My story “Pools of Light at the Center of the World,” a 2800-word sentence about a shipwrecked medieval Andalusian merchant, is out today in @bcsmagazine.bsky.social for subscribers and via @weightlessbooks.bsky.social. Check it out!

My story “Pools of Light at the Center of the World,” a 2800-word sentence about a shipwrecked medieval Andalusian merchant, is out today in @bcsmagazine.bsky.social for subscribers and via @weightlessbooks.bsky.social. Check it out!

Fists up for the IILF! Big thanks to @donfoolery.com, @parkeriswriting.bsky.social, and everyone who came out for our September reading!

Irrealists: join us TONIGHT at Liquid State Brewing in downtown Ithaca for readings by @donfoolery.com and @parkeriswriting.bsky.social! Onward!

August Reader Spotlight: Edmundo Paz-Soldán read his moving short story “Artificial” from the anthology LATINX RISING (Ohio State University Press, 2020).

My story “A Fallen Angel Rings the Doorbell” is out today in The Sunday Morning Transport. It’s about letting yourself be messy, and letting yourself be loved. Here’s a free 60-day subscription if you need it: www.sundaymorningtransport.com/smt2024

Divest from the "Novel That Wishes It Were a Screenplay" industrial complex NOW

First pressing day of the season. The recently foraged apples and pears still need to sweat a while in the barn, but it’s been a week for the ~3 bushels from the USDA Geneva Station, so step one is washing and quartering (or halving for crabs). Cracked a bottle of last year’s cider to ease my way.

August Reader Spotlight: @lilianacolanzi.bsky.social captivated the audience with two stories from her collection YOU GLOW IN THE DARK (tr. Chris Andrews for New Directions, 2024), “The Cave” and “The Greenest Eyes.”

Some urban foraging over the past few days. Apples, crab apples, and pears. Destined for cider and perry.

Some urban foraging over the past few days. Apples, crab apples, and pears. Destined for cider and perry.

The union representing the musicians from Jimmy Kimmel’s band releases a statement calling the FCC’s pressure on Disney “state censorship.”

The following is a statement from the WGA on ABC’s decision to pull ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

Toured the USDA apple and grape germplasm repository in Geneva, NY today. Thousands of varieties each, preserved as a living library. The taking was free, so we gathered about three bushels of apples for a special “Geneva Medley” cider (several species and dozens of varieties). High acid and tannin!

Irrealists: Our next reading will be on Monday, September 22nd from 7-9pm at Liquid State, featuring @donfoolery.com and @parkeriswriting.bsky.social! Join us for good fiction, good beer, and good company.

YOU, HUMAN: Vol. 2 – BOOKBUB! You, Human, Vol. 2 is a BookBub deal for a limited time, now only $0.99. The first volume is also discounted at this time. Also available in hardcover, trade paperback, and eBook wherever books are sold. Amazon: eBook | trade paperback | hardcover Barnes &…

Toured the USDA apple and grape germplasm repository in Geneva, NY today. Thousands of varieties each, preserved as a living library. The taking was free, so we gathered about three bushels of apples for a special “Geneva Medley” cider (several species and dozens of varieties). High acid and tannin!

August reader spotlight: @spires.bsky.social (and her young assistant) gave the crowd an excerpt of her upcoming novella ELLIPSES, forthcoming from Infinivox, about a field biologist discovering life on an alien planet.

Cider of the day: Kitchen Sink from Rose Hill Farm (Red Hook, NY). A wild ferment, unfiltered and bottled pet-nat with high carbonation, this one has strong acid, good tannin, and a really nice bright flavor with notes of citrus and tropical fruit.

The Ithaca Irrealist Liberation Front has already stated our revolutionary position on the literary/genre discourse of the day.

Hello, translated spec fic readers! We apparently had some kind of secret settings update that locked our signatory page, but it should be fixed now! See who's onboard, sign with the link at the top if you haven't already, and share widely: translatedhugo.org/signatories/

I’ve made an update to this situation. open.substack.com/pub/pacornel...

What MRM has put P.A. through is absurd. There are terrific editorial teams working at the three big print SFF mags, but as long as the publisher finds it reasonable to treat authors this way, I won't be submitting to any of the publications they own.

Has anyone written on the Christian spiritual/theological roots of science fiction? E.g. mind/body dualism, human exceptionalism and universality, apocalypse and salvation, promised lands, etc? Search terms are confounded by SF about religion, which is also interesting but not what I’m looking for.

My Nebula Finalist short story "The Witch Trap" is now free to read in The Dark! The entire issue is stunning and I'm so pleased to have a place in it! www.thedarkmagazine.com/the-witch-tr...

Has anyone written on the Christian spiritual/theological roots of science fiction? E.g. mind/body dualism, human exceptionalism and universality, apocalypse and salvation, promised lands, etc? Search terms are confounded by SF about religion, which is also interesting but not what I’m looking for.

Picked up Lester the Border Leicester ram from a farm in Vermont and drove him five hours back to New York! He’s not currently thrilled but I think he’ll be happy when he’s out of quarantine and on pasture. Breeding this fall for spring lambs.

Picked up Lester the Border Leicester ram from a farm in Vermont and drove him five hours back to New York! He’s not currently thrilled but I think he’ll be happy when he’s out of quarantine and on pasture. Breeding this fall for spring lambs.

Well, Eloise finally got a woodchuck.

⏰ SAVE THE DATE and sign up! Toronto Troublemakers School: Saturday, October 18: labornotes.org/events/2025/...

If you are in the Ithaca area (or interested in traveling) and would also like to have a great time reading with us, sign up here! forms.gle/9orzjfv9R6QK...

Can’t even mistreat workers anymore, because of ewoc. @organizeworkers.bsky.social

Enjoy this vignette about crab apples published in the New York Times on this day in 1946 along with a photo of one of my crab apple trees in Upstate New York today. These are bound for cider this fall.

If you're a translator pissed off about the impacts of AI, our members in the NWU Translators Organizing Committee are building collective power among literary translators as workers whose creative labor deserves to be materially valued. Check them out! nwu.org/chapters/toc

The latest issue of McSweeney’s is literally an embroidered book. @kateheartfield.com

We had a great reading this week, featuring @spires.bsky.social, @lilianacolanzi.bsky.social, and Edmundo Paz-Soldán! Look forward to reader spotlights in the coming days. The IILF marches on!

@willmcmahon36.bsky.social reviews Natalia García Freire’s A Carnival of Atrocities (tr. Victor Meadowcroft) at @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org : ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/08/18/t... Spanish (Ecuador) #SFinTranslation

"It’s not overly dramatic to say that we risk losing the capacity for cultures to understand one another better if we’re all simply feeding output into each other’s automated translation systems." A must-read—depressing and sobering, but also a call to arms:

TONIGHT! Join us for an Ithaca Irrealist Reading featuring @spires.bsky.social @lilianacolanzi.bsky.social and Edmundo Paz-Soldán!

The Transmutation of Death into Light: @willmcmahon36.bsky.social reviews Natalia García Freire’s A CARNIVAL OF ATROCITIES (@worldedbooks.bsky.social) ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/08/18/t...

The We the People summer fundraiser for #KidLit4Ceasefire starts tomorrow, and includes a full manuscript critique by me. (I almost never offer manuscript critiques for fundraisers, because it's a lot of work, so this is something to jump on if it interests you.) Lots of other great offerings too.

This speculative reading is happening TOMORROW, Monday, August 18, 7-9pm at Liquid State Brewery in Ithaca, NY! I'll be reading from my SF novella Ellipses, forthcoming from @infinivoxsf.bsky.social--alongside @lilianacolanzi.bsky.social and Edmundo Paz-Soldán! Please come by & enjoy the readings!

Good morning #Worldcon, I say to you, from the depths of an east coast circadian rhythm! I'm not on any panels today, but I'll be trying to snag a few quick interviews for A Meal of Thorns, and handing out badge ribbons for translatedhugo.org!

¡Adelante! IILF partisans rally for the next Ithaca Irrealist Reading at Liquid State Brewing on Monday, August 18th from 7–9PM. Featuring Liliana Colanzi, Edmundo Paz-Soldán, and @spires.bsky.social! Join us for good fiction, good beer, and good company.

At the end of this year, 20,000+ union nurses will be out of contract. While hospital executives take home massive bonuses, staff is cut and vital services eliminated. I'm proud to stand with @nynurses.bsky.social in their fight for a fair contract that will improve care for everyone.

I want to form a book club for the sole purpose of discussing every book of Solvej Balle's ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME. @ndbooks.bsky.social SFinTranslation

The real* problem is you guys just have the wrong white dudes in your SF canon. Despite their relative age, Poe and Wells read more vitally today than Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke. The “Golden Age” was mostly a nadir. (*Yes, the canon is/should be much broader, which is a more real problem. Humor me.)

The real* problem is you guys just have the wrong white dudes in your SF canon. Despite their relative age, Poe and Wells read more vitally today than Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke. The “Golden Age” was mostly a nadir. (*Yes, the canon is/should be much broader, which is a more real problem. Humor me.)

It is no coincidence that one of his final posts called out Israel’s open threats of a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Israel continues to systematically silence the voices who bring the truth of their actions to the world.

🚨BREAKING: ISRAEL ASSASSINATES AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT ANAS AL-SHARIF Israel also killed Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Quraqa and wounded Al-Kawthar correspondent Mohammed Subh in a strike on Al Jazeera’s tent at the Al-Shifa Medical Complex.