we can all tell

David Mitchell, Emily Wilson, Rick Riordan, Robin Hobb, Vajra Chandrasekera and me

It's eating at me that I'm spending a good chunk of my reading and writing time this year doing a Secret Thing that will not see the light of day until 2027. I've gotta work hard to keep up other reading/writing to make it look like I'm actually doing stuff this year. So my next essay is on...

Tuned In: Sullivan Summer reviews andré m. carrington's AUDIOFUTURISM, coming next week from @fordhampress.bsky.social!

Publication day! It was an honour to work with such an amazing group of scholars for this (list in the comments below). Please consider ordering to your institutional library or purchasing the ebook. More affordable paperback is heading your way in 6 months. sunypress.edu/Books/W/Wast...

Very much here for this reading group dedicated to J.G. Ballard's fiction. centerforfiction.org/group-worksh...

Less than 24 hours to nominate for the Hugos! A reminder that you can save & edit your nominations up until closing time, so: better to get in a rough list and clean it up later than to wait until the very last minute! Thread of some recs from ARB contributors & friends:

sorry I'm like this y'all but you have FIVE MORE DAYS, is all, and because I have totally forgotten to mention it, let me just add that one lucky nominator will win a whole pile of books, which is to say the entire 2025 shortlist! could be yours! go forth and nominate!

Are you one of the eight thousand people who either had a membership in the 2025 World Science Fiction Convention or a membership in LAcon V prior to January 31? If so, then you should nominate the speculative fiction that you loved for a Hugo Award.

Octothorpe 156 is here! We discuss Locus, we discuss the Nebulas, we discuss Eastercon, and then we talk about Liz’s totally SFnal and very genre pick. Listen here! octothorpe.podbean.com/e/156-surpri... @locusmag.bsky.social @sfwa.org @easterconuk.bsky.social

Hugo nominations close this week!

Tips for those who want to ask "Can I be on your podcast": - ask like a human (not like a PR agent or an LLM) - give some sign that you're at least a little familiar with the podcast (LLM summaries do not count) - be at least 1/3 as charming as @premeemohamed.com (a high bar)

Hugo nominations close on March 28th, don't forget to go and nom what you loved!! Info on how to nom is here: www.lacon.org/hugos/ And once you have an account, online ballots are here: nomnom.lacon.org

Snappy lines, strangely loose plotting, and all-killer metaphors that are somehow flowery & hard-bitten at the same time: @maxgladstone.bsky.social is on to talk about Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP, its barely-concealed weirdness, and its immense influence on genre literature!

so chuffed to say that our episode on Ballerina won an AFCA Award, making this possibly the first award ever received by From The World of John Wick: Ballerina

Since I’ve wandered onto social media, here are some things I should be promoting: 1) There’s still time to sign up for the 1-week in-person writing workshop with @maryannemohanraj.bsky.social & me near Chicago, May 30-June 3 (right before the Nebulas Conference, so we can all roll there together)

What's your favorite books pod?

A huge welcome for Oliver and Anna! Luna will publish Our Glorious Progeny, an anthology edited by @oliverklangmead.bsky.social & Anna McFarlane @mariettarosetta.bsky.social WEL rights from Alexander Cochran at Greyhound Literary Agents ❤️ Click, learn more and discover our amazing contributors!

Good morning, frends! The TriCon Halifax expression of interest form went out yesterday to all attendees who indicated that they'd like to speak on/moderate panels. It's not too late to throw your name in the hat! Change your mind about paneling? Still need to register? No worries, just reach out!

Okay fine: blew the dust off my personal blog to post some Hugo nomination suggestions. Or just reading/listening suggestions!

I ❤️ this interview w @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social : it captures so much of what makes her such a unique & indelible writer, and it does an awesome job of explaining why EVERY GALAXY A CIRCLE is such a special story collection: www.cleavermagazine.com/a-conversati...

Author copies have arrived! It's a beautiful book with a group of wonderful contributors! Massive thanks to SUNY for the production work. Out in April... Wastelands and Wonderlands: Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature.

Doing my due diligence for the next @mealofthorns.bsky.social episode, w/ @maxgladstone.bsky.social

Podcast time! Alexander Dickow joins to discuss Serge Brussolo's THE DEEP SEA DIVER'S SYNDROME (@melvillehouse.bsky.social, translated by Edward Gauvin), a French science fiction novel about the pressures and anxieties of artistic creation. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!

An evening bonus: an hour-long interview with @meredithgran.com about the wonderful PERFECT TIDES: STATION TO STATION. Check it out for free over on the Ranged Touch Patreon! www.patreon.com/posts/meredi...

We've donated the money we received from the critique drive. really good showing! Now we will get critiquing. Thank you to all who donated.

Tonight’s diversion from Archipelago, @archipelagobooks.bsky.social , a Pavese that’s not a novel about fascism but something strange, deeply antiquarian, whimsical. Exactly what I needed. I just order their back catalogue blind because they have such good taste and make beautiful books.

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.

This book is tremendous.

New Episode! Translator, author, & scholar Alexander Dickow is on to talk about THE DEEP SEA DIVER'S SYNDROME: a really fun strange energetic novel about dreams & artistic creation. ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/03/09/a...

the hat is by @aluhnim.bsky.social so make sure to stop by their table!

Somehow I hunch that contemporary genre literary criticism is about a mile ahead of non-genre indie-lit criticism, and the genre criticism that has nourished me the most is this amazing podcast www.patreon.com/cw/SFULTRA

This is a great discussion, and I'm not here to dispute the importance of considering how words are chosen and used and arranged, but to pick a small fight: the discussion considers the main reason this doesn't happen in SF reviewing as much as we'd like to be "it's hard" (it is), and I'm not sure.

Unity is the game I came to appreciate the most while writing EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED (bookshop.org/p/books/ever...) and I am really interested on how it plays at 60fps.

I'm trying to set up short interviews for a series we're doing on @mealofthorns.bsky.social, and the reply rate has been weirdly, disappointingly low based on my prior experience & the request; starting to suspect AI spam is to blame.

Very cool 3% episode on Godzilla & Mothra moving across language, lots on obscured/revealed history & politics & gender

🚨 SOUND THE PODCAST KLAXON! A new episode of Critical Friends has just arrived, fresh-faced, in your feeds. Paul Kincaid and @yukondawn.bsky.social talk to me about style: what is it, what place has it taken up in SFF, and why is it so fraught? Come for Le Guin and Vonnegut, stay for police raids.

www.patreon.com/posts/151985... Today is the three year anniversary of SFULTRA. I appreciate all the support. Between the patreon and the public episodes, I've put out 300+ hours of show. Today I discuss a truly great work of SF: His Master's Voice by Stanisław Lem. Listen here now (pod places soon)

It's really quite something.

Writing my stupid little bullshit while a death cult sets the world on fire

After the dramatic destruction of the @horrorvanguard.bsky.social crypt, me and @rosegardenofeyes.bsky.social are taking to the road to find a new home for HV, join us for a special kind of horror movie road trip: on.soundcloud.com/Dbp5Q91aMAdP...

This episode of Reading Writers was fantastic, and reminded me that I need to read more of Lisa Tuttle's work. shows.acast.com/reading-writ...

It's time. Colin, the comrade running the shelter-in-place food program I'm working at, told me that this week he's had to turn down asks from schools to supply food directly to their sheltering families. The reason? There's not enough money coming in for that amount of food. Let's change that.

LGBT History Month is February in the UK, and I’m thrilled to see We The Parasites featured by its British publisher, @bhousepress.bsky.social!

I typically save A Meal of Thorns episodes to listen to--not b/c they're not a priority but for savoring. When one of my favorite novels & one of my favorite critics are matched on an episode, though? I couldn't wait to listen. It's great. As Liz notes, it's a book that deserves an entire seminar.

Look, I was on a podcast! ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/02/23/a... @casella.bsky.social was kind enough to invite me on @mealofthorns.bsky.social to witter about Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls with him. (Well, he was incisive: I may have wittered.)

Religion, character, gender roles, power: by taking them seriously, Bujold's PALADIN OF SOULS winds up doing something quite different from a lot of fantasy. @hawkwinglb.bsky.social joins to discuss for our latest episode, available wherever you get your podcasts!

prepping some exciting stuff