The Gloomy Girl Variety Show: A Memoir x Freda Epum

JFA Presents Yemoja’s Tears: An Anthology of Water, Bodies and Bodies of Water

Alted

Translation, Politics, and Solidarity In this “BETWEEN TWO ARABIC TRANSLATORS” conversation, Yasmeen Hanoosh and Michelle Hartman discuss how the conceptual framework of solidarity raises important questions about translation, what it means to share (or not share) political commitments with an…

oil and water are hostile

Catch up reviews I read The Trees by #PercivalEverett in Oct to get me out of a reading rut, and it worked. I went in blind without reading the blurb just to add another layer of surprise. Everett is a reliable good read, never predictable, always intriguing. clairemcalpine.com/2025/11/16/t...

'I’m no expert but I know what it means to be dehumanized, rendered disposable, and oppressed,' Alice wrote of the imperative to be in solidarity with Palestine. 'I know that all people deserve freedom. I know that genocide is a mass disabling event and a form of eugenics.'

It is a while since I remembered to share links to the thoughts I've had about books I've read. Here's a thread #BookSky First up, devastating but hopeful short stories about womanhood by Paola Ferrante published by @influxpress.bsky.social thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2025/10/10/h...

Bookmail! October sale pickups! From Influx Press! They arrived over a week ago but the cats liked sitting on the parcel and it is illegal to move them!

This is the only thread where I will ever refer to The Men and The Women 😂 Reductio ad absurdum. I'm taking the complaint about masculinity in literature at face value even though I think the proposition itself is flawed.

So perhaps the real question is not "why aren't men reading litfic," it's "why are women STILL reading litfic?" Answering *that* question would tell you a lot more about the state of the market. Is it the social aspect of book clubs? Oprah and Reese driving sales among their audiences?

1. Lit publishers are not interested in going to the kinds of conventions and trade shows where male audiences gravitate. They are married to the idea that their competition is female authors/readers/etc. This is BS. Their competition is video games + franchise TV.

Books like this will not get men reading literary fiction again. If these kinds of novels worked, Jonathan Franzen would have led to some kind of male readership renaissance. (And I am not a Franzen hater. The Corrections was brilliant.) Litfic wasn't scooped by women. It was scooped by video games.

I try to read all the Booker winners, so I am in the middle of this year's (Flesh) right now. It's decently well-written, but if it is the last word on masculinity (total lack of interiority, driven solely by sexual impulses that cannot be explained or controlled) then masculinity is in real trouble

"...back towards town along a three-lane highway washed clean by the rain, past low rolling hills of yellow-white sand terraced with pink moss. Seaward a few gulls wheeled and swooped over something in the surf and far out a white yacht looked as if it was hanging in the sky."

Bro I’m so sorry your novel came out at the exact point of i) death of novel ii) re-centring of masculinity in literary fiction iii) return of a robust critical culture - lousy timing, bro

New Review - let’s start the week with some excellent fantasy Scotland 1745 and two women finally able to share their secrets. I strongly recommend Daughters of Nicnevin by Shona Kinsella out now! www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2025/11...

Irish Haiku Society Competition 2025 Competition deadline: 31st December 2025 'The IHS International Haiku Competition offers prizes of Euro 200, Euro 60, and Euro 40 for unpublished haiku/senryu in English.' Read more: www.writing.ie/writing-comp... #haikusky

Don't miss our latest "Between Two Arabic Translators": arablit.org/2025/11/17/t...

We've just opened submissions on a brief call for short solstice writing. Let's see what happens!

"This analysis has, so far, neglected the Science Fiction category as it is now by far SFF’s junior partner with just two titles in the 2025 Top 50." www.thebookseller.com/bestsellers/...

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories x Thomas Ha

Was helping my dad move cattle this afternoon. This involved bringing togeather two small groups into a new herd and, initially, the animals all just stood around the yard eying each other warily. I said to him, "This looks like a faculty mixer..."😂

Join Shakespeare ! go.bsky.app/BKaWcfr

Wallace Saaty's interior art for Laurence Manning's "The Living Galaxy" in Wonder Stories (September 1934). The story contains a very early reference to a generation ship. #scifi #sciencefiction #art #artist

My review also contains an appeal for assistance (about identifying Japanese publication dates): sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/s...

This is the opening event in the inaugural Dublin Small Press Fair where you can browse the work of more than 30 book-makers, small presses, zine distributors and -makers, independent publishers, and literary magazines Tickets and more info: www.eventbrite.ie/e/independen...

A short lived Best Of series spearheaded by essayist Gerald Early.

My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books pages.

Reminder you can read @thomasha.bsky.social 's novelette "Uncertain Sons" for free til the end of the month.

what is your favorite horror or dark fantasy set in the medieval or early modern past?

“Another week survived is another week won.”

#BlogsOfTheWeek 1. 'John Gerard’s 1597 botanical reference book explains that the [horsetail] plant’s roughness "is not unknowen to women, who scowre their pewter and wooden things of the kitchen therewith".' Erin Braid. tinyurl.com/dcrjv8zv

Amid the global outpouring of tributes to the legendary activist #AliceWong, many of the obits are neglecting to mention Alice’s incredible efforts in solidarity with Gazans. You can contribute to this fund here in Alice’s memory. chuffed.org/project/crip...

It can feel as if the stones cast a spell of perpetuation upon the landscape. Archetypes of transmission and reception echoed into a manifesting modernity. This is fanciful, but it's also one of the ways the Long Neolithic works – it infects our imaginations. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday

A surprise drop for your weekend reading pleasure! Check out our special reprint issue: SINNERS, SAINTS & HAINTS! Guest editors: @edenroyce.bsky.social + @shakeemasmalls.bsky.social Cover by @goblinprincete.bsky.social Black authors been IN these genre streets, don't let anyone say otherwise 🔥🔥🔥

My favourite year for oppressed literary masculinity was 2023 when the number of women on the Booker shortlist was smaller than the number of men named Paul

Good morning! Announcing the Translunar Travelers Lounge 2025 catch-up reading party. This year we published two issues each with fourteen stories, and we've decided celebrate them all over again. We'll be making a post for one story every day, and invite everyone to (re-)read and talk about them!

"Azurest Blue: The Life & Legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith, from Saint Heron, is a marriage between archive & narrative, filled w/ personal correspondence, annotated documents, blueprints, photographs, & commissioned essays from contemporary voices of design" www.architecturaldigest.com/story/solang...

There's lots of stories about Judge Bao and the seven swordsman who worked for him, they turn up from time to time in current Cdrama, in fact there's a whole series about them which should be coming out soon! 2/2

Just learned one of my ancestors, Uriah Rickman, was a white man! He owned hundreds of acres of farm land in Tennessee in 1842, so I guess that should have been a clue....

“Our strategy of transition is aimed at setting up the conditions by which we win that contested reproduction with capital.” @kmilb.bsky.social, author of Radical Abundance, interviewed for @rs21.bsky.social revsoc21.uk/2025/10/30/i...

We need to raise $35,000 to get us through 2025 and balance the budget for 2026. This is the largest goal we’ve ever set for a campaign, but in these challenging times is when we need our community most. Help us by donating today! buff.ly/s2Quqmr

Charlotte Brontë did not send out manuscripts for consideration, I learn, she ‘perseveringly obtruded’ them.

Par pitié activez cette option dans vos paramètres ! Ça vous empêchera de poster une image tant qu'elle n'est pas décrite.

Incredible

i just read something about grief from C.S. Lewis and his book, “A Grief Observed” basically, when someone you love dies, it isn’t just them that you miss, but the parts of yourself that person brought out of you that can never be brought out again. i feel that with my dad.

Richard Flanagan on the Tasmanian genocide (& the great OZ silence that surrounds it) is hard to read, & will stay with you; the much-commented final chapter too is extraordinary (& harrowing) on his very-near death in a rafting mishap aged 21: little wonder he seized the day ever after…

Just for my own edification, if you are BIPOC and living in Canada and write gothic horror do you mind saying hi to me on this thread? Off the bat respectfully I know of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Premee, Nalo Hopkinson, I love all of their work and have their books.

the Wikipedia entry for “Petticoat Junction“ includes a lot of deep lore about the trains involved in the show, including the contention that it was not in fact a junction but a water stop