Is anyone else seeing a huge uptick in AI generated author scam emails recently? I feel like I'm getting one a day - inviting me to radio shows, book clubs and podcasts that don't exist, using language that's clearly come out of an LLM.

This Litfest Festival Bookshop is now....open! Grab all the festival titles in one handy spot (and browse the rest of the bookshop for bargains whilst you're there! @mollieray.bsky.social @oliverklangmead.bsky.social @mkhardywrites.com @malikalnasir.bsky.social & more! Shop here: geni.us/LFAWBK

Amazing news: Creative Writing at Lancaster University has been ranked #3 in the UK in the new Guardian University guide. So proud of my colleagues. We work so hard, and it's an excellent result. This result is in spite of the University getting ready to cut 1/4 of its staff next month.

Daily obligatory verminposting: please enjoy this meme that's old enough to drive

Pixel is 10 years old today! Happy Birthday, Pixel 🎂

My next book is in here! reactormag.com/new-science-...

We're delighted that our very own @mkhardywrites.com will be taking THE NEEDFIRE on the road for an event on co-writing with @oliverklangmead.bsky.social for Lancaster @litfest.bsky.social 's Autumn Weekend! Grab your tickets now! Only £6 bit.ly/46lSmby Full programme bit.ly/4nd4T6T

Hell yeah - excited to be chatting with @mkhardywrites.com about co-writing SFF next month at Litfest!

You need to read this book!

Hot take: I've actually been thinking for a while that we're currently going through a science fiction golden age.

This book - damn. Could not stop reading. Haunting & brilliant.

Loved this! Hell yeah, @starkholborn.bsky.social . Reads like a steam train building momentum, all the way up to its whistle-shriek ending.

I'm delighted to have my sci-fi poem "Looking Back" appear in the Sep/Oct issue of @analogsf.bsky.social. analogsf.com/current-issu....

This time last year I sat down with some pretty dark thoughts and a full novella gushed out of me in one giant bleed. Anyway, it's coming out via Tor Nightfire on May 12. You into infinite corridors, ancient hunger, isolation, cannibalism, self-loathing, etc.? Join me in the darkness next May.

Goodbye office. Being moved to open plan to "save money"*. All of our managers keeping their private offices. *This won't actually save the university money, it just makes my subject look cheaper on paper. Redundancy petition here: chng.it/R9XCz6dP6y

The torment nexus meme is misleading in that it suggests that our technoligarchs are capable of actually building anything. All that happens is that they use old sfnal concepts as a shared language—that old sensawunda, now bottled—for marketing their quite ordinary torment products

Just to say, before tomorrow: it's been really lovely being shortlisted for a Hugo. It's not something I imagined would ever happen, and it's been a real privilege & honour. Best of luck to all.

Tremendous stuff. Loved this. Infinitely imaginative, and not a single human character. Firm recommend. Bravo, @caspargeon.bsky.social

The fantastic cover of The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder! Preorders open! I have a deep dive on getting this cover on website #booksky #mystery #spooky #sapphic #Victorian #murder #womensleuths #indieauthor #books #reading #amreading stephencox.co.uk/yes-judge-a-...

This is your next chance to buy Calypso if you didn't get the hardcover. Recommended without reservation.

I've just received my author copies of the Calypso paperback and they are GORGEOUS! @titanbooks.bsky.social has done such beautiful work. Out late next month, and available for preorder now!

I've just received my author copies of the Calypso paperback and they are GORGEOUS! @titanbooks.bsky.social has done such beautiful work. Out late next month, and available for preorder now!

Video games are uniquely helpful for thinking about death. They'll hold us by the waist as we gaze into the abyss, without letting us fall in I chatted with the legit expert on "games and death" and learned why and how the hobby teaches us to process where we're all heading

I've just finished reading this, and it was SO GOOD - riveting, weird, unpredictable, magnificent. Aliya's unstoppable www.scifinow.co.uk/books/the-mi...

A petition against the mass redundancies proposed at my university: www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

- 400 jobs to go at Lancaster University - 1 in 4 people will be made redundant But where's the financial evidence for this extreme action? Please read 👇 Sign the petition 👇 chng.it/7F52bThYqn

A petition against the mass redundancies proposed at my university: www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

I want to tell you something about my Doctor Who book. If you open it, you'll find it's dedicated to Katrina. Katrina was a friend of mine with profound intellectual disability, which came bundled with a whole bunch of physical disabilities. 1/

Tomorrow is now today! Friends, fellow travelers, if you haven’t voted yet, please do. This year’s Best Poem special award category is of particular interest to me—your vote not only ensures that we reward one of its talented finalists, but sets a precedent for the category’s future value.

busy day of writing

busy day of writing

Watching a movie with John Cena as the US president and Idris Elba as the UK Prime Minister, and both are ostensibly good people who are good at their jobs, and it feels very utopian.

Just one week left to cast your votes for the 2025 Hugo Awards! Voting closes Wednesday, July 23 at 11:59 p.m. PDT—so don't let time slip through a wormhole. Make your voice heard in fandom’s biggest honors: seattlein2025.org/wsfs/hugo-aw... #HugoAwards #Worldcon2025 #Seattlein2025 #VoteHugo

From @titanbooks.bsky.social , City For All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead and Aliya Whiteley is a science fantasy that "is a book about damage and loss, and an exploration of how far things can be remade." #BFSReview britishfantasysociety.org/review/city-...

Superman: ah yeah, that's the good cheese

Very worn out. After spending the last year making my job incrementally worse, my university is now cutting 1/5 of staff - all jobs under threat. This weekend, I'm needed to extol the virtues of my subject at an open day. My subject is excellent. The way I'm being managed is not.

Finally caught up on Doctor Who. Could have done with a couple more seasons of Ncuti, tbh

had a great time with 28 years later - just the right amount of odd

Babe, come over, we’re sucking the screams directly from each other’s mouths like Lady and the Tramp sharing spaghetti

The author of Lake of Darkness, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, on why, in a world awash with fictional dystopias, he set out to write the opposite

Had a really great meeting today, reminding me that I've met some of the most amazing people I know from one of us simply taking a chance and sending a message. If there's someone on your timeline you admire or want to work with, let this be the boost you need to reach out and say hi! FRIDAY FRIEND!

In case anybody knows, I'm still looking for a fantasy novel I read in the 1980s. All I recall is there was a man who woke with some kind of memory loss. Nobody could look at him for long because it hurt the eyes. Some kind of obscuring spell. There was a quest to find a notorious wizard. 1/

arm

Perfect pie

I certainly *hoped* that this Kickstarter would be more successful than our last one, but, ya know... world on fire, cost of living crisis, releasing an angry political collection when the genre is obsessed with cozy... To be at DOUBLE in less than six days is... Wow.

As part of my #Hugos2025 reading I am currently on Calypso by @oliverklangmead.bsky.social. Honestly stunning. Having to read it in small chunks to fully absorb it because it is so rich. #books #reading

I've just seen this really wonderful discussion prompted by Calypso up on the Worldcon blog from @therisingtithes.bsky.social - what a thrill it is to read such a thoughtful reflection on the speculative in ancient verse, and how those stories still resonate today: seattlein2025.org/2025/05/19/c...

I'm a bit fed up with the phrase "tough decisions". Tough for whom? "Tough decisions", in my experience, are made exclusively by people not effected by them.