congratulations, Howard ! Two Fine Books !

I do not want to create an account or open a subscription I just want to buy a thing and never hear from you again why is this so hard.

Kathy in a leather jacket looking fierce

Happy birthday, Kathy Acker, a great writer and a lovely person. We saw a press screening of Cronenberg's Crash and Fire Walk With Me on opening night. In both cases, we were the only ones smiling at the end, laughing at the waves of movie hate all around us. Love you, Kathy.

photo by Mark Baker

oh well, it was fun while it lasted

/ was your account wiped, too ?

I renewed my subscription & donated to Locus @locusmag.bsky.social

A cluster of the blue, striped flowers of a clump of bluebells, with a larger, out of focus patch of bluebells in the background.

Hampstead Heath, 07:25

CLE --> EWR

For the evening crowd

newly published

Mark Valentine. Tea and Gargoyles. Tartarus, [2026]. Edition of 350 copies.
an excellent new collection of bookish essays

tartaruspress.com/valentine-te...

EWR --> CLE

A Box Full of Controversy . Look what I found! I've been reorganizing (and, in many cases discarding) my papers and I came across a box containing the "A User's Guid...

Michael Swanwick’s ‘Box Full of Controversy’

floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2026/04/a-bo...

Pretty sure that the pie chart of followers and people at Eastercon = two perfect circles but just in case, I’ll be reading from Loss Protocol Saturday morning 9 am.

THE ELFLAND PREPOSITIONS by Henry Wessells. Photograph of a moorland wall, a border of Elfland

THE ELFLAND PREPOSITIONS

Four original short stories by Henry Wessells
“an Elfland as implacable as ever, but now ruthlessly enmeshed in contemporary mortal affairs” (Mark Valentine)
/ special sale price through 30 April
temporary-culture.com/product/the-...

The Great Eastern by Howard Rodman
is a fine book : what chutzpah, to take on Capt. Ahab (Melville), Capt. Nemo (Verne), _and_ Isambard Kingdom Brunel — and then to carry it off in such a gripping, well written tale !
You should read it too !

endlessbookshelf.net/archive0220....

the winner of the 22nd annual Story Prize award is André Alexis, author of Other Worlds. Stories (FSG Originals. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2025)

the Story Prize award night

at the Story Prize award night
/ file under : this literary life

Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness.

In spring sunshine, a bare oak tree stands in a circle of brambles on a slope of lush new grass, with a line of trees, some coming into leaf, in the background. Clouds moving in from the west are beginning to cover the sky.

Hampstead Heath, 08:09

this SF protest has deep roots

this photo from 11 Feb. 2017

read this

/ and the thread

Sign in hand lettering reading: Taking Notes on a Criminal Fucking Conspiracy

#nokings
#mysign

A fine-line ink drawing showing a view of rugged hills and conifers. The foreground is occupied by a large two-pronged wooden fork.

The forked sticks held aloft by Orson Welles' witches have been turning up in my artwork ever since I first saw the film in 1982 when the BBC broadcast all of Welles' features. This is one of several examples from my adaptation of The Dunwich Horror.

“the false belief that we simply desire to turn in an essay, regardless of how little we've written of it”
/ file under : experience is incompressible

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations.

Why I Don't Write like Franz Kafka by William S. Wilson

Why I Don't Write like Franz Kafka

Sentiment & Metaphrasis

endlessbookshelf.net/2026/03/25/m...

“Go, Dog. Go! fatally fed my appetite for complexity and experimentation in prose” — James Crossley

Cat and Girl @catandgirl.bsky.social has split open the sky !

“The Master’s philosophies / serve the Master’s interests”

catandgirl.com/the-metaverse/

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations.

The Haunter of the Dark and other tales by H. P. Lovecraft
Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations.

The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout

. @richardkadrey.bsky.social
we can play this for a long time !