Oh! If you're using Buttondown and have public archives, you get to activate a little link that goes to the latest newsletter. That's pretty nifty! (also hey I have a newsletter that goes out about every 3 weeks on average? It's "when I have something to say" buttondown.com/ClaudieArsen...

"She’s determined to avoid him, but somehow they wind up in a corner talking about Marina Abramović." Oh, so it's a horror story

Spider inside a wild rose.

man is this country hostile to pedestrians on multiple levels, including (and especially) entitled and inattentive drivers

New short fiction from Sofia Samatar: issues.org/futuretensef...

The problem with me entering kdrama discourse is that a lot of them actually do have plot holes, but the fans identify both those and room for inference as such. Perfect Crown was pretty shallow, but also the show itself addressed, directly or through inference, a lot of the criticisms it got.

Goals: “It’s a little sad. It gets a little surreal. And then, like, lands in this strange, ambiguous—it’s kind of horrifying, but it’s kind of loving at the same time” —Casella describing one of the stories in Tiny Deaths

Goals: “It’s a little sad. It gets a little surreal. And then, like, lands in this strange, ambiguous—it’s kind of horrifying, but it’s kind of loving at the same time” —Casella describing one of the stories in Tiny Deaths

The Great Tolkien Reread ventures into Moria with "A Journey in the Dark" and "The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm". In this essay, we talk about the role of the past, for good and evil, in LOTR, and about the fact that Tolkien does not want us to like Boromir.

Sneaking in right at the end of the first half of the year, my six from six, looking at the best six books I read in 2026, plus a little bonus of the best six /published/ in 2026, and the somewhat-more-than-six I still want to get to. Lists!

After much dithering, my favourite six books of the year so far

feels like no small thing these days no matter how futile an effort

Unless something goes horribly wrong, see my novella 11 bookmarks, which I’ll be publishing in late Sept/early Oct.

I admire small to large collectives of people who live all over the world and are able to consistently produce things like Strange Horizons and Flights of Foundry and the Ignyte Awards and other (mostly) volunteer efforts that contribute so much to the field.

I've read 3 out of 9 of the shortlist, not bad all things considered. The fact that those three happen to be my favourite Fantasy novel of 2025, my favourite Science Fiction novel of 2025, and my favourite short story collection of 2025 suggests very good things about the rest of the shortlist.

this is what I mean when I post things like “funny as in Kafka funny”:

Audition and Notes from a Regicide are two of the best novels I’ve read in the past year. And I’ve read positive reviews and/or heard excellent things about the rest of the shortlist.

a teaser:

the novella has a cover

More specifically, what spoke to publishers about the book? The fact that it didn't explain anything for over half the book? The fact that chpts changed POV often? How was this presented to M+P? How did launch go? I want details! How did the acquiring ed. make everyone feel confident?

I made a colour. I call it Joseph's Brown (Joseph Joubert)

this is one messed up book

I just finished going over this MS for the last time, so I'm celebrating by telling you all! This is Living in Fire by Antoine Volodine, the last Volodine novel*, forthcoming from @uminnpress.bsky.social in October! Available for pre-order! Exciting!!!!! www.upress.umn.edu/978151791977...

even when she’s having an off night, gabby williams is indomitable

this is one messed up book

_Champions of free indirect discourse often maintain a pretense that POV-centric passages will report all novelistically important perceptions… Whereas Flaubert is willing to backfill gaps so long as the supplement doesn't directly *contradict* earlier accounts_ www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20260626....

The Fund Drive is still on! There are still rewards available including signed books and our super cool limited edition patch that is only available during the Fund Drive! 😎 Donate ⬇️ www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

Why yes I have just started reading John M Ford’s unfinished final novel Aspects for the third time. You should read it too.

This post is probably only for @liesandperfidy.bsky.social & @doorisajar.ca (but if we’re mutuals and an NBA fan, let me know), but: how many draft prospects/rookies who are described as being able to “guard all five positions” actually can?

_ In German, there’s a word that means “fire to cleanse the world.” It’s in the ideology of dystopian movies that we need cleansing fire. I hate this, totally_

I saw hate towards PJH online, esp. that she’s “boring”, but I had a different experience: the character has to portray ambitious early in career, but now timid (but still simmerin); smart but not confident; a romantic but disillusioned. To me, PJH is believable along all those spectrums/axes.

NEW WRITING, for @currentaffairs.bsky.social on the Backrooms movie, Fredric Jameson and the nightmare maze of contemporary capitalism that we can't find our way out of www.currentaffairs.org/news/backroo...

not going to do this, but if I were to start a tiktok channel, the name of it would be: the mildly belated critic

Okay, see, now this is what I want to watch--not Seo In-guk navigating corporate life, but repairing vintage electronics

See You at Work Tomorrow! is either hitting the kdrama office romance tropes at such a quick pace because it’s going to complicate them (which is good) or because it’s then going to slow everything down and/or pile more tropes on (which is probably bad).

Pedantic but important! Also: point of view also relates to deixis. I'm not a linguist & only studied it in relation to discourse theory, but it involves not just who is speaking, but the temporal and spatial context of the utterance. I keep meaning to play w/that spatial dimension in my fiction.

This is like the robber barons buying up villas after wwI www.srf.ch/kultur/gesel...

revision is fun it can actually fix things

More of nice things people say about my upcoming novella: @princejvstin.com says, "Resonant with our own struggles today, A Dubious Clamor holds up a mirror to our own society’s threats to find acceptance for those who do not fit into neat boxes.” Thanks, Paul! hornedlarkpress.com/product/a-du...

funny as in Kafka funny

Thinking about how fallen trees are the whale falls of a forest

Also, related -- legalize kei trucks!

Revising a novella, and me typing color when I meant collar gives you a clue to how difficult I find it to not pronounce those two words exactly the same way. See also: seal (as in seal of office, not the mammal) and sill. But not creek and crick. For whatever reason, that one never stuck.

Pedantic but important! Also: point of view also relates to deixis. I'm not a linguist & only studied it in relation to discourse theory, but it involves not just who is speaking, but the temporal and spatial context of the utterance. I keep meaning to play w/that spatial dimension in my fiction.

As always @4thstreetfantasy.bsky.social was wonderful and thought-provoking, and I only got to talk (beyond a quick wave, brief hello, or very short conversation) with 35% of the people I wanted to talk to. And just in case it wasn’t clear: do NOT read Gramsci’s Fall

_The electrical revolution rewired the supernatural_

it’s great, also can we get them to buy novels next

This has been a great project by Eddie. And just to underline 2024: City in Glass and A Mourning Coat are two of my favorite works of SF&F from the past five years.

This episode has been my commute listening as I’ve been droving to and from @4thstreetfantasy.bsky.social the last three days. It’s been great. What I didn’t know is the last thirty minutes or so is the hardest but best thing you could listen to on father’s day (which I just did).

Selfishly, perhaps, I think it would be cool if one of the SFF magazines that review stuff also reviewed SFF kidlit, including MG, for the benefit of their readers who are looking for entry reads for young readers in their lives or who enjoy reading kidlit themselves.