B. Pladek
@bpladek.bsky.social
Ben. Literature scholar & writer; Ass. Prof. of English at Marquette University. He/him, boring transsexual. DRY LAND (2023, UWP): https://uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/D/Dry-Land; other stuff elsewhere. website: bpladek.net
reread Little, Big & while it's still a stirring love-letter to the real world (only half-disguised as a love-letter to the world beyond the real), man oh man we just did not need all that stuff about Frederick Barbarossa
bumping this one last time this week bc I'm proud of it, despite how grim it is. I don't mean every story I pub to get grimmer--but the world, man. anyway: a bird-and-human-refuge/e camp, loons, cynicism, revolutionaries parenting, a ghost, (not) a Symbol, & lush green cold Pukaskwa NP (ON)
Lightspeed Magazine@lightspeedmagazine.com · 2w agoThis week on LIGHTSPEED: "The Punishing Animal" by B. Pladek www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-...
not excited for yet another WI election that will significantly impact my ability to live here safely becoming a National Referendum
yesterday I returned from 2 weeks of hiking in the US west w nearly no internet. like its ppl, this country is at once brutal & deadly & heartbreakingly beautiful. it's also parched, charred, clearcut, often over 100F. idk how the west will survive the 2030s. anyway here's me at the Badlands
new one from me @lightspeedmagazine.com: a bird-and-people refuge/e camp in a water-wars future; children learning violence despite their parents’ best efforts; a ghost; a tragedy; maybe an epiphany. This one’s sad.
Lightspeed Magazine@lightspeedmagazine.com · 2w agoThis week on LIGHTSPEED: "The Punishing Animal" by B. Pladek www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-...
hello my small fable about the lake of all middles in this, along with some amazing writers!
Neon Hemlock@neonhemlock.bsky.social · 3w agoLast year a mysterious patron commissioned a zine of dark trans fable and myth. Editorial intern MJ Woods and I put it together for you with some wonderful contributors. Limited run, 100 copies, coming 9/15. You can get it via Club Serpentine or pick it up here: www.neonhemlock.com/chapbooks-zi...
INCOMING: The first part of the TOC for our new anthology project! First up, the short stories. We have so many amazing and talented writers in this section, give lots of love to all of them! Stay tuned for the NOVELETTES! Follow & back us @ http://kck.st/4wtYJ6X in bio
old hyperlocal histories of small towns are such bizarre & fascinating reading & it‘s sad that the internet/death of print journalism means they’re unlikely to be printed anymore
also I'm in this! with my fuck-AI-in-literature-education @lightspeedmagazine.com story from way back in Jan 2025
B. Pladek@bpladek.bsky.social · 4w agothe great folks @locusmag.bsky.social are crowdfunding a new best-of anthology--starting with 2025, a banner year for short fiction! In a time when traditional publishing faces so many threats, collections like this matter more than ever. support it at locusmag.com/anthology!
clear distillation of a damning colonial angle to the current cross-genre zeal for purple nonsense metaphors lauded as "poetic" (in re: Granta & AI): "The real question... is why a particular form of trained, statistical incoherence was so readily legible to its judges as postcolonial seriousness."
How to read postcolonial writing
The Granta controversy surrounding a Commonwealth Prize-winning story tells us less about AI than about the enduring metropolitan expectation that writing from the South should sound opaque, excessive...
africasacountry.com
the great folks @locusmag.bsky.social are crowdfunding a new best-of anthology--starting with 2025, a banner year for short fiction! In a time when traditional publishing faces so many threats, collections like this matter more than ever. support it at locusmag.com/anthology!
hi booksky, looking for recs for spec novels that end w magic *returning* to the world; bonus pts if lit-spec; bonus bonus pts if they end w a moment of surreal/ambiguous transcendence. examples of the vibe: Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist; Clarke's Jonathan Strange; Crowley's Little, Big; Ryman's Was
MKE, ICE is on the south side kidnapping people (Voces as well as local media confirmed). GFM for this man and his family in the post below. www.jsonline.com/story/news/l...
He's lived in the US since age 4. ICE detained him in Milwaukee crackdown
Giovanni Sosa's case highlights the expansive criteria ICE is using as it detains people in Milwaukee and its new pattern of public street arrests.
jsonline.com
the new Lisa Robertson (Riverwork, 2026) is lovely & also feels like it was written in 1998 or maybe 2003, w its archives & indices & rhizomes & Barthes. first book I've encountered where a turn-of-the-20thc style feels so mannered & jarringly *past*
scrotus giving free speech rights to unlimited campaign spending while stripping trans women of their constitutional protections & upholding birthright citizenship by the slimmest of margins = the final telos of citizens united. people isn't people. only money is people
I'm so proud to have this essay out in support of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social fund drive. I have thoughts about worldbuilding, and I hope after reading that you will, too ✨
Gautam Bhatia@gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 2mo agoFind-drive update: we’ve just hit our next funding milestone, so we’re delighted to bring you @jennahanchey.bsky.social’s brilliant essay on - and critique of - worldbuilding: strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... To help us keep publishing such work, back us here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...
SH is a vital magazine in the SFF short fiction ecosystem, committed to uplifting marginalized voices & promoting a horizontal editorial model. They're also one of still-too-few outlets for excellent reviews. Please support them if you can!
Strange Horizons@strangehorizons.bsky.social · 2mo agoWe are definitely fans of all the love and support coming through! We've cross $10k and are nearly halfway there! Here's some Fund Drive issue coming your way:
ok wow so was not expecting a mic drop of a ghost scene at the end of The Magic Mountain, a book I thought was unspoilerable bc the final twist is literally just WWI
so happy OFTV's back with a new ep that gives the people what we want: fun trans history & an outro that's a nearly full play of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon." never have I felt so seen
Morgan M Page@morganmpage.bsky.social · 2mo agoONE FROM THE VAULTS RETURNS! For a special Tenth Anniversary season! Ten brand new episodes of the original trans history podcast. In our first episode, we chart the life of tarot master, sci fi writer, and 70s trans activist Rachel Pollack! Please share! m.soundcloud.com/onefromtheva...
I received this "informed" poll, which was v obvs funded by the Rodriguez campaign but did not disclose so when I asked (repeatedly) abt it. It was a joke; scant mention of other candidates, biased questions, seemed to be digging for ammo against Hong in particular
New poll shows top three emerging in Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin
Plus: In an "informed" vote poll where candidate biographies are shared, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez leads the field with 33%.
therecombobulationarea.news
the toilet museum and my MC: a thread. for my novel DRY LAND (2023) I found photo referents for chars. my MC was based an unknown guy in a 1930s horseshoe team pic I saw in the dinky basement museum of the Kohler Design Center—a bath/toilet showroom in Sheboygan WI that features a wall of toilets
listening to Silas Marner while writing a public lecture on Les Mis & having just read Little Dorrit: I've somehow ended up in a c19 vortex of world-weary calloused dad/Daddies being Fixed by adopting waifish daughters
went into this James Purdy novel expecting gay art drama, 1930s edition; received instead sadomasochistic gay Faulkner. not complaining! but what a wind-up, what a pitch
this weekend my husband & I visited Pendarvis, an old Cornish miner's cottage c. 1830 in southwest WI that was restored into a tearoom in the 1930s by an openly gay couple, Bob Neal & Edgar Hellum; a reminder that there's so much interesting queer history outside the metropoles
😳 SOUR CHERRY won the Locus Award for First Novel!! 😳 Thank you so much @locusmag.bsky.social and congratulations to all finalists and winners! I wish I could have been there with you all. 🚀💫🌗🍒
my fuck-AI @lightspeedmagazine.com story featuring a broken-spirited middleaged trans man, evaporated Lake Michigan, & reddit being the only social media to survive the US's fracture, is in this!
Neon Hemlock@neonhemlock.bsky.social · 2mo agoSneaking this announcement out before the weekend: We are pleased to announce the ToC and share the cover for We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2025! www.neonhemlock.com/news/cover-r...