I'm still processing the news. I loved this gig so much. Getting to shout about great books by especially newer authors has been one of the most uncomplicated sources of joy in my life, and I'm gonna be sad about this for a long time.

New fuck/marry/kill list just dropped

The WashPo Book Section was an absolute gold standard for book coverage and it surprises me not a single bit that Bezos (who owns the megaretailer most of that marketing spend points back to!) would kill it. Breaks my heart for all of us, though.

As a DC native, I read WaPo religiously when I was a kid. Every single morning, in paper, for years. Watching it get taken out back and shot sucks.

The Books section of WaPo was legit good. I loved reading Ron Charles' weekly newsletter. I always get something from Becca Rothfeld's reviews. Wrote one review for them in Fall '24 and it was a tight-ship pro experience that paid well (things MSM oft does not deliver!) Sucks all around.

Both Matcha And Birds and The Waves And The River were made in Publisher 🙃

Fae: “Tell me, kind lady. What bargain would you strike with me today?” Me: “I’ll trade you my soul if you’ll do all my book marketing.” Fae: “Oh, hells no. Fuck that shit. Do it yourself.” Me: 😭

day one in mamdani’s new york

LRT: I should bicycle more in 2026.

Haruki Murakami was about to turn 30 when a thought occurred to him: “You know what? I could try writing a novel.” Then he realized, “If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to stay in shape.” newyorkermag.visitlink.me/EyiO35

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Here's my last SFF book review column of 2025. This time around, I focus on three science fiction books that blew me away: Sunward by @willalex.bsky.social Slow Gods by Claire North There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm DARN GOOD READS FOR UR EYEBALLS www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...

Creatives! Show me your favorite thing you made in 2025. It could be a sketch, a painting, a book, a sculpture - something YOU made that you're proud of, big or small. ----- I'm very proud of a 100+ line chōka I wrote in Japanese, about my feelings after the breakup with my ex. Chōka, not dead yet!

Why did you transition, wrong answers only I thought I'd see greater publishing success as a butch lesbian than as a straight man.

Trans instructor: “you didn’t do this assignment” Supervising professor: “she didn’t do the assignment” Student: “I didn’t do the assignment” University: “isn’t there someone you forgot to ask” some days I just want to scream and scream

I don't think free speech on campus ought to mean that a young coddled bigot gets to use their ignorance to casually destroy the career of a knowledgeable trans person on a random Wednesday

"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.

It's true. 😉 rebfree.itch.io/matcha-and-b...

Considering making one of the most important non-protagonist characters in my horror novel trans.

🚨Judge Xinis finds that, incredibly, Mr. Abrego Garcia was never ordered deported in 2019. She notes that every since this saga began all the way back in March, the government has NEVER been able to produce any evidence that the immigration judge actually issued a removal order.

"If you're asking yourself, 'should this character be trans,' they probably should." (?)

Science fiction story in which general AI is created, but they communicate in a way not intelligible as a language in the way humans understand language, and the only way humans and AI have to communicate is by writing and running complex programs to signify meaning.

Reading.

Thinking about writing a novella.

My favorite kind of holes in roads are where the hole opens into a pipe or some other space, so all you see is just a void open to the road surface. It's probably just a pipe, but who's to say it's not an opening to a subterranean tunnel system, or a portal to another space?

there’s not a single fucking reason cishet men couldn’t learn a thing or two from butch role models—real or fictional. not. a. single. reason

“we need more positive examples of masculinity in media” they cry and yet there isn’t a massive attempt to make butch lesbians normalized. lies. it’s all lies

I have made a Japanese-style seal (hanko). 僕は判子を作ってあります

The list is actually pretty solid! BUT ALSO FOR REAL THOUGH.

anyway, everything sucks, so many consider reading my hopeful trans lesbian cheerleader book series (and, in doing so, supporting a trans woman and her wife who are stuck in England)

Today we’re talking a bit about something we will work on if we meet our funding goal. We’ve been planning The Reconstruction Papers most of the year and our difficulty getting it off the ground as we are now was part of the motive for the fundraiser. www.liberalcurrents.com/a-preview-of...

In an @ezrafurman.bsky.social kind of mood this morning. ezrafurman.bandcamp.com/track/book-o...

we're going to win

Your moment of calm: Hooded Mergansers on Whidbey Island.

Write. You have an entire universe between your ears

Here at LittlePuss Press, we are proud of our strong historical track record of listening to our audience and taking their concerns seriously

Still in awe of this absolute unit of a triple-decker.

I think I'm going to write a horror novella before getting back to working on The Nine Pilots of Nebula AI0372.

“The world we are a part of now is difficult to accept, unimaginably difficult. I don’t know if I accept everything even now. I don’t know how I can. But acceptance moves past denial, and maybe there’s defiance in that, too.” — @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social The whole planet is now AREA X.

That's Bukowski, and if he could then you damn well can do too.

Drink from the well of yourself and begin again.

Good evening all. For this year's Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR), TFR remembers three transfeminine authors who passed away this year: Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (78), Valerie Amelia Thompson (38), and Michelle Duff (85) 🖤 We also remember 367+ victims of anti-trans violence and suicide 🕯️ #tdor

Rita Hester

This Transgender Day of Remembrance, I'm thinking of our trans neighbors whose lives were stolen by hate & prejudice. Folks like Rita Hester, a Black trans woman and beloved community member who was killed in the #MA7, and whose murder sparked this important day of recognition.

#birdbot

THEY ARE ADORABLE!!! LOOK! BORBS ADORBS!

Hi, I’m Matthew Seiji Burns. You may know me from such tweets as “They call him Big Hat Logan because he wears a big hat” or “Sam. It’s me, Die-Hardman. Wanted to let you know there's banana bread in the kitchen.” Check out my debut novel, about a guy who has a bad time.

LRT: "Biological men" is also a nonsensical mix of a science term, biological, with something socially-constructed, "men."

100% this. The use of the word "biological" here is disingenuous. Until the current moral panic, sex assigned at birth (for that is what it is) was simply an annotation on a birth certificate. It has as much relevance to a trans person's adult physiology and health as their recorded birth weight.