It really bothers me that offering has only one r while occurring has two.

Huge congratulations to @wiswell.bsky.social for a well-deserved Locus win! Everyone go red Someone You Can Build A Nest In if you haven't.

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

it is really weird that publishing decided that instead of having a marketing budget, writers should just become cult leaders

oh wow, another book I loved! a portal fantasy that I feel is somehow not getting read enough is The Spice Gate by @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social

Also delighted to see @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social's wonderful Indian fantasy epic THE SPICE GATE as a finalist for First Novel. & other great work I enjoyed from last year on the ballot, including by @vandroidhelsing.bsky.social @scumbelievable.bsky.social @vajra.me @tlotlotsamaase.bsky.social:

Delighted to be a Locus finalist for The Spice Gate, under the first novel category. Congratulations to many friends and excellent authors who have made the list!

One more day left for the Locus Award nominations voting. THE SPICE GATE is up on the longlist in the First Novel category. If you've read and enjoyed the book, please do take some time to vote. Thank you! :) poll.voting.locusmag.com

Can we do dragons next?

Fascinatingly, this nakedness (which is not a matter of shame or lack of civility but a common virtue) is compensated with flowers and jewelry that adorn the bare upper body and legs. Class distinction occurs in this manner, as is evident in old Sangam poems and post-Sangam epics.

Delighted to inform that researching people's attire for my 2,000-yr old sangam era historical fantasy has abruptly ended after discovering that most commoners roamed naked.

It is impossible not to see the correlation between this excellent article and the regular online discourse around why cozy sff has primarily been a white author's genre. The author demographic might have evolved somewhat over the last 2 years, but this is still a great critique.

Just fyi that there are several immensely talented artists who have for years honed their craft on developing ghibli-like aesthetics and y'all chatgpt-ing your summer picnic snaps for 6 seconds of awe and clout

I've been thinking a lot about my author career lately, and the precarious position I feel like I'm in. I haven't put out a book since 2022, and my next isn't until at least May 2026. All the publisher folks who first acquired my debut are gone. My momentum is very stalled.

Yes, I watched the whole 50 minutes. And no, my opinion has not changed.

⚔️SECOND BONUS POEM UNLOCKED🪐 It will be a Sword & Planet poem chosen through open submissions! Subs will open shortly after the crowdfund ends on March 15th, and we'll provide further details then. Meanwhile, onward to 350+ shares of the original post and unlocking a third poem!

I have killed so many darlings in my current WIP they've become an entire book by themselves, where the darlings stage an uprising for retribution

Is there anything more useless than a Thai red curry in a menu that also has Thai green curry?

FYI, many of these excellent South Asian writers / editors are on bsky, so please follow them if you don't already. In order: @gautambhatia88.bsky.social, @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social, @amalsingh.bsky.social, @vajra.me, @blaftrakesh.bsky.social, @lavanya.bsky.social, & @indrapramitdas.bsky.social

Why do fantasy novels have impossible large libraries, but very few characters who are writers?

WELCOME BACK PRASHANTH SRIVATSA! @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social will have a brand new story in one of this year's issues. See cool previews and sign up to be alerted when the crowdfund launches: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

Some of the titles I gush about: @vandroidhelsing.bsky.social's THE WEST PASSAGE, Samantha Harvey's ORBITAL, Layla Martinez' WOODWORM, collections by Mariana Enriquez, Puloma Ghosh, @gigiganguly.bsky.social; novels by @lavanya.bsky.social, @amalsingh.bsky.social, @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social&more!

Why do fantasy novels have impossible large libraries, but very few characters who are writers?

this was such a good read, if you haven't you really should

The Spice Gate is on the Locus Recommended List! It happily falls under the First Novel category. Along with some phenomenal names who published their works last year inc @gautambhatia88.bsky.social, @amalsingh.bsky.social, @indrapramitdas.bsky.social, @vajra.me, @wiswell.bsky.social among others.

Super thrilled to see two of my works in the Locus Recommended List! My debut novel, “The Garden of Delights” and short story “The Gulmohar of Mehranpur”! Congratulations to everyone I share this list with, @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social @gautambhatia88.bsky.social @indrapramitdas.bsky.social

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Debuts of 2024 (Part Two) sifaelizabethreads.wordpress.com/2025/01/28/b... @ajclack.bsky.social @fireflypress.bsky.social @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social @harpervoyagerus.bsky.social @jesspopps.bsky.social @chickenhousebooks.bsky.social @harrietconstable.bsky.social

One down, three to go! Reading my way through the @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social mags that arrived recently. All good stories in the first issue, two spectacular - Sister Chaos by @brynhammond.bsky.social, and The Pillars of Silence by @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social. A joy to read. On to the next!

So much of SFF is about power structures. And yet, time and again, the lessons we gain from works that warn us of blind fealty and idolatry we fail to extend to the authors who penned them.

There are two kinds of readers. Those who say "just bear with it until the second half, it all pays off" and "this book doesn't grab me in the first 3 and a half lines, imma dnf" and very likely they are the same person talking about a book they're reccoing vs one that was recco'd to them.

I'll play along myself. Just grabbing the first three books on the top of the stack on my desk, and I'm dying to read them all: The Reformatory by @tananarivedue.bsky.social The Spice Gate by @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social The Grimoire Grammar School PTA by @caitlinrozakis.bsky.social

What I'm reading this week.

RAKESFALL also made the NYT 100 Notable Books of 2024 list, as a book on “the thorny question of how to endure fascism and kill kings.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Arcane Season 2, also known as Arcane Seasons 2, 3 and 4.

This has been an excellent read so far.

Spineless stuff from Spines. www.thebookseller.com/news/new-pub...

My debut novel, THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS won the Nebula Award for best novel, the Ignyte Award for outstanding adult novel, the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award for a first fantasy novel, and the Locus Award for a first novel. And it was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023.

It is astonishing how many plot holes I can tape over in my first draft by just making my protagonist an assassin.

All We Imagine as Light is finally out in theaters in India. It doesn't feel like a movie that needs popcorn, but I'm going to get a mini tub anyway.

At his most inspired, Dickens said about Indians, "I wish I were Commander in Chief in India… I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon the stain of the late cruelties rested…to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth."

ICYMI, my attempt at writing a Ghibli-esque story for adults (of all ages) in prose and set in my hometown Calcutta, a mythic realist tale about an extended family who may be extradimensional refugees. British Fantasy and Subjective Chaos Kind of Award winner, Locus Award nominee.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY BOOK IS OUT TODAY!!!!!!!!! THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS releases today in the US (and Italy)!!! I have waited SO LONG to share this book with everyone and I'm so excited that it's finally out in the world!!!!!!!!!

Want to read a British Fantasy winning collection? Look no further

I have 6 award-eligible stories this year, so I thought I’d make a thread to tell you a little bit about each of them (links included). Here’s my full eligibility post though to start: www.pacornell.com/2024-awards-...

Writing is incredible when you need to get from Point A to Point B but your mind fills in the blanks in between in a cool way that you hadn't planned for.

If you missed last night's NESS Book Club livestream about Clark Ashton Smith's short story 'The Dark Eidolon' with guests @valerievaldes.bsky.social @mollytanzer.bsky.social @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social and JM Clarke, you can catch up here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXDg...

My debut novel is now #1 in multiple categories on Amazon India! Thank you to everyone who bought a copy. I am so grateful!

Bombay folk! Come by next Thursday evening (21 Nov, 6 PM) to the Kemps Corner Crossword: we will be launching THE SENTENCE with the noted science fiction writer (aot), Kanan Gill.

Everyone's on Bluesky now, I get it. But are you on following or discover or popular with friends?