We took the dogs to the beach: Phryne Basset and Bella Entelbucher.

Scary news A: I've finally moved from Substack to Patreon (losing all my subscribers as a result 😱). If you've ever enjoyed my articles please come subscribe - All my craft and publishing posts are always free because accessibility matters, so I'd love any boosts too🖤 patreon.com/LorraineWilson

I've eaten pizzas more supreme than this court

I have a historiography essay to write on marginal groups in early modern Europe. It will be on how so called descriptions of the Jewish experience are mostly about the latest excuse to kill us. But I would really welcome suggestions for reading on actual Jewish lives in the early modern period.

it must be difficult for Starmer trying to figure out how best to throw that election to Farage, whether to cling on as long as possible to keep driving Labour support down, or whether to get ousted just in time for Labour under another leader to *salvage* enough support to fuck over the actual Left

Nathan Gill, Reform's leader in Wales at the last Welsh parliament election, has pled guilty to 8 bribery charges, taking Russian cash while he was one of Nigel Farage’s MEPs to speak in favour of Putin's Russia in that parliament www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This activist's guitar was destroyed by ICE today. ICE fired multiple rounds of rubber bullets at us, and the guitar was struck. I am trying to raise $800 to help replace their instrument, which they rely on for gigs. I bet someone out here can straight up cover the cost. DM me.

The Sidewise Award for Alternate History is looking for new judges to join the award committee. It's an award I've cared about for more than 25 years, and loved judging for the past five years. If you are interested in alternate history, put your hat in the ring. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Are they "trad" because they want to birth eight kids, but only have two reach adulthood?

"U.S. Navy Cmdr. Janelle Marra, who has served on active duty in the Navy for 17 years, was the medical services director of Expeditionary Medical Facility 150 Bravo, a Navy unit in San Diego trained to provide medical care to support military operations."

This is a thing of beauty

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Next year's @easterconuk.bsky.social bursary is now live! Do apply and don't self-reject, I hear too many talented authors and artists saying "well I would go to Eastercon but I can't afford it." eastercon2026.org/bursary-sche...

I met Dr. David Ho! He’s responsible for the fact that HIV is no longer a death sentence and his work has saved tens of millions of lives. Why he doesn’t have a Nobel Prize is beyond me. AMA.

Iridescence Bursary Scheme Now Open Need support with attending Iridescence? We’ve got a bursary scheme to help. The scheme is open to anyone in the UK or Ireland. First deadline: 31 October 2025 Full details and the application form eastercon2026.org/bursary-sche...

people will say "dems need back off unpopular positions to win", then suggest *abortion rights* like, what? that our one solid wedge issue in red states

1/ Lucy Sussex (born 1957 in New Zealand) is an author working in fantasy and science fiction, children's and teenage writing, non-fiction and true crime. #WomanToday

“I don’t know if I’ve ever healed. You never get over something like this. You have to move forward. What I try to do with this event is to continue to be a community that remembers and rallies around Ethan and the Schmidt family,” said Professor Chuck Westmoreland.

My children's books of the year so far since you didn't ask are Boss of the Underword by Tor Freeman, Donut Squad by @neillcameron.bsky.social and Don't Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson and @dansantat.bsky.social. The latter is a picture book so those recs cover 3-12 year olds, you're welcome.

‘No reason, no, conscience, no understanding of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this man with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I realized that what was living behind that man's eyes was purely and simply . . . evil.’

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

www.arabnews.com/node/2613905... Reflecting on this as I start a new academic year with our students

Recognising statehood is not merely symbolic, it has clear political and legal consequences

Today is #HobbitDay because both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway come and boromir #Tolkien books.

I will never forget how the fully fictional “concerns” of TERFs and billionaires about trans people have contributed to the rapid rise of fascism. There they are, egging it on, not listening to science, history, medicine, and individual experience, fiddling their own prejudices while society burns.

Big shout out to all at Children's books Ireland. The #CBIConf25 was glorious. I wish we had something like it in the uk - for all book-related people, a chance to talk not just about the market for books, but the power of books, the work itself. #KidlitUK @sarahwebbwriter.bsky.social

Morning rush-hour near London's Oval station. Trains pass underground every few minutes and there's a continuous flood of bicycles, but still there's one lane of gridlocked traffic. Your city will always have exactly as much gridlock as it makes room for.

Next time you see an anti-trans court case in the news, think twice about who’s behind it 👀

“If you don’t like it you can leave” update

In my professional opinion, the top democrats are quite stupid and shortsighted. This obsession with out bigoting the republicans on trans issues is driving me nuts.

They aren't even pretending to believe in free speech any more.

and airlines are fined for every person they allow to board that is denied entry... so many might just deny H-1B holders to avoid fines for themselves.

95 democrats, including @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social voted to "honor" the life of charlie kirk, who called for joe biden to be killed and said black women like justice ketanji brown jackson are unqualified affirmative action hires. shame. clerk.house.gov/evs/2025/rol...

Disney/ABC have a responsibility to refuse to participate in corruption. Kimmel must be reinstated. If Disney/ABC agree to this extortion then perhaps creatives + workers should consider collective action to push back. Same w/buying park + cruise tickets if they bow. People have power. Ask Target

"In parts of the country, the government would like sites to collect an unprecedented amount of identifying information about their users. In the whole country, the government would like to track down and prosecute those users if they are rude... It doesn’t take a mastermind to see the risks."

As I told @newrepublic.com, "Once last week, twice today, ICE has picked me up and thrown me on the ground. Honestly, it doesn’t compare to what our neighbors who are trapped inside the Broadview processing facility are going through. They’re committing crimes against humanity there."

michael phelps still has those medals despite his unfair biological advantage of flipper feet

Besides the effects on the tech industry, right now there are H-1B holders—people—who built a life in the US. If they are traveling, they have 17 hours to get back to the US, or the life they built will be shattered and taken from them. Can you imagine constantly living with this uncertainty?

This is a travesty. Honestly, McGill should be censured by CAUT for this decision and the changes it is making to the student code of conduct that will compromise student academic freedom and undermine the very conditions of the institution’s accreditation. Solidarity, @marxinhell.bsky.social

It's clearly my month to be on podcasts. This time I'm talking about fiction about the English Civil Wars. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

This was from banning trans girls from girls sports. Just so you understand the reality of what's going on here.

Massive consolidation of entertainment conglomerates has an unexpected downside for them: when one of their subsidiaries capitulates to fascism, it threatens their entire portfolio. ABC, Disney, Star Wars, theme parks, cruises, Hulu, Marvel, Pixar, ESPN, etc. are all now fair boycott targets.

I like how short the chapters are on X but I am still baffled by the plot. So many main characters.

This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.

Year's Best Canadian F&SF TOC is out, and it contains Sophie Gazarian's FF#22 story "The World In Our Hands"! Plus work by so many FFers: @drfionamoore.bsky.social @thesuiway.bsky.social @arielmarkenjack.bsky.social @tiffmorris.bsky.social @pbarmby.bsky.social! www.fusionfragment.com/issue-22/

Quakers join international campaign to stop foreign complicity in Israel's illegal settlement project quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Competition for most British sign on the Trump March won handily by: “Don’t give him the good biscuits!”

If you know anyone who works in higher ed, none of us are ok right now. Like, it is taking 100% of my will power not to walk out of my office and go hide in an arcade for the next 6 hours.

Given the enormous losses that "GB News" seems to be taking, would it be a stretch to suggest that it's really just the "Reform UK Channel" and the losses might also be considered donations? www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/gb-news...

"They’re doing an awful, evil thing based on a self-evidently foolish strategy, one that has repeatedly failed for them. And they’re doing it without even the pretense of values. One day they believed in trans rights, the next day they didn’t." www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...