I really loved this dirtbag first contact story by @willmcmahon36.bsky.social. The last line especially

We are about halfway towards our goal of picking up enough new subscriptions to give our staff, authors, translators, and artists a raise when we publish our 20th anniversary issue in October. Thanks to all who have signed up and/or boosted the signal. clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

If anyone at the Newer Venues for SF Criticism panel at Readercon wants to check out @typebarmagazine.bsky.social's non-fic pitch seminar I mentioned, it's this!

Excellent tasting held by @michaeljdeluca.bsky.social at the Reckoning 10 year anniversary panel at Readercon. Sumac cider, gruit, and maple spruce IPA. Mostly foraged or homegrown ingredients. Very ecological, and delicious!

The Wisdom of the Galaxy by Will McMahon @willmcmahon36.bsky.social "...I asked Roz what the aliens looked like, and he glanced at me like I was an idiot and said “birds.” “They’re birds?” I’d pressed, and he said that obviously they were birds..." Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

The temporary decline of proletarian criticism as laid out by @willmcmahon36.bsky.social in our Readercon panel

My short story "The Wisdom of the Galaxy" just came out in @strangehorizons.bsky.social. It's about a group of supermarket deli workers in 2008. Check it out: strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-...

Yess it's out reeeeead it

I have thoughts on this

My short story "The Wisdom of the Galaxy" just came out in @strangehorizons.bsky.social. It's about a group of supermarket deli workers in 2008. Check it out: strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-...

We've completed the first two weeks of the annual Strange Horizons fund-drive, and - at present - are just over $5K away from meeting our base goal, to continue publishing in 2027. To help us get there, back us here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

BREAKING: Claire Valdez wins the Democratic NY-7 primary and will be the district's next congresswoman. Claire worked in fast food and at Trader Joe's, and organized a union before seeking office. She joins a wave of working people entering Congress to fight billionaire power.

I'm doing an AMA today on r/fantasy -- come ask me about poetry, fiction, my cat, the myth of good posture, or anything else! www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/...

REI’s anniversary sale begins tomorrow. After years of union-busting and no contract, tens of thousands of REI members are standing with @reiunion.bsky.social workers and saying: enough! Show your solidarity with REI workers and boycott the sale May 15-25! https://www.ourrei.com/boycott

“Américo was part of that group of writers quite capable of affirming, with tears in their eyes, their total dedication to literature - "if I don't write, I waste away," or "oh, writing for me is like breathing" - despite the fact, unfortunately, that they have nothing to say.” José Eduardo Agualusa

Big news! ARB's first fundraiser is officially live! We're shooting for the very modest goal of $1k, with lots of stretch goals in mind. Your support is of course appreciated, and any help in spreading the word would be wonderful!

Post-Ithaca notes, abbrev. Some recommended reading (essays which you might have missed) and also re-highlighting your small press recs from earlier, which have been super fascinating browsing. More at length later after I finish this talk! vajra.me/2026/03/29/r...

Official fundraiser announcement: it's kicking off April 8! Shares appreciated!

TODAY, all loyal partisans of the IILF are called to assemble at Liquid State for our latest reading.

ARB fundraiser, coming soon! We'd love your support in taking the magazine to the next level, and just spreading the word helps a ton!

For the Ithaca-proximate, this is now TOMORROW (and the day after)

IN ONE WEEK: join us at Liquid State Brewing in Ithaca for a reading and discussion featuring @vajra.me and @debbieurbanski.bsky.social!

I'm very jealous of all the non-American authors who get to publish little novellas and tiny essay collections that top out 100 pages. We gotta bring that publishing culture to the states.

My @lightspeedmagazine.com debut is free to read today! Come for the ocean vibes; stay for fleeting moments of beauty. www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-...

🚨 SOUND THE PODCAST KLAXON! A new episode of Critical Friends has just arrived, fresh-faced, in your feeds. Paul Kincaid and @yukondawn.bsky.social talk to me about style: what is it, what place has it taken up in SFF, and why is it so fraught? Come for Le Guin and Vonnegut, stay for police raids.

Had a fascinating bottle of Paw Paw Cider from Blackduck Cidery (Ovid, NY) yesterday. Great tropical notes from a great native North American fruit.

The Ithaca Irrealist Liberation Front reemerges from a period underground to resume its revolutionary literary activities with a reading at Liquid State Brewing on March 20th, featuring @vajra.me and @debbieurbanski.bsky.social! Join us!

How are the Fossoways making cider in years’ long summers? How are those trees getting the required chill hours? That’s my question.

Happy to have sold another story to @lightspeedmagazine.com. “And all will be well, friend(s)”, a kind of fabulist story about consciousness, animism, and where we go when we die (in every moment). Forthcoming sometime.

Rank-and-file nurses, now on week 4 of their historic open-ended strike in New York City, organized an action on Monday targeting state governor Kathy Hochul over the executive order that's allowed hospitals to bring in scab nurses from out-of-state. Photos by Labor Notes Organizer Sarah Hughes

We're horrified & outraged: Immigration agents have once again committed cold-blooded murder of a public observer who posed no threat to them. This time, they've executed a fellow nurse, Alex Pretti. We demand justice and accountability. Abolish ICE, now! https://bit.ly/4big77u

My next-next-next book is about the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 so I've been reading about it, and to a lesser degree other general strikes, and some things struck me in the research. I'm not a historian or any kind of expert, but here are a few of the things that struck me. +

$5 fiction sale! No coupon code needed. Offer ends tonight at midnight PST.

Crawling back from a very nasty bout of flu by posting some of my favorite stories I read last year. Is it a perfect list? No, there's a ton of amazing stuff out there. But I am happy with it and I hope you can find something in here for you <3

If you're in the Ottawa area, please come out to our rally at Carleton University on Jan. 22 at noon, in support of AI protections for education workers. You absolutely don't have to RSVP to come, but if you feel comfortable, it helps us plan. Dress warm, bring a sign, bring a friend:

The second smallest domino is “Prose doesn’t matter, just ‘the story’”

Interesting discussion of short fiction collections and story order in here. As a reader, I definitely jump around, but when I’m reading for a review, I go in order. Good listening while I put my bookcases back together (including maybe a hundred collections, though many only lightly dipped into).

This has been the default imperialist position for centuries, so really the oddity was that brief period of comfortable unipolar hegemony where it seemed gauche to say it out loud. No clearer sign of late imperial anxiety than the contemporary return of this old ass monocle and pith helmet blather

These imperialists will burn down the world if we let them. Today it’s Trump, but it didn’t start here. U.S. domination of Latin America (and the broader Global South) must end.

Loved this one-sentence piece. Incidentally, when misfortune strikes, I also cycle through three or four different culprits before realizing who's really to blame.

Big thanks to everyone who joined me this year on A Meal of Thorns, and to everyone who listened along and supported us! Feeling like a thread as we leave 2025 behind us: a chance to boost these again. Great guests & great books—take a look, and take a listen wherever you find your podcasts!

This piece is a tour de force. A great read.

Another special week of reviews was our focus on spec fic in translation via US small presses. thank @willmcmahon36.bsky.social for prodding us to do this: some great, clarion-call pieces. @casella.bsky.social channelled his 68er: "Beneath the pavement, need I remind you: the beach."

I should have tagged @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org on this one! Always going to screw something up. This excellent book wasn’t even on my radar before their monthly call for reviews. Everyone who wants to think critically about the genre should be reading ARB regularly.

An essay & some research I did for ARB, on the nationality & language trends of the Hugos, led me to start Translated Hugo Initiative (@translatedhugo.bsky.social), with loads of help from @tallesteden.bsky.social, @rachelcordasco.bsky.social & more. Lots more to come on that in 2026.

I've been MIA from the writing world for months due to my organizing work, but I still had several publications in 2025: four pieces of fiction, three reviews, and a podcast appearance. I also started a reading series which, while irregular, was a lot of fun. Thought I'd look back, with links below.

Some of my favorite works of #SFinTranslation from 2025:

Readercon is doing a final call for program item proposals for the forthcoming Readercon 35. Use our handy form to suggest panel ideas or people you think should be at Readercon: readercon.org/contribute Thank you, it's your suggestions that make Readercon wonderful.