Amid War, G.O.P. Puts Off Testimony From Senior Pentagon Commanders

Republicans just decided they don't want to hear how badly the war is going until May 19.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/w...

My translation of Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi’s (who is from the Sherdukpen tribe in Arunachal Pradesh) incredible collection of stories about Indigenous lives in Northeast India will be published by the Modern Library Classics in 2027!!! Thanks to my amazing agent Lucy Cleland for clinching this deal!

Markov’s haunting collection of short stories features a variety of ghosts and monsters. Many of the stories collected here have an Eastern European feel, and several take place in Bulgaria. In some of the tales, such as “Nine Tongues Tell Of” and “Convalescence,” the main character speaks with or interviews a monster or one of the dead, revealing more personal information than facts about the creature who is the ostensible subject. Other stories follow characters desperate to fulfill an unspeakable need, like the impulse to travel to a specific place (“The Mall on the Hill by the Horizon”). Some unlucky souls find their home, and eventually their own bodies, taken over by the berries that grow in their yard in “When Raspberries Bloom in August.” While the stories include frightening creatures, family curses, and monsters that emerge from under the bed, these are also narratives in which people stick together and find resilience, families reunite, and strange forms of love emerge. The endings are largely left open to interpretation, and every story will leave readers with questions, which may add to their fear or offer relief. Markov provides a wide range of stories—there’s something for almost anyone in this collection, but more squeamish readers may want to tiptoe past the darker tales to find the brighter side. The horror comes not from gruesome details but from the plain, direct prose, which allows readers to fill in the blanks with their own imaginations. The author does provide some stunning passages: “One by one around me I hear my kin all take a ghastly, long-waited inhale before dissolving into wherever spirits go next.” A perfect twilight read, this book will stick with readers as they devour story after story (just as some of Markov’s characters devour their prey). A stunning, thrilling, and eerie collection of short stories that will delight readers of gothic fiction.

March was rough enough that I neglected to share here that THE LANGUAGE OF KNIVES by Haralambi Markov, the forthcoming debut that Mythic Delirium (ie Anita’n’me) are shepherding, earned a knockout review in KIRKUS.

**buffs nails, quaffs celebratory libation**

www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand by V. Castro, Catherynne M. Valente, Catriona Ward, Sarah Langan, Bryan Smith, Wrath James White, Poppy Z. Brite, Caroline Kep... An original short story anthology based on master storyteller Stephen King’s #1 New York Times be...

@seanpatrickhopkins.bsky.social and Adenrele Ojo reading The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand app.thestorygraph.com/books/5952a3... is so good. Currently up to the @usmantm.bsky.social story. #booksky #horror

Non-fiction editor Mushba Said and Community Outreach manager Maliha Rao interview Usman T. Malik about advice for young writers, penning out a novel while teaching at clarion, what it means to write horror, and much more.

Link in bio.

🔮 - #SouthAsian #SpeculativeFiction

Thyme Travellers 2 An anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction

This sequel to the award winning anthology of Palestinian fantasy, science fiction and horror is now 58% funded! #projectwelove 🥰

www.kickstarter.com/projects/158...

This has kept happening since it happened to Linda Tirado, and it happened before that - police know they aren't supposed to aim them at people's heads and are doing it anyway despite that. End qualified immunity.

ICE agents will be stationed outside Marine Corps graduation events in South Carolina As the U.S. continues to fight the war in Iran, the Marine Corps has boosted protection measures on bases, requiring everyone to present REAL IDs, passports or birth certificates to access any sites.

"ICE agents will be stationed outside graduation events for the nation’s newest Marines to identify whether any of their family members are undocumented, according to the Marine Corps."

Stephen Miller allegedly urged Department of Homeland Security agents to “force confrontations” with protesters in Minneapolis in order to win a “PR battle." trib.al/NcbpdiX

New U.S. Missile Hit Iranian Sports Hall and School, Analysis Shows

Since the headline is a bit confusing, the NYT is reporting that on the same day we hit the girl's school in Minab, we also sent a missile full of tungsten steel pellets at a girl's volleyball tournament hundreds of miles away in Lamerd. Twenty one dead.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/w...

... but when I walked out of that room, he was smiling and he looked more peaceful. I hope he had a nice Sunday afternoon after that.

We talked for nearly 30 minutes and he told me other things and I promised him he would go home soon.

I'm nervous about that promise now (God laughs when we make promises)...

There is only one thing in my life, doc, he said, and that's my cat. I miss him terribly. I know my lungs are messed up and I might be dying. But please let me go home as soon as you can. My cat's my one thing in the world and i know he's missing me.

They met in Kansas at a friend's party and were together for 45 years, first in Key West, then in Central Florida. They didn't have kids but nephews and nieces. A very happy life, he said.

Kim passed away 2 years ago and since then my patient had been struggling with depression and anxiety.

He and his husband Kim were among the first gay couples to get married in Florida when it became legal in . . . 2015.

2015? I asked with disbelief.

2015, he said.

His primary care doc turned out to be a good friend of mine and we chatted about him.

Then he told me about his fear of dying, and Kim.

We started chatting and it turned out that he and his partner Kim (anonymized) had spent 30 yrs there in different businesses -- groceries, odds-and-ends, and later tourism. He told me stories about people who lived in Key West and the island's rich history.

Yesterday I had possibly one of my favorite patient encounters ever at the hospital.

A 75-yr old patient admitted for lung issues who was quietly anxious. While rounding I asked him where he was from and he said Key West.
+

luna (short for lunatic) says hello

also says: Free Palestine

'We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing.'

- Nabokov, PALE FIRE

israelis have 35-year old children while Palestinians have 8-yr old human shields

ok

There is only one lunatic around these herr* parts and it’s not the one ‘militarily decimated’

Why ICE Is Allowed to Impersonate Law Enforcement “There's no accountability,” one expert tells WIRED of ICE’s ability to lie to the public. "The consequence of this is that it’s going to be a systemic harm across all law enforcement.”

“There's no accountability,” one expert tells WIRED of ICE’s ability to lie to the public. "The consequence of this is that it’s going to be a systemic harm across all law enforcement.” www.wired.com/story/why-ic...

MK Yitzhak Kroizer at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, November 10, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) Far-right MK Yitzhak Kroizer defends the conduct of Israeli security forces who shot dead a Palestinian couple and their two young children earlier this month, claiming that their vehicle sped toward them in the northern West Bank. “I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation. Even if the collateral damage is children or women — it does not matter to me,” Kroizer says in remarks at a Knesset plenary session. “And in Jenin, there are no innocent civilians. In Jenin, there are no innocent children,” Kroizer claims.

Yitzhak Kroizer, Israeli MK and member of Israel's governing coalition, defends the summary execution of two Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers who shot them in the head:

"in Jenin, there are no innocent civilians. In Jenin, there are no innocent children."

I hope I’ll be able to write a short story this good again

joylandpublishing.com/fiction/i-wa...

The IDF tortured a baby to get his father to confess to a crime. This is just another atrocity among tens of thousands. What have been seeing for the past decade is the concentrated, systematic slaughter of people, esp Arabs, across West Asia in service of the colonial “Greater Israel” feverdream.

I think mine could be a story I write when I was still very much learning what my voice was. It isn’t necessarily a well crafted story; it is too short.

It is a tragedy based on one of my favourite Palestine folktales, one about an entire landscape collapsing in grief over the fate of a flea.

For me that story is "The Fortune of Sparrows" -- first published in BLACK FEATHERS ed. by Ellen Datlow and reprinted in my collection MIDNIGHT DOORWAYS: FABLES FROM PAKISTAN

Aamer Hussein once told me that of all my work that was his favorite. It's a compliment that I don't take lightly.

Most writers have written stories that we hold close to our heart for one reason or another; that, secretly, we believe might be the best thing we've ever done; and that we think have not received the love or attention they deserved.

+