Maintenance: The breakers are behind Diddy—I mean! Dudley Do-Right!

Annika: Those are two very different people

Me: Dudley Do-Right would NEVER

Annika: Diddy Do-Wrong, however…

The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the US. Activists Are Fighting Back Half of the country now requires age verification to watch porn or access “harmful” content. Digital rights advocates are pushing back against legislation they say will make the internet less safe.

Really great coverage from @wired.com about our week of action against online ID verification and how these bills are setting a dangerous precedent by making the internet more exploitative rather than safer.

www.wired.com/story/age-ve...

Choosing - Small Wonders The silent girl concerns you. You’re told she materialized from the sea, naked and speechless. She follows your betrothed like a besotted puppy and dances with a grace that makes your chest constrict.

"Choosing" by Susan Taitel is a different take on The Little Mermaid. Check it out in our issue 5:

Cast of Wonders 649: Little Wonders 46 - Seize Your Future | Cast of Wonders The witch was a small man, but otherwise rather ordinary. He had white hair, kind eyes, and a fondness for darjeeling tea. He called himself Mother. The directions were unclear. But it was unwise to…

I‘m fond of this flash piece published by Cast of Wonders this summer. www.castofwonders.org/2025/08/cast...

Sofia Coppola's Troop Beverly Hills

I enjoyed this short story. Who hasn't felt their skin tightening like this, and dreamed of such an ending?

Something very very weird happened during the Hugos award ceremony... It's been on my mind for days, and so I wrote this blog: "When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident"

grigorylukin.com/2025/08/21/w...

#Worldcon

August 20, 2025 Story Hour: Susan Taitel and B. Pladek YouTube video by Story Hour

This Story Hour's guests used sharp writing and exquisite craft to bring us on journeys of delight and melancholy. You can still watch Susan Taitel and B. Pladek read! @bpladek.bsky.social @susantaitel.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBJJ...

Sunset-toned silhouette of a giant woman in the bay of San Francisco, with the Golden Gate Bridge behind her.

Cast of Wonders 649: Little Wonders 46-Seize Your Future with stories by Race Harish and Susan Taitel, narrated by Mofiyinfoluwa Okupe and Emily Smith, produced by Jeremy Carter

www.castofwonders.org/2025/08/cast...

Head-and-shoulders photo of writer B. Pladek, a fair-skinned man with auburn hair worn short and with a side part. He poses before a plain blue portrait background, wearing a white dress shirt with a dark blazer and roundish wire-rim glasses. He smiles warmly at the camera.

Head-and-shoulders candid photo of writer Susan Taitel, a fair-skinned woman with dark, wavy hair dyed purple on one side and blond on top. She poses in an interior that includes framed art and a table lamp. She wears a smocked red top and large, plastic-framed cat-eye glasses. She smiles at the camera as if it amuses her.

This Story Hour, B. Pladek returns, and Susan Taitel makes her Story Hour debut! Join us for the warmth, the wit, and the wisdom! Join us Wednesday, August 20 at 7:00 PDT! @bpladek.bsky.social @susantaitel.bsky.social www.storyhour2020.com

Do you like kaiju? Or pop stars? Or the systemic exploitation of the music industry? "What Doesn't Kill You" out in Cast of Wonders today!

You had me at Catherine of Aragon invents necromancy.

We’re excited to announce the acquisition of @macey.bsky.social 's BLOOD OF QUEENS, a gothic historical fantasy featuring Tudor-inspired court intrigue, necromancy, and an audacious heist. For fans of M. A. Carrick’s The Mask of Mirrors and Holly Race's Six Wild Crowns, this hits shelves Spring ’27!

I'll be on Story Hour on August 20th.

Manawaker Studio's Flash Fiction Podcast presents:

“Dad and Ick” by Susan Taitel

podcastaddict.com/episode/http...

Supported by Patreon patrons: patreon.com/manawaker

#flashfiction #podcast #scifi #parenthood #robots

This is one of my favorite stories. I'm so happy to have an audio version thanks to Manawaker.

Trans Lifeline is a good place to direct resources if you’re looking to help here

fuck everyone involved with this decision

This, 100%.

If you are promoting AI art, you need to not follow me. If you follow me, that's a block.

Many changes took effect at #Patreon today, all devastating to creators' income,especially those of us who rely on Patreon to...not die

I woke up to my income slashed by 28% despite no change in patrons. I'm not alone--all while our economy burns

I'm not sure what to do, but there's a few things 🧵

Everyone I see using the “AI” to create a Ghibli-like image is participating in exploitation and theft.

The way I see people happily doing so doesn’t surprise me because those same people have been trained to exploit by pirating books and movies and making excuses for doing it for decades.

Am I the Asshole for Giving My Daughter a Haircut? Jump to conclusions why don’t you? I did not lock her in a basement. I’m not a monster. We live in a tower.

Jump to conclusions why don’t you? I did not lock her in a basement. I’m not a monster. We live in a tower.

Bookish Tastes - Small Wonders I ate The Hobbit once. I don’t mean I "devoured" it, although I was a voracious reader. I mean that I masticated, swallowed, and digested The Hobbit.

Bookish Tastes, by Susan Taitel in Small Wonders. I love when flash fiction takes a metaphor and literalizes it, and this is a great example about taste, independence, and how much of us is made of others. smallwondersmag.com/piece/bookis...

Clang clang clang goes the trolley, click click click goes my joints.

Becky Burke of Book Island (a picture book publisher in the UK founded by my fellow Tokarczuk translator Greet Pauwelijn) was "detained" by ICE at the Canadian border on 2/28. Her father asked that her story be shared in case someone can help her. He writes:

Vibrainum this, adamantium that, the strongest substance in the MCU is whatever the hulks' pants are made of.

Bluesky is for trans people! 🏳️‍⚧️

My other toxic trait is going to the grocery store for a few staples and leaving with four distinct types of cheese.