A quick update: Submissions to RLM will re-open on January 1st at midnight (EST), and our first piece will be published on January 10th! 👀

It's almost the final Friday of 2025. Wild year, bad and good. One personal good: becoming an author. Boxcutters is a collection spanning genres, styles, eras. Oddball lit, weird horror, sci-fi + more. Feast is a novel, a deep sea body horror kaiju adventure in the belly of Hobbes' Leviathan.

What a beautiful description of my story! Thank you @foxesandroses.bsky.social 🌲

A magical and melancholic exploration of grief and hiding inside a skin that might be a bark, until you're changed and ready to be touched by the light. Or perhaps by nothing at all. by @spencerwriting.bsky.social in @undertow.bsky.social

Snow!!

It is once again the season to make a poorly designed but earnest awards eligibility post for some of my fiction published in 2025! (links below).

2026 goals: 1. Obtain a sense of wonder 2. Make people angrier 3. Alphabetize...

Would you like to read a story about Charon (who uses a train now, not a dingy boat now, thank you very much) at the end of the universe, wondering what to do now that there are no more souls left to ferry? Buy this phenomenal anthology and check my story "At the End of Everything" out!

you've been waiting and it's finally HERE!! AFTERLIVES curated by @shereereneethomas.bsky.social ✨🖤💀 get your ebook here! psychopomp.com/product/afte...

With "Blanquitos" being a late bloomer (pun intended), I can now make my Eligibility Post: If you're reading for awards, please consider these two stories. FYI even if you're not voting for awards, I'd be honored if you read these (links to follow)

Yes indeed - my favorite of which is probably 'Eagle-Eyed' in Eye to the Telescope from @sfpoetry.bsky.social! eyetothetelescope.com/archives/057...

Man is this story so good it hurts. www.newyorker.com/magazine/197...

The first story I wrote in 2025 is also my final story of 2025! "Ornithogonia, or Five Featherings" is the tale of a priestess and the woman she wants desperately not to love, told by a bitter goddess. It's about faith, all-consuming love, and also birds 🐦‍⬛ Out now at @flashfictiononline.bsky.social!

It is once again the season to make a poorly designed but earnest awards eligibility post for some of my fiction published in 2025! (links below).

A few other pieces that I was hoping would publish this year - my Jeffrey Ford essay, in particular - but I guess I'll go ahead and call it and say this is my 2025 summary. Go to doomsdayer.wordpress.com and follow some links to some criticism of weird fiction. Or don't, I'm not the boss of you.

Hey! Some fun news. "The Sort" (orig. @clarkesworldmagazine.com) was picked up for @wilwheaton.net's podcast. Went live today! Narrated thoughtfully and w/a kind shoutout for SFF mags at the end. And a surprise(!) mention of Uncertain Sons 🙏. Many thanks to Wil and his audio team. What an honor.

Really honored to have my story "Life on Earth" nominated for this year's Pushcart by Phano! "They discover life on Mars the same day the doctors tell us that Willmae is dying. . ." www.phano.co/articles/lif...

For only a fraction of your Netflix budget you can support actual art, not “content”, and also get full access to all of my ramblings at @briefecology.bsky.social

I'm so happy to say that I've got a new story out in @asimovpress.bsky.social today! press.asimov.com/articles/see... It's a hard sci fi exploration of grief. An instructional? A cautionary tale? Something in between? Check it out:

The BSFA long-list is open for nominations. I’d be honoured if you’d consider my work. Thank you.

I'm so happy to say that I've got a new story out in @asimovpress.bsky.social today! press.asimov.com/articles/see... It's a hard sci fi exploration of grief. An instructional? A cautionary tale? Something in between? Check it out:

'Bush Flowers' by Raelene Stevens, contemporary Indigenous Australian painter from the Tweed Valley area of NSW #WomensArt

Composition No. 142 by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, 1943 https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137723

New pinned post: My debut collection of short stories, The House of Illusionists, is now officially out. vanessafogg.com?page_id=1020

Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.”)

This @champwongs.bsky.social story is really *really* good. www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/auto...

A Cover Reveal! 🌕 Many thanks to everyone involved in the creation of this auroralicious cover for The Cellar Below The Cellar...out February 2026

real heads know great lakes heads 50 years today she was the pride of the American side...

2025 READING THREAD: If you're interested in what this editor is reading throughout the year, I'm going to drop each book in here as I complete it. I'm pretty ruthless about DNFing books I don't vibe with, so if you see it on this list you can consider it a recommendation.

There is no new work up on ergot. today. Instead, take a peek at our archive: www.ergot.press/authors

The history of astrophotography is absurdly fascinating. This is a picture from the Orion Nebula taken in 1883 by Andrew Common.

Thank you everyone who came yesterday to the online launch party for The House of Illusionists! Thanks, @interstellarflight.bsky.social for putting it together! I loved meeting you all! (Also, I hate hearing my recorded voice, but for those who don't, here's some clips from last night)

Yet another reminder that some of the very best flash fiction in the world is being published as anonymous comments on YouTube videos

I don't have any scary stories to share for Halloween, but I do have a ghost story! "Handsomest Gentlest" is about the flaming-eyed fiend who stalks the forest of the dead. It's also a story about a boy and his dog. I have been told that it might make you sad. 🖤 www.havenspec.com/handsomest-g...

ANNOUNCEMENT 1. Afterlives 2024 curated by @shereereneethomas.bsky.social has been COVER REVEALED 2. the collection will be available FOR FREE to paid patrons of @thedeadlands.com 3. join now, read The Deadlands, and receive the book magically when it is released beginning of November go see! 👇

The slime mold continues to grow.! Thanks so much @fusionfragment.bsky.social for highlighting and of course @hexliterary.bsky.social for publishing.

FFer Read of the Day: "A Visit From the Sentient Slime Mold Specialist" by @spencerwriting.bsky.social in @hexliterary.bsky.social hexliterary.com?p=2708

this review got me in the gut and the heart

Thinking of Barthelme as speculative, or floating within the larger pool of irrealism, is syncing up nicely with some thoughts I’ve been working on with weird genre/canon formation, especially pulling on this excellent thought by Timothy Jarvis and Helen Marshall

"The weird, beginning at a point, the exact location of which Zach cannot reveal, expanded northward all one night, while people were sleeping."

*pushes aside grave dirt* i heard that every tenth coin sold is cursed but like a fun curse what? i don't make the rules WAIT *cackles* I DO 💀🫶 buy a coin here: psychopomp.com/the-deadland...

Apex is funded, but there are still more stretch goals to meet to restore it to its former glory! Spread the word for more issues (including one specifically for unpublished authors!), new drabble contests, and more.

Watch this space...

Wanna read some stories? Here's a 🧵 of my 2025 publications so far... 1) "Written on the Subway Walls" in @morningtransport.bsky.social : resistance in the face of systemic oppression, from the pov of the old Erie Canal bed in Rochester NY www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/written-on...

We're SIX DAYS AWAY from the end of our Kickstarter and 75% FUNDED 🚀✨ Remember, it's YOUR donations keeping us a proudly pro-rate magazine, which financially compensates the skilled authors who bring Apex to life. Help artists thrive in 2026 and donate TODAY 💜👽 www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...

FFer Read of the Day: "Everything We Lost in the Apocalypse" by @marofthebooks.bsky.social in @strangehorizons.bsky.social strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

Very excited to share each of these brilliant stories by @kaunvijaya.bsky.social, @probablyharmless.bsky.social, @kcolemanwrites.bsky.social, @spencerwriting.bsky.social, @yasmeenfahmy.bsky.social, @roberthelfst.bsky.social, @improbablerex.bsky.social, & @awritingwren.bsky.social with the world!

It's Friday, I'm in love with the table of contents for Saros SF #5! We have such a wonderful variety of strange, lovely, and thought-provoking stories to share with readers of our Sound/Silence issue, and I couldn't be more proud to work with these fantastic writers on my first foray into editing 🖤

ICYMI: My Hobbes' Leviathan kaiju cosmic body horror fantasia FEAST OF THE PALE LEVIATHAN is now available as a PDF ebook on Gumroad, with an EPUB on the way. The ebooks will also be available soon through major retailers once Ingram chills out a lil