Sometimes I wonder if our many years of jokes about writers hating writing and doing anything but writing, etc, have convinced people that the writing part is the hurdle and the goal is just to have a thing in hand. But I am here to tell you: the writing is the best part. The act is the thing.

Yesterday was Bram Stoker’s 178th birthday! 🎂 Author of THE LADY OF THE SHROUD, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, and, of course, the iconic DRACULA. 🧛 Read the 1899 public-domain edition here ⤵️ archive.org/details/drac...

The black square page (marking a character's death) in "Tristram Shandy" (1759)

In this weekend's Irish Times, I review What Remains by Brais Lamela, tr. Jacob Rogers @bullaunpress.bsky.social The Effingers: A Berlin Saga by Gabriele Tergit, tr. Sophie Duvernoy @pushkinpress.com Eye Of The Monkey by Krisztina Tóth, tr. @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social @sevenstoriesuk.bsky.social

I will miss wetlands.

"In Annah, Infinite, the dominant narratives surrounding Paul Gauguin’s famous painting turned upside down. What if the portrait is ... a child in pain?" An experimental work of creative non-fiction that challenges art history, confronts colonial ableism, and reclaims a stolen spirit. #ArtSky

The book of my life (so far), ANNAH, INFINITE is an escape story. A translation of a painting, in speculative nonfic, poetry & art. Took 14 yrs, &I’m inviting you to love it as I do. Aug 19 UK, Nov 11 US. For reviews/i’views/events: [email protected] www.tiltedaxispress.com/annah-infini...

Yet another record breaking storm supersized by a warming world 😢 Climate change doesn’t create these storms: it makes them worse. They intensify faster, reach higher strengths and dump more rain. That’s why climate action isn’t just about saving the planet: it’s quite literally about saving US.

Very well done: world history from west to east and from 4000 BCE to 2000 AD. Interesting!

Archaeologists have discovered a stone tablet at a Tartessian site in southwestern Spain that depicts battle scenes in the center and a partial alphabet in a Paleo-Hispanic script along the edges (21 signs total). www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Was this my favorite story in the collection? Maybe. Maybe not. (Probably, though.) But if you haven’t read it, you really, really should.

My only ask: If you enjoy it, and haven't read the collection, please consider supporting Undertow by getting a copy (or any of their books), because they're an awesome indie publisher and every bit helps. Really nice to do this for their author and make the story accessible, and I appreciate it!

Hey! Sort of a surprise new story day. @undertow.bsky.social is making my novelette, "Uncertain Sons," (original to the collection) available online for a short time for folks catching up on end-of-year reading. Eligible for most novelette/long fiction categories. Online until end of November!

It's a wonderful story with a fantastic protagonist (narrator, too)—get it!

I've made @thomasha.bsky.social's original novelette "Uncertain Sons" - from his debut collection - available to read for those catching up on year-end reading, for awards eligibility and recommendations. Enjoy! We appreciate your kind consideration. undertowpublications.com/uncertain-sons

Definitely ‘Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity’ from @erewhonbooks.bsky.social! Editing this project was such a powerful joy, especially right now, and I’m honored by all the amazing writers & translators who contributed and entrusted me with their stories. bookshop.org/p/books/ampl...

With alt

Went to the bookshop today and found a Stephen Gould book. I'm so surprised. This would be my first time finding one of these new and not secondhand.

Known for their grand migrations southwards this time of year, monarch butterflies in many cultures are associated with the souls of the dead. They guarantee souls find their way home, but sometimes, when they return, they might just be those souls revisiting us. #FolkloreSunday

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today after being a little unwell I am planning to finish the excellent The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson. What Are you reading at the moment?

The reviews are in! Eat the Ones you Love by Sarah Maria Griffin reviewed by Nileena Sunil The Demon by Victory Witherkeigh reviewed by Subham Rai Field Of Frights by Christina Hagmann reviewed by Racheal Chie Link to latest issue in bio! #speculativefiction #specfic #horror #sff #bookreviews

Nomadism…in space! Eco-sci-fi collection of stories about migration, wandering, and general transience through the great unknown. With: - space witches - rediscovering purpose through bicycling - screw these space colonizers And more! querying “True Stories of Cycling on Ceres” #hopepit #scifi

How your email finds me.

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Great reading this weekend and the weather is perf 🤌🏾

I did add it to my running list of books set in Bulawayo though 😍 (If I haven't said it before on here, that's where my heart lives)

"a quiet novel of beauty focused on character, suffused with a sense of place, set in the countryside & Zanzibar’s old town. Gurnah makes mild commentary on the destructive influence of tourism & white savourism on Tanzanian & Zanzibari life & culture.." @hararereview.bsky.social wp.me/pfI155-169

Righto

"One strength that Black bookstores have had consistently is their connection with their communities. Most Black bookstores and their owners in this country are deeply loved." — Char Adams

Where I am angry to see, instead of the house made in part clean, all the pewter goods and other things are brought up to scouring, which makes the house ten times worse, at which I was very much displeased, but cannot help it.

Reminder: Please submit recommendations by Nov. 14th for the Otherwise Award jury to consider! Nominate works of speculative fiction - #sciencefiction, #fantasy, and more - that expand or explore our notions of gender: otherwiseaward.org/award/2025-o...

I would love it if you could join me at one my upcoming events to celebrate the release of Daughters of Nicnevin Waterstones events here: www.waterstones.com/events/searc... The Highland Bookshop tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/daughters-...

(This doesn’t happen ever BUT I actually got TWO acceptances in less than 24hrs!) Happy to announce I’ll also be returning to @uncannymagazine.bsky.social with a body horror novelette ft. a wartime factory where its workers get their memories wiped out every night via hounds that lick their bodies!

Later, on a night walk, I saw a moondog chase the Moon, an iridescent celestial ghost. I walked up an unlit path, and something bark-laughed from the treeline, loud, twice, sending me scampering back indoors. Probably just a fox, but monsters bred gleeful in the dark of my mind.

Hey, NYC! I'm doing a fun zine/poster event on 11/15 for @handsoffnyc.bsky.social with @bkindivisible.bsky.social and @anyonecomics.bsky.social and a bunch of awesome local comics creators! Come fold zines and make posters and push back against ICE! www.mobilize.us/indivisiblen...

sijo from a spaceship escaping a dying planet  by Annie Bolger "what season is space?" Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

As we near the end of the year, the last thing you might want is a big, chunky fantasy or science fiction book to drag into the new year. Good thing @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social's got 5 underrated novellas to recommend instead!

Nuance is *good*.

Plot twist: I decided to resume reading Pamuk's A Strangeness in My Mind that I started (and DNF-ed) six years ago. Inspired by my retrying Home Remedies after failing in finishing (and loving) it months before.

He should call it And Another Thing

(I do this so I can go back to reading)

Ebooks available! We have a new weird horror anthology! Speculative fiction against the caste system! Tamil & Gujarati pulp fiction in translation! Lots more! www.blaft.com/collections/...

How to be Unmothered x Camille U. Adams 240 pp. August 19, 2025, Restless Books. Non-fiction/memoir. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like Camille U. Adams’s prose poetry memoir. Lots of books are called poetic, or lyrical; but when you read How to be Unmothered, you’ll find out how…

Your Cherokee words for today. The top word is English followed by how it is written in the Cherokee language followed by how it is spelled in English then how to pronounce it phonetically. Once some young men of the Cherokee set out to see what was in the world and traveled south until they came

So much good stuff in replies

Over a weekend I wrote “Dislocated,” a meet-cute that’s also about disability and being left behind by society, and I still love it for its hopefulness. www.flashfictiononline.com/article/disl...

Theft x Abdulrazak Gurnah 304 pp. March 18, 2025, Bloomsbury Publishing/Riverhead Books. Fiction. Karim is born out of a loveless marriage. His mother Raya consents to marrying a much older man to protect her family’s honour: A young freedom fighter has taken interest in her and will not suit. The…

Yaaaay I now have so many meaningful things to read this weekend 🥰✨💕