Great wrapup by Steve Braunius. It was my first Featherston Book Festival but it won’t be my last! I was at the thriller event when the chainsaw kicked off - savour the flavour, I reckon. 💙📚🙌🖤🇳🇿https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/11/featherston-wins-again/

Final Day at the Featherston Book Festival: 3 modern Kiwi thrillers, and my second favourite Bradbury (for only $2). Got to meet Bryan Walpert and Michael Bennett after attending their Blood and Empathy talk. Great way to close out my weekend in Featherston. 💙📚🖤🇳🇿💀🔥 #featherstonbookfestival

Day 2: Featherston Book Festival. Poems about Windy Wellington, classic haunting Herbert, how to Doom, and four hours of Das Boot that only a Dad could love. 💙📚🇳🇿🎥

Day 1: Featherston Book Festival. Only $11 NZD to live in my own private Idaho… with vampires.💙📚😎🧛🏻‍♂️🎥🇳🇿

I am over the moon that Daniel Kraus won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. It’s a great day for Daniel but also feels like a win for all dark fiction writers. Hooray! 💙📚🙌💀🪽 #horrorstory #darkfiction #speculativefiction

It’s May Day in Aotearoa! Let the festivities commence! #horrorfan #folkhorror

Finally got around to watching '28 Years Later' and 'The Bone Temple'. Riveting horror and exactly what I want - dark, layered, character-driven, beautifully shot, exquisitely acted - and with no punches pulled. Elevated dark fiction on film. How's that? 💙🎬😱 #horrorfan #horrormovies #apocalypse

Next minute - a mighty leap to the rooftop for sunbathing! 💙🐈‍⬛🐈#catpeople #cats #catlover

Try something less scary than our current reality. 💙📚😱🖤https://reactormag.com/new-horror-books-april-2026/

This might sound like a strange comment coming from a old atheist, but if I’m gonna see Jesus Christ Superstar, the dude needs to look like a California hippie circa 1972, and Pilot must have a snooty British accent. Can’t escape my programming.

I just finished Joyce Carol Oates' "FOX" - repulsive, mesmerizing, and brilliant. It's about a monster who hides in plain sight, and how expectations and internal narratives are as good as blindfolds. Humans will believe in almost anything, or anyone, right up until it's too late. 💙📚😱 #darkfiction

I quite liked this. Equally disturbing and mysterious throughout, plus, I’m a sucker for a cat POV. Dark story that brings it home. 🐈‍⬛💙📚😱 #horrornovel #darkfiction #horrorlover #catlover @catrionaward.bsky.social

Stuck at home with the Covids but at least I have a cool cat to hang with, and that ain’t nothing to sneeze about. 🐈‍⬛💙❤️ #catlover

Cat Daddy Sam

I was 17 in 1978, an American expat living through the revolution in Iran. I listened to this song a lot. Wandering the streets of Tehran, stoned on cheap hashish, oblivious to the world around me. ‘Downed, downed, out of my head.’ Yep. Takes me right back there.

Red skies at morning.

How many times have I watched compromised men use conflict to their own advantage? Far too many. It’s the oldest (and deadliest) story in the world. #stopthewars

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” - Frank Herbert, Dune

This is not a concert or a sporting event. These people are queued up for the re-opening of the Wellington Library. I love living in a country where libraries mean so much to so many. 🇳🇿💙📚 www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Going to my happy place.

It’s March 9 and my Christmas tree is still up. I listen for whispers in the shadows. I prefer storms to sunny days. I enjoy a good stick tree with bobbles. 🖤 It’s a good dark life.

Got a horror mate who loves his 80s slasher films. Not a reader so I loaned him “My Heart is a Chainsaw” by Stephen Graham Jones. He came back with a set of Friday the 13th DVDs. I reckon I’ll watch the first one and the fourth one? 🖤💙📚😱 #horrormovie #horrornovel #stephengrahamjones #fridaythe13th

It’s heartbreaking to watch the Trump Administration giving Death From Above cheerleading pressers. Dollars for death; rich man’s war, poor man’s bill.

I’m a horror fan in my 60’s. One of my 20-something coworkers gave me a gift today. He apologized that is was a beat up and tattered but thought I might enjoy it. I love it, and I’ll hang it on my wall forever and ever and ever. 🖤😱 #stanleykubrick #stephenking #theshining #horrorfan

Sorry to hear of Dan Simmons’ passing. I’ve only read “The Terror” by him but thoroughly enjoyed it. Any other recommendations from his horror catalog? 💙📚🖤😱 #horrorstory #darkfiction #horrorfan

Winter storm in the Kiwi summer. Wittens hunkers down for the duration. #wellingtonnz #catlover #catsofnewzraland

My backyard in Windy Wellington, NZ. Up to 120kph gusts. Nasty as and loud. I’m not getting a good night’s sleep tonight, for sure. And the cat hates it. #nzweather #storms #windywelly

Lit vs Pulp. You wanna see Agnes and William Shakespeare grieve the loss of their child from the plague, or Australia’s two hottest actors get all raging hormones in a bodice-ripper on the moors? (Thankfully, it’s not an either/or. You can see both.) 💙🎬 #hamnet #Wutheringheights #movielover

We all shine on. 🖤

I enjoyed “Wuthering Heights” as an indictment of the author’s society, and as OG lit (original gothic). I wasn’t interested in this new ‘love story’ adaptation until someone commented, “It’s like those demented 70s movies by Ken Russell”. Demented? Ken Russell, you say? Hmm… 📚💙🎬😱🖤 #darkfiction

I just wanna catch my fish. I just wanna drank my beer. I just wanna drive my truck. I just wanna keep it white while fascism runs amok. (I may have added that last line).

I love me some good cursing. Eye of Newt level witchery here. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 youtu.be/8VAXElyAJyg?...

I love me some good cursing. Eye of Newt level witchery here. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 youtu.be/8VAXElyAJyg?...

Op Shop book haul! It seems a crime to pay $1.50 NZD for these three beauties. 💙📚😱🖤

"The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced" - ZAPPA.

I’m old enough to remember him doing this on Wogan in June 1988, protesting against the government’s homophobia. The targets change, the speech stays relevant…

All billionaires are bastards. The Epstein files are just the trendiest example of what too much money does and excuses.

My tagline for the “Melania” doco. ‘See the Epstein files for more info on the director, star, and co-star.’

excellent list and how cool to see so much @coreyjwhite.com and @thedescenters.bsky.social 😍

My backyard. #Notmycat

Sittin‘ here by the campfire light Waitin’ on the ghost of Tom Joad youtu.be/1VypaE6kKJ8?... #rage

I just finished a dark fiction novel centered on the Cherokee Removal. I didn't cut my hair while writing, only at the end, in respect and mourning. Poe lived then and his image lingered in my mind. Dark dreams. I took his photo to the stylist—she didn’t know him. Fitting. So much is lost to time.

Forces are murdering citizens in the streets. This is not new. Not even the audacity of calling systemic murder ‘justified’. But perhaps, it’s the embracement of the tyrannical that feels so awful, mournful, and lost.

They sent the soldiers into the streets and shot us down like rats and thieves.

Me spying on my cat spying on the neighbours. #cats #catsoftheworld #catsofnewzealand 💙🐈

Police and thieves in the street Fighting the nation with their Guns and ammunition All the crimes committed, day by day Nobody stops them, in any way All the peacemakers, turn war officers Hear what I say Police and thieves in the street #classicsongs #songsofresistance youtu.be/XlP3J3J3Upw?...

I showed this to a friend. “Is that your cat?” “Nah mate, She’s nobody’s cat but I probably love her the most.” #cats

Hopeful. Tragic that so many have to fight and die to have basic freedom.

An English translation of a great song born from those who fought fascism in the streets. youtu.be/3HsartoltcE?...

Getting close to a billion views for all the right, tragic, and horrific reasons. #thisisamerica #impact #artastruth youtu.be/VYOjWnS4cMY?...