There's a bowl of strawberries sitting next to me and I want to eat them because I'm hungry, but I don't want to eat them because they're making the room smell like delicious summer.

It's that time of paper-writing when I'm forced to use Chicago's notes referencing style and am once again annoyed by its horrible redundancy.

Have you read Narnia, and were you dismayed by what happened to Susan? You're not alone. Fanfic has your back - and in my upcoming book, "Nylons, Lipstick, and Narnia: Rewriting Susan Pevensie in Fanfiction", I look at how fanfic writers re-imagine her story and give her a different ending.

The cover's out! Happy to say that I've got a chapter on how libraries explore the Necrocene and ecological grief in "Libraries, Archives, and Collective Grief", edited by @librarianchef.bsky.social and @kpalex91.bsky.social. Out from Bristol Uni Press next year!

Andi's work is fantastic, especially their cosy fantasies! And that's such a beautiful cover... I can't wait to read it.

It's the NZ bird version of Wordle!!! birdle.nz From Forest and Bird.

I have a new story out! The Barrens, which is body horror and swarming sea urchins, is in the new issue of @3lobedmag.com! It's wonderful to be in Three-Lobed Burning Eye again, especially alongside @acwise.bsky.social, @ecatherine.com, and @mariness.bsky.social. www.3lobedmag.com/issue45/3lbe....

The latest issue of @3lobedmag.com is out today. It contains a new short story by yours truly, along with several other fabulous folks like @octavia-cade.bsky.social, @mariness.bsky.social and @ecatherine.com. I can't wait to read the other stories in the issue! www.3lobedmag.com/issue45/

NZ writers, the Ursula Bethell residency at the University of Canterbury is open for applications. Closing date is August 3rd! jobs.canterbury.ac.nz/jobdetails/a...

I can finally announce it! I'm happy to say that I'll be spending next year in Berlin, thanks to Creative New Zealand awarding me the Berlin Writer's Residency. I'm so grateful to our national arts funding body for the opportunity. Thank you CNZ!!! creativenz.govt.nz/news-and-blo...

Oh yay! My article "Fact, Fiction, and Feeling: Ecological Grief in a Changing World", published by @clarkesworldmagazine.com, has just won Best Production/Publication at this year's Sir Julius Vogel Awards! Thank you to everyone who voted! clarkesworldmagazine.com/cade_10_24/

I've seen a thylacine!!! Thanks to curators Moira and Kane, I got a behind-the-stage look at the Otago Museum collections yesterday. There was a cave bear skull and moa bones and lots of wonderful things, but the big surprise was the stuffed thylacine! @stelliform.press

This is a fantastic book - if you like short stories about science and the lives of scientists, you should give it a go!

I've got a chapter in press on the Finnish horror film Sauna (2008)... but the book's run overlong so all the contributing authors have to cut 500 words from our chapters. Hopefully I've waffled so much it will be easy! It's a great film, btw. Historical, atmospheric and quietly disturbing.

I'm super happy to be able to announce this! I'm a big fan of fanfiction, and I've written a study on how Narnia fanfic reimagines Susan Pevensie. I've held a grudge several decades long on her behalf (nylons, lipsticks, and invitations, oh my) and clearly I'm not the only one.

I'm three weeks into my year as Robert Burns Fellow at Otago Uni, and things are going great! I'm spending the year writing a novel on algal blooms, as well as doing a short study on how NZ speculative fiction looks at ecological invasion. Both projects on track so far!

Passing this on for anyone interested: there's a BMI Summer Institute on Environmental Justice looking for 15 fellows to join them this summer in Chicago. www.theblackmidwest.com/summer-insti...

Looking forward to working through the slush pile for this! Send us your stories, please.

Abstract acceptance, yay! There's an academic collection being put together on sharksploitation films - I saw the call for papers, and suddenly all those years of watching shark horror films had a purpose. My chapter will be on shark horror in urban environments - like Under Paris. Fun!!!

The Neverending Story is on tv right now. It was ALWAYS played on NZ tv at Xmas when I was a kid, because there's nothing like trifle and presents and Peace on Earth when Artax is dying in the Swamp of Sadness.

The most important Boxing Day question: should I have trifle for breakfast or not???

Looking at you, Microsoft copilot.

I have finished the most ridiculous project and I don't know what to do with it. For decades I've held a grudge that Susan Pevensie got kicked out of Narnia for liking nylons, lipsticks, and invitations, and now I have a 45k word analysis on how fanfic retells her story better.

Withdrawing an article after THREE YEARS in peer review and still no feedback, despite my following up on it. Time to try this thing somewhere else.

I remember reading this and promptly demanding a sequel, because the end was so exciting I wanted more immediately! If you like hard sci-fi novellas, this will be right up your alley.

I've just read the best thing! The Mires by @tinamakereti.bsky.social. It's near-future cli-fi with supernatural elements and is occasionally narrated by a sentient swamp. But mostly it's about people and how they are basically decent: Indigenous families and climate refugees and neighbourhoods.

I have just packed up two boxes of books and dropped them off for the local Life Education Trust book fair. I now have space on my shelves for the different books I can buy at the book fair!

And the sheer fucking nerve to be hiding behind Ernest Rutherford when this government STILL hasn't named a Chief Science Advisor! Maybe start with that, Nicola?

Nicola Willis, quoting Ernest Rutherford: "We haven't got the money, so we'll have to think." #nzpolitics Rutherford's greatest breakthroughs were made in Canada and the UK because there wasn't sufficient science funding to keep him in NZ. The more things change... www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

I hate Captchas. I am also having trouble with two-factor authentication, given that it is suddenly incapable of texting me on a number that it successfully used to verify my contact details not two months ago. NOTHING HAS CHANGED, YOU STUPID FUCKING SYSTEM. (not you, Bluesky, you're fine)

"In an effort to make it harder for you to access your own account, this new Captcha has three bicycles and a rabbit, disassembled into parts and spread over noncontiguous squares in our 10x10 grid. If successful, we'll make you do it again."

There's a Forest and Bird petition here to prevent commercial fishing in the Hauraki Gulf protected areas - please sign if you can, NZ Bluesky. www.forestandbird.org.nz/petitions/st...

These are gorgeous!

Science fiction academics: there's a call for papers here themed about scifi from the 1990s. I presented at this conference and it was really interesting... the organisers are looking for a few additional chapters for the resulting book. call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/10/...

Please SHARE! Writers! We want to apologize that we are still processing the recent short story submissions. Uncanny Magazine was hit with a massive volume of submissions due to AI subs. We hope to get through the pile over the next two weeks. Thank you for your patience.

Oh, no. Time to pull Glass Wings off my book shelf for a memorial/celebratory read...

Birthday present from my sister. It's a T rex necklace!!! From silverscience.co.nz

Now to find a place to live for the year!!!

My favourite neighbour, visiting with her squeaky toy:

Yay, I can announce it now! I'm happy to say that I'll be the Robert Burns Fellow for 2025 at the University of Otago. This has been on my writing bucket list for YEARS, I am so thrilled. www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...

Oh no! Anything but science!!! It's basically witchcraft, don't you know.

Watermelon Grant applications are open through December 6 for Palestinian writers of speculative fiction and poetry www.ldlewiswrites.com/watermelon-g...

I've a review out in @reckoningmag.bsky.social of the poetry collection Hatch by Jenny Irish. It's absolutely amazing: weird and speculative and cutting, often horrific, themed around past and future reproduction. reckoning.press/review-hatch... One of the best poetry collections I've read in ages!

At some point, these organisms can no longer budget their energy between maintaining their skeletons and external stresses. At that point, we will see the collapse of those ecological systems. That will be the point where we'll be living in a @octavia-cade.bsky.social story.

While calcification has complex interaction with CO2 removal, it is a fundamental element to the biological function of many organisms and their environment (coral reefs are the obvious example) - damaging it hurts their health and weakens their resilience. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

More than half the markers for planetary health/habitability are now past their safe zone, and ocean acidification is near the boundary of the safe zone (limit for aragonite saturation, esp. in higher latitudes, esp. in high latitudes). ⚒️🌊🧪 www.pik-potsdam.de/en/institute...

I have a new article out! It's on ecological grief, and you can find it in the latest issue of @clarkesworldmagazine.com: clarkesworldmagazine.com/cade_10_24/

Fellow horror academics, have you seen this cfp on fungal horror? call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/09/... I'm tempted to submit something, but have to think of a good idea first!

I'm in this! At least my article is: Unpaid Green, which looks at voluntary conservation work in SFF. Super pleased to be a part of this! I saw the submissions call and immediately knew I wanted to send in *something*.

This is such an INTERESTING book! And if you can come across Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué's earlier poetry collection, Losing Miami, about what it might be like to lose Miami to sea level rise, then I thoroughly recommend it. It's really good.