I picked up this collection after reading Thomas Ha’s wonderful “window boy” last year. I’m only partway through reading the collection but can confirm that the first three stories are bangers. Ha has a knack for weird, surreal, and psychologically complex storytelling.

My position on taking action. And on the important space between everything and nothing.

me to grad students: share your work with each other, talk, exchange ideas! me to me: no one can ever see this draft it's garbage and they'll think i'm garbage and then i'll have to move into a dumpster where i belong

also always deeply funny that every sci-fi video game from 1999-2014 was trying to be Aliens, and copied everything except the...working class woman protagonist

Was reminded of my very favorite tweet of all time today:

Also hiring for another position in our Marketing Department! We're looking for a Marketing Manager to manage campaigns and champion our authors. Join our mission-driven team! careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psp/ucop/EMP...

I saw this recently, and it was terrifically weird. More of a Gothic fairytale about plastic surgery than a straightforward mad scientist tale. It seemed very much up Del Toro’s alley.

Surveys find students feel “demoralized” when instructors use ChatGPT for grading and lecture preparation.

AI bubble looking good today. youtu.be/1ujRE2IkEIo?...

This section of Gerald of Wales' The Conquest of Ireland in which he praises his own family is essentially the Theme from Shaft.

If you're doing your holiday shopping and/or thinking about best to celebrate Jane Austen's 250th birthday, 1 month from today, I have some news: Harvard UP's annotated editions of Austen's fiction (my own edition of Mansfield Park included) are now 25% off. www.hup.harvard.edu/features/hap...

This headline ticks all the boxes for me.

I am calling upon the people of Ireland to immediately begin construction of a thread on this site about how you or someone you know was roasted for a fashion choice. We need it. All roasts must have come from Irish people *only*. Please respect this important rule, it makes a difference. Tanks

My colleague Marie-Theres Fojuth has advertised a fully funded 3-year PhD Fellowship in Museum Education @unistavanger.bsky.social with the «Into the Fjords: Blue Museums as Arenas of Learning about Vulnerable Ecosystems (FJORDS)» project. Perfect for Scandinavian-speaking #envhum #envhist people!

Eric William Ravilious, y’all.

Hobbes must’ve felt like a fucking god telling the illustrator about this insane cover concept

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Dr Seward’s journals are famously ‘Kept in Phonograph’. Join me for a nerdy deep dive in which I, brandishing back-of-an-envelope math, calculate the cost of Seward's phonograph habit, & encounter a creature more uncanny than Dracula himself! 1/14 #Gothic

A Kimono decorated with skeletons, from Japan, 1840-1860 CE, now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

i think you need a baby sea otter swimming with mom right about now...

They're trying to prevent the student newspaper from printing news, period. Not just a particular story. "The Media School directed us to print no news in the paper... nothing but information about homecoming — no other news at all, and particularly no traditional front page news coverage."

topical

V. excited to have found a child's diary from 1789, covering the period he & his family fled the French Revolution ... So far it has mostly been 'I am very annoyed about running away!', accompanied with detailed blow by blow accounts of his tutor's unfortunate bouts of diarrhoea #18c

Your yearly reminder: Oct 1st means Spooky Season has begun!

Is there anything more tantalising than the promise of an early 19th-century letter with the postscript "Burn this immediately"?

This only happens to you once

A rose spotted in Newbury today

Morning walk

Bowie was planning a musical titled “The Spectator” about Jonathan Wild and London street criminals. Also, fashion. 😭

Word.

Great to see the US climate scientists that Trump fired, fight back by setting up a parallel infrastructure website - climate.us - a crowdsourced nonprofit that aims to rebuild an independent version of the Government climate website that was closed down. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Rare sketches made of Dickens's plays in rehearsal are now on display at the Dickens Museum. I've been lucky enough to see these up close and really enjoyed studying these - a must see! www.msn.com/en-us/entert...

Watched this as a tween and it totally set me up for my later love of grimdark historical scheming.

The fantastic KGB reading series is doing a fundraiser! Even $10 would help sustain this wonderful community arts event. www.gofundme.com/f/fantastic-...

Man, we have gotten so many pitches like the ones detailed here--stories that sound amazing and pitches that take all the right forms but there's just something *off* about them, and nothing much turns up about the writers. It sucks for many reasons, not least that it makes me--

Jules Verne: and so, the heating of a coil within a secondary envelope allows the balloon to navigate levels of atmosphere. Combined w the international date line we see the malleability of time! HG Wells: set the dial to future and you go there Verne: Wells: people are apes in the future

The #HugoAward for Best Related Work goes to Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right, Jordan S. Carroll (University of Minnesota Press). “Insist that tomorrow belongs to everyone.”

The closing of Bucknell University Press is a tremendous loss for academic publishing in general and 18th-century studies in particular. Universities have abandoned the academic mission. We’re the generation that will have to reinvent knowledge-work from the institutional ruins.

This New Yorker cartoon by Sarah Kempa seems just right for the season. Sending good wishes especially to those North American academics who have to return to the classroom in AUGUST, before Labor day. You all deserved more time with your beach reads.

what a gift to all of us! thank you!

If you are a published writer & object to Anthropic slurping up your writing for AI, you have until 8/15 to sign up to help defend your copyright. Check this database to see if they hv taken yr writing (you might want to check regardless): www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... Then . . . 1/2

Whew, online engagement is really tough right now. I know it because I see Uncanny Magazine still has stretch goals that need to be unlocked! 51 hours to go: www.kickstarter.com/...

So fascinating! I knew the drink existed - there's even a reference to it in an "Annie" lyric! - but not what it consisted of, nor that it's where we got the expression of "slipping someone a Mickey." !!!

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception." www.mellon.org/voices/human...

Sojourn Inspired by Picnic at Hanging Rock

“British food is too heavily seasoned” is exactly the nineteenth-century perspective that we need to counter all those tedious American takes that British food is bland

This article came across my feed today and reminded me how much of my backbrain is constantly occupied thinking about bog butter. A shocking portion. www.irishnews.com/news/ireland...

Halfway through my six-week grad summer class, "Novel Theory." We've been reading classics as well as recent work by @dorazhang.bsky.social, @teaganbradway.bsky.social, & @ehayot.bsky.social. Up next: @drbibliomane.bsky.social, @sinsleyh.bsky.social, @annakornbluh.bsky.social, & more!

Tempted to try this recipe

From "Blood Atlas" (2025), pub. @arlenhouse.bsky.social

For just $30 an hour I will watch streaming shows with your parents and tell them whether something is a flashback