This was a tough one to write, but I'm so proud of it. My short story "The Cinema of Babel" has just been published in Uncanny!!

Neil Ottenstein@nottenst.bsky.social · yesterday

Listened to/read "The Cinema of Babel" by @sentencebender.bsky.social from @uncannymagazine.bsky.social #71. Just a story with wild ideas and dealing with grief, which was poignant on a day I learned a friend of mine passed last week. www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-...

Today is the day on which Ray Bradbury's “There Will Come Soft Rains” (pub'd 1950) takes place. It’s a short elegaic story about a smart home slowly dying after its owners are wiped out in a nuclear extinction event. Re-reading it now, I’m feeling softly sucker-punched by what it has to offer us.

Tomorrow Aug. 4th 2026 is "There Will Come Soft Rains" day from The Martian Chronicles. The best way to honor it is probably to live it like it's your last.

HUGE: Under Mayor Mamdani, New York City just recorded its safest first 7 months of a year in history—and its safest July ever. In July: Major crime dropped 13% Murder dropped 32% Robberies dropped 15% Vehicle thefts dropped 25% Democratic mayors are putting public safety first.

Folks, Lightspeed & Nightmare magazines need your support. www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/a...

Announcement: We're Launching a New Kickstarter Soon. Sign up to be notified when it launches! - Lightspeed Magazine

On September 15, 2026, we’ll be launching our first Kickstarter campaign in more than a decade, to fund Year 17 of Lightspeed and Year 15 of Nightmare. Join us for a year of new short fiction from som...

lightspeedmagazine.com

here's a fun lil exercise for cis people: how many articles would a publication have to print calling for your extermination before you would expect people who care about you to stop giving them money? and how would you feel if their excuse for still supporting them is some fuckass crossword puzzle?

Now that the newsletter people got to see it first, presenting the official OUR CRIMSON CAGE art that will come with every signed pre-order of the book I'm fucking obsessed with the everything Artist: @exaltxix.bsky.social Pre-order link: ladz-merch.square.site/product/-pre...

it's short story dayyy!! do you want a slightly pensive story about change, giant robot bird watching, and a toxic ex that left you behind in the ruins of civilization? read "If a Discarded God Can Change, So Can I" over at @lightspeedmagazine.com ✨ 🪶 www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/if-a... 🪶

If a Discarded God Can Change, So Can I - Lightspeed Magazine

Green Plumed Orbital Line A; viridis metamorphos A Common sighting; Flies along the forty-fifth latitude every 12 minutes Traveler’s addendum: Last functional line along a northern latitude; southern ...

lightspeedmagazine.com

There is no version of yourself you could become that would satisfy the people who hate you. So you might as well be who you are.

Today's library pickup: Love and Rockets: The Sketchbooks. For some reason I didn't realize this was a flip book with the two covers on the front & back of the same volume. I think the photo used for product listings made me think it was going to be two separate volumes in a slipcase.

Such an amazing, impactful story. Rings true in today’s world. I feel like it jumped right out of my own group chats. The desperation and the hope, both. I’m rambling over here. You’d better just go and read the story yourself. (The audio version is amazing too.)

R.S.A. Garcia (BUY THE NIGHTWARD)@rsagarcia.bsky.social · 5d ago

It's the last day of July! Tomorrow, my story, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST, goes to the @clarkesworldmagazine.com archives. But you can still read it on the front page today, now with an incredible audio performance by Kate Baker! Enjoy your weekend! clarkesworldmagazine.com/garcia_07_26/

Next chapter drops Sunday morning - in which Deimos takes a break from bloody revenge to attend his first protest, and finds out that he is "at the very beginning" of his "activist journey." sentencebender.substack.com/embed

Jupiter Ruins Everything | Sam J. Miller | Substack

A serialized novel about tyranny, resistance, hope, and bloody revenge. In space. Click to read Jupiter Ruins Everything, by Sam J. Miller, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

sentencebender.substack.com

🏳️‍🌈SOME QUEER SHORT SFF - JUNE 2026🏳️‍🌈 I round up over 40 works by @mruthrobinson.bsky.social @mdmcd.com @redscribe.bsky.social @ashvalewrites.bsky.social @sylvie-althoff.bsky.social @rukman.bsky.social @ernerker.bsky.social @marisca.bsky.social & MORE!!!! www.patreon.com/quicksiprevi...

Some Queer Short SFF - June 2026 | Charles Payseur

Hi all! I’m still a mess in general but the show continues, this month with works from June—and there are quite a few, thanks in large part

patreon.com

It's release day! Like sea magic? Ghostly ships? A queer protag with ADHD? Tides of Time has all this and more. It's available on all the usual platforms at: books2read.com/b/tides3 Or start the series at books2read.com/b/tides1

Not only is he a smoking hot abolitionist who was assassinated for refusing orders to massacre indigenous folks, he "befriended Walt Whitman" according to his Wikipedia page which ABSOLUTELY means they fucked

Patrick McCray@patrickmccray.bsky.social · last wk.

Remembering Silas Soule, born OTD in 1838. American abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, military officer, and hero for disobeying orders to participate in Sand Creek Massacre and then giving evidence against his commander. Murdered 1865. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_S...

Remembering Silas Soule, born OTD in 1838. American abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, military officer, and hero for disobeying orders to participate in Sand Creek Massacre and then giving evidence against his commander. Murdered 1865. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_S...

This is very very true - signed, a person who spent 15 years a community organizer in NYC fighting against mayors who were in the pockets of the rich and the cops. But it makes me respect Mamdani even more, having watched a nightmare procession of vile clowns refuse to lift even a single finger.

mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · last wk.

I think it's good that Mamdani is Just Doing Stuff but more people gotta realize that it is not a matter of Will or motivation or whatever but because the NYC Mayor, as an office, is one of the uniquely powerful individual offices you can hold in the United States (seriously)

Has anyone read ALL THEM DOGS by Djamel White? To me it feels like an M/M romance that really wants to NOT BE A ROMANCE NOVEL, and I'm bouncing off its voice, so heavily emphasized that it took me a while to wonder whether there was anything else. Anybody love it, think I should keep going?

Sad to hear of Glen Hansard's passing - was lucky to see him at the Shane Macgowan/Sinéad O'Connor tribute show at Carnegie Hall in 2024 - he sang "I'm A Man You Don't Meet Everyday" & dueted "Fairytale of New York" w Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan. Another link to a vibrant musical history lost 😭😭😭

So you loved the Odyssey, and you're looking for something EPIC? "the sensibilities of an epic poem" @suyidavies.com "a brilliantly layered story of myth and magic, gods and monsters, warriors and lovers" @premeemohamed.com Try Simon Jimenez's THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER! geni.us/Spearcuts

This Story Hour is one for the books! Much-lauded authors Tobi Ogundiran and Isabel J. Kim return—and Isabel is even reading her Hugo-nominated “Wire Mother”! Don’t miss this one. Join us Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. PDT! @tobiogundiran.com @isabel.kim www.storyhour2020.com

Event in the Burlington, VT area (Williston) tomorrow, or Wednesday the 29th. Eric and I are driving up to talk books and drink maple syrup, and we’re all out of maple syrup.

NYC is the best because wdym the super of your building has curated a provocative unsettling art gallery in the courtyard where everyone dumps their garbage bags 🥰🥰🥰

If you are quote-posting a story you don’t like from an outlet that constantly provokes you…you are executing their marketing strategy.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see men on the internet being so upset with a woman scholar for being insufficiently awed by a popular male entertainer’s work. And after all, the Odyssey is, in part, about how men behave emotionally and destructively in response to women’s words and deeds

Listen there was a lot I didn't love about AVATAR AANG,* but no sin more egregious than the yassification of the character design. * but also I love these characters and this world and I loved spending time with them again!!

7. The film centers Odysseus's guilt over his war crimes, but never shows us the POV of his victims, and instead glorifies the perpetrator for feeling bad about himself. I found this unsatisfying ethically and worse, imaginatively, because Damon's character is given only one mood (Troubled).

2. Adaptations can do whatever the creators want with the source material, and in many cases, the more they diverge from or push back against the original, the better. e.g. I love Wild Sargasso Sea (and I also love Jane Eyre).

I have an *exceptional* JWST image today for you of a young star struggling to be born. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/jwst-takes... Bonus: very cool educational emission line periodic table posters 🔭🧪

JWST takes a peek at a star being born

And of course it’s another jaw-dropper

badastronomy.beehiiv.com