Witches in the woods? ✅
Magic? ✅
Female rage? ✅
Inter-generational support? ✅
Changelings? ✅
Hot blacksmith? ✅
Kindness? ✅
Murder? ✅
Menopause? ✅
Monsters in the woods? ✅
Redemption? ✅
Sassy mari-morgan? ✅
Secrets, whispers and lies? ✅
Then A Forest, Darkly is for you...
The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto: Review by Alexandra Pierce locusmag.com/review/...
Purple background, white text, which says Both novels, when considered alongside their audience and context, support a particular reading constructed through their speculative settings: those who control the lives of trans kids and keep them from the structures that support them can and should be rejected. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
In which Leo Astrum compares two works by Andrew Joseph White, looking at what options are available to the trans characters, and finds a common message for readers...
Read it now by subscribing: AUD30/yr gets you this and 11 other essays! (About GBP16 or USD22.)
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
swancon50.sf.org.au is soon!. One of committee members is Cat Sparks. From New South Wales, Cat was manager & editor of Agog! Press, publisher of Australian sf anthologies, and later editor of Cosmos Magazine. Cat is a writer & artist, awarded the Ditmar and the Aurealis for her work. catsparks.net
We started our John McTiernan watch-through with Predator. It was only the second time I'd seen it - and the first was last year...
(TL;DR I don't hate it! It's of its time but has some really cool aspects.)
randomalex.net/2026/04/21/p...
Kathleen Jennings won a World Fantasy Award in 2020 for Best Artist and was a @thehugoawards.bsky.social Hugo Finalist in 2018 for Best Professional Artist! 🏆
@tanaudel.bsky.social
A geometric pattern of pentagons and flowers. Variations of purple.
Sneak peek at the cover for the Jan-June 2026 compilation of essays from Speculative Insight...
The cover of Kindling by Kathleen Jennings. It features a matchbox with a match coming out of it. The box has a woman's face on it.
Favourite Australian thing to do? Walk down to the Bunnings sausage sizzle on a Saturday morning.
Favourite thing in Brisbane? Houses: the oldest Queenslanders with their coloured glass windows, but also the lovely little art deco houses like early airports. And, indeed, Archerfield airport.
The cover of Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. It's a silhouette picture with a heart in the middle and vines and birds connected to it.
Is there anything typically Australian that sneaks into your work? Places and birds and flowers — Flyaway was set in Western Queensland, and Honeyeater, while in a fictional city and suburb, is very heavily based on my area of Brisbane, its floods and trees and Queenslander houses.
The cover image of Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings, which has a girl with flowers and a bird in front of / making up her face
What’s new for you? My new Australian subtropical-suburban Gothic novel Honeyeater, about the ghosts of home and the memory of water, came out last year!
Where can we find you? tanaudel.wordpress.com; @tanaudel most other places - and I run @girlfleeshouse.bsky.social girlfleeshouse.tumblr.com
Photo of Kathleen Jennings, a woman with short brown hair. She wears a patterned blue shirt and a blue necklace. She stands in front of some trees.
Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel.bsky.social) is an Australian writer and artist – and GoH at Swancon this year...
Where are you based? Brisbane!
Your work in brief: Gothic, Australian Gothic, fairy tales, and fairy-tale Gothic fiction and illustration.
I learned two days ago that the director of Hunt for Red October was also the director of Die Hard. Thus an IMDB search and a new viewing project!
randomalex.net/2026/04/21/j...
It's almost time to announce the 2026 Hugo Award Finalists!
Stay tuned to @laworldcon.bsky.social's feed to find out the works being honoured by this year's Worldcon members!
#HugoAwards thehugoawards.bsky.social
Purple background, white text, which says Both novels, when considered alongside their audience and context, support a particular reading constructed through their speculative settings: those who control the lives of trans kids and keep them from the structures that support them can and should be rejected. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
In which Leo Astrum compares two works by Andrew Joseph White, looking at what options are available to the trans characters, and finds a common message for readers...
Read it now by subscribing: AUD30/yr gets you this and 11 other essays! (About GBP16 or USD22.)
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
Congrats!!
Jumping on the LOTR re-read bandwagon, but not talking about it to anywhere near the length or complexity of Abigail Nussbaum or Nick Hubble. Basically I'm reading along to better appreciate their commentary.
randomalex.net/2026/04/20/t...
My favourite relationship in For All Mankind is Aleida/ Margo.
There's no biography of Joan Kirner??
@catsparx.bsky.social
Purple background, white text, which says White's books are horror, and come with no genre-codified need for a happily ever after. With the situations the protagonists are forced into, more tragic possibilities present themselves than escape routes. This is not, however, the form these narratives take. The problem with Benji and Silas face is agency... "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
Leo Astrum looks at two novels by Andrew Joseph White in this new novel - specifically, the choices available to two trans characters...
Subscribe now to read this and other essays! AUD30/year - about GBP16 or USD22!
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
Purple background, white text, which says White's novels exist, temporally, on two different sides of a setting where medical transition would be possible - Silas is too early and Benji is too late for the world where they might be able to access this type of care. Neither novel reaches for a happy ending in which this type of gender-affirming care would be possible, either... "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
New subscriber essay just dropped! Leo Astrum looks at fantasy and science fiction by Andrew Joseph White, and compares the possibilities for trans characters in those situations.
Read it now by subscribing (AUD30/year: ~GBP16 or USD22).
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
Escapist Routes is up! This week I am talking about season 14 of ER, plus new episodes of For All Mankind, Hacks and The Pitt, where I have a controversial opinion about a popular character.
Congratulations to all listed by Violet Lichen Books on the shortlist for ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction! It includes New Zealanders Octavia Cade and E. M. Linden.
@octavia-cade.bsky.social @emlinden.bsky.social
Enjoy the Cover Reveal! violetlichen.com/2026/04/10/e...
#Brisbane2028
![Purple background, white text, which says Social acknowledgement of the protagonists' genders is treated with paramount importance throughout the narratives of both [novels]... The speculative settings remove several possibilities from their trans characters, but this services the nuanced social webs contained within them. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:etyqh3teyar75uaji3ts4goa/bafkreifqxsnnhzcvo54plq47dpavrqkuvkucrcsfrpkxbq2hxrtrcrobiu)
Purple background, white text, which says Social acknowledgement of the protagonists' genders is treated with paramount importance throughout the narratives of both [novels]... The speculative settings remove several possibilities from their trans characters, but this services the nuanced social webs contained within them. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
In which @leoastrum.bsky.social splits gender transition and affirmation into three categories, and examines whether they're feasible in the novels of Andrew Joseph White.
Subscribe now to read - AUD30/year (~GBP16 or USD22).
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
Really enjoyed our chat with @katclay.com for today's episode of the podcast! She spoke us about how she got into scenario writing for @chaosium.bsky.social, and why horror works best if it also changes the characters (and players)...
Watch: youtu.be/uUHDQVtGhEE
Listen: linktr.ee/narrativedam...
Purple background, white text, which says White's novels exist, temporally, on two different sides of a setting where medical transition would be possible - Silas is too early and Benji is too late for the world where they might be able to access this type of care. Neither novel reaches for a happy ending in which this type of gender-affirming care would be possible, either... "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
New subscriber essay just dropped! Leo Astrum looks at fantasy and science fiction by Andrew Joseph White, and compares the possibilities for trans characters in those situations.
Read it now by subscribing (AUD30/year: ~GBP16 or USD22).
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
You too!
Purple background, white text, which says This piece sets out the ways in which the possibilities of gender transition are presented in "Hell Followed With Us" and "The Spirit Bares Its Teeth," White's first and second published novels. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum
New essay for subscribers! @leoastrum.bsky.social examines the possibilities available to trans characters in two novels by Andrew Joseph White.
Subscribe now to read it (and 12 other essays across the year!) for just AUD30/yr (~GBP16 / USD22).
www.speculativeinsight.com/subs
…
Considering The Female Man by @effjayem.bsky.social made me think about aspects of the novel I hadn't considered before... and made me re-read the book for the first time in, uh, about 15 years...
randomalex.net/2026/04/16/c...
