BCS #461 ebook out early today @weightlessbooks.bsky.social & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories of serving food and steering life by @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social and Louis Morris, behind cover art by Tyler Edlin: weightlessbooks.com/fiction/bene... www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceas...

Had an absolute ride reading and reviewing this book! The level of thought Mahmud has put into every thread of the story is, very much, madness. The review is also from a new substack of mine, so feel free to follow if you're interested in such writing.

Just received my new favourite comment about TROM from @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social. "It thrills me to bear witness to the madness of a writer." 😂 Read his excellent substack on TROM and language and society in India here: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Today we add 8 issues of @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social! Featuring modern sword and sorcery by tons of great authors including Michael Moorcock, @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social, @jayxwolf.bsky.social, @mollytanzer.bsky.social, @premeemohamed.com, and more: weightlessbooks.com/category/pub...

Interstellar Megachef, by @lavanya.bsky.social which is both a delightful story about a cooking show in an interstellar civilization and a thoughtful tale about immigration and social class. Absolutely a perfect summer read. Plus the sequel just came out!

The Nazir story is definitely AI. Way too many tells to refute it. Shambles that an institution like the Commonwealth Foundation Creative is rewarding slop (regional winner ffs!), which in turn is being published blindly by Granta. We're in the end times, fellas.

One of those braindead mornings where I sent an email signing off as the person I was sending the email to.

At this point, I think the entire publishing industry needs to have a serious conversation about the degree to which the last 15 years have increasingly seen book promo become an online venture, and what that means now that entire social media and digital platforms are getting torched overnight. 🧵

@rati.bsky.social 's story was such fun! Incredibly well-written.

I've a story in one of these absolutely fantastic issues and they're all sure to be worth your time.

Issues 5 thru 7 of @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social are now available in the Bodega! ⚔️ If you're longing for the scifi/fantasy anthologies of yore, with a heavy emphasis on Queer perspectives: this is your magazine⚔️

Wow, Issue #7 of @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social has some Sword and Planet bangers! I loved the pace and voice of Dariel Quiogue's Corsairs of the Crater Sea, the wit and charm of @jamesenge.bsky.social's The Red Road to Lost Amarkh, and @prashanthsrivatsa.bsky.social's moving The Promise of Dilli.

I'm honored to have won the 2025 Sushila Devi Award for LOKA! 🙏 Very grateful to the Bhopal Literature & Art Festival and Shri Ratanlal Foundation for the award, and to the jurors for their kind words. 💙 to the team at Hachette India and to Cameron McClure for supporting the book! #sciencefiction

Tasavvur is a non-profit, self-funded magazine. With your help, we can continue to pay writers and artists to bring wonderful stories to light. Donate today, as your support means everything to us! Link: buymeacoffee.com/tasavvurnama 🔮 - #SouthAsian #SpeculativeFiction

Why is this so accurate and painful and also hilarious all at the same time

If you've got one thing for the weekend, let that be to watch Pluribus.

The winners of the 2025 World Fantasy Awards have been announced—congratulations to all! reactormag.com/here-are-the...

Why does Slow Horses have only six episodes? And a teaser ready for the next season! And then the next season promptly arrives in a few months, and you're seated! Why can't all shows be like Slow Horses?

This seemed at first like a very interesting, albeit mainstream, map of authors across the globe, until I came across Edward Said being labeled an Israeli and just - wow. hammockmag.github.io/literarymap/...

*A French restaurant* "Oh, waiter?" "Oui, monsieur?" "I don't wish to appear rude, but this wine...well...it tastes a bit of petrol." "Oui! That is the Vin Diesel."

In case you missed the news, The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell is available for preorder 🎉 Preorder now, available June 23, 2026! buff.ly/SvZQ82W

It's over for us. In one day, I have now received two feedbacks from two readers who read my story and both critiques are so unabashedly Chatgpt generated, and I say that not only just they were IDENTICAL. People need to realize that if I wanted feedback from a fucking bot, I'd go get it myself.

In current social media parlance, if you say something's your favorite, it ends the conversation. If you say something's the best, it's rage bait. In between lies the wasteland of decorum.

Four books to get to know me

Congratulations to all winners!

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.