Eligibility post: I’m Hugo-eligible for Best Fan Writer for my blogging at Tar Vol On and work facilitating discussion for the Hugo Readalong and Short Fiction Book Club 🧵

If you find yourself with some time to read over the end of this way-too-long year, here are some of my favorite short stories from 2025:

This is what stories taste like to me, and why I love reading. Another wonderful story from @rjaurand.bsky.social, who I hope keeps writing more things that are exactly for me.

That’s a good looking slate for next week’s discussion. Hope everyone’s ready for bird facts.

Instead of posting story submission rejections, I should start posting NetGalley request rejections from Tor.

One of my favorite reviewers @litscialliance.bsky.social asks should you read one of my favorite authors @cadwellturnbull.bsky.social. The easy short answer is “YES RIGHT NOW HAVE YOU READ IT YET WHY NOT?!”

Hi to our new followers! It was extremely cool to meet some of you at Worldcon. Short Fiction Book Club is a collection of nerds who love short fiction. Twice a month from fall to spring (outside of our Hugo Readalong project), we pick a few stories around a common theme and discuss them.

These are big words coming from the author of the desperate, harrowing, crow story One for Sorrow www.blanketgravitymag.com/oneforsorrow If you haven’t yet, you should go read both of these stories/authors!

Why is 👁️ so so creepy and 👀 just totally natural? Welcome to my campaign to make eyes more eldritch. Where is my monster romance of someone getting lost (literally) in their (many) eldritch eyes?

@clairejiawen.bsky.social's If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow contains so much fantastic theme work- immigrant standards, bias, and generational divides, well-intentioned broken family causing irreparable emotional damage, casual LLM use's disregard for truth clarkesworldmagazine.com/jia-wen_06_25/

If you spend all your time trying to squeeze meaning, intent, motivation, fetishes, kinks, and subtext out of someone's work, you will kill it and you will kill your enjoyment of it. You have to take breaks to let some things just be what they are (unsqueezed and alive).

Why is any story featuring crows automatically so good? One for Sorrow is such a difficult and moving read, a fantastic debut story by @rjaurand.bsky.social in a debut magazine. Go check it out!

Just a cat doing totally normal cat things

Thrilled to see this new number roll over. We feel the love for Ulla's art. So much. (Well, we feel it too!) We have a lovely update for you in the morning, our second Celebrating Art guest post. Thank you, so much, for your love, shares, and support! 💜 www.kickstarter.com/projects/att...

@samtasticbooks.com can write an anxiety spiral better than anyone and still make me want to climb back out @cadwellturnbull.bsky.social for too many reasons - writing broken but repairing relationships, the swim meet chapter, introducing me to collectivism, using the word “simulacra” a whole bunch

Short Fiction Book Club is mostly on hiatus during the Hugos, but our monthly discussions are still running! Stop by and swap recommendations with us: www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/co...

me, reading flash, usually: I wish this had a couple thousand more words. me, writing, or attempting to: unable to write anything longer than flash. what is a plot? what is an ending? can write 800 words five times, but can’t write 4000 words once.

I don’t always trust my feelings about Dad stories because I’m easy to emotionally manipulate in that way, but this one is fantastic. “I will tell you this again if you get older” - ooof @psychopomp.com @premeemohamed.com psychopomp.com/everyone-kee...

@psychopomp.com marketing has been doing its job too well on me with this one. I, too, want a radish emoji and I don’t even understand why yet.

Need to stop following such interesting authors and publishers who do such a good job promoting upcoming works and tricking me into preordering. Orrr I can justify my lack of restraint since they’re all small press and I had a birthday this year and everyone deserves to treat themselves sometimes.

Did you know that Davis Sq. is now home to Narrative, a hidden gem of a bookstore? It's proudly immigrant-woman owned and operated and focuses on books by women of color. And it's about to celebrate its first birthday! 🎂 Let's keep them around for many more years.

For the second year in a row, remaking a broken person out of dead crow body parts is sitting at the top of my watchlist for early favorites of the year, only this time the broken person is a lot angrier, and the crows don’t speak in profoundly nonsensical riddles.

I'm going to shout about books I love and let them make thinly veiled political statements about The World. "Indifference looked like malice to creatures with something to lose." - The Lesson by @cadwellturnbull.bsky.social