnie.bsky.social's "Pivot" & "Jinx," up now

You should be able to get a Writers & Artists Year Book subscription included if you have an NHS prepayment certificate.

Who on here is on Letterboxd? I want to follow you on Letterboxd.

There has been a relentless, cacophonous campaign to stigmatise pro-Palestinian activists. But the inconvenient truth is that these are just ordinary people of good conscience who see the horrors of Gaza and simply cannot bear to stand by and do nothing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"the novel has all of this technology we don’t use anymore. there has been a wholesale deaccessioning of narrative technology from the novel as a form" instead: scale, mediation, Lukacs, 3rd person, full Dickens, full Morrison - all the IMMEDIACY keywords countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

So much of genAI propaganda is basically gaslighting. You are made to feel insane and doubt your better judgment when it's so fucking obvious it is violently not sustainable and the only truly inevitable thing about it is that it will implode.