Susan Maxwell @ Bibliothèque des Refusés

I had missed @melikhovo.bsky.social’s essay on horror theory, an incredible treasure trove of thoughts, critiques, branchings-out, and readings; really gets at my frustration with/disinterest in “why do people like horror” as a research question, particularly as the perpetual default approach

Happy #WorldBookDay!

I do not like this gen AI
I do not like what it implies
I do not want it in my art
I do not think it makes you smart
I do not want it in my games
I do not like its goals and aims
I do not want it in my books
I do not like the way it looks
I do not like it, I don't care
I do not want it anywhere

Promotional image for Smashwords Read an eBook Week, featuring a cartoon illustration of a reader immersed in a book.

5/5 I would, naturally, be delighted if you fancied trying out my books at half price. All of them are DRM-free - in my world, if you buy a book, you own it. If you don't like the look of them, some of the many other authors taking part in the #Smashwords Read an eBook sale might be to your taste!

A Wild Goose Hunt "You did not tell the Abbess a single lie," Diamond said, "but you didn't tell her the truth." As a good Sombrist, Hunter Sessaire is aware that not only lying, but curiosity, is very much frowned upo...

4/5 The last of my books available at 50% discount in the #Smashwords Read an eBook Week sale is A Wild Goose Hunt, second in the Muinbeo Chronicles series. Set in the same universe as And the Wildness, but across the mythological border, as it were.
www.smashwords.com/books/view/1...

And the Wildness "So the actual reason I was calling you is because—get this—I am not going to Prague this summer at all. Surprise! Thanks, Villa. Just ruin my life for me." Villa Grace is in disgrace. Her expulsion f...

3/5 Not finished yet... Here's And the Wildness, the first in the Flux Avellana series, set in a low-fantasy future / alternative-history version of Ireland - part steampunk, part messing around with myth, part eco-fiction. 50% off at #Smashwords till the 7th
www.smashwords.com/books/view/1...

Fluctuation in Disorder An encounter with an alien enemy. A strange epiphany in a fog-bound park. A collector of the names of the dead faces their own death. Rebel divinities respond to the prayers of despairing creation for...

2/5 Also available at 50% off in the #Smashwords Read an eBook Week sale is Fluctuation in Disorder, selected slipstream short stories charting two decades of my writing. Ten unsettling stories, interweaving naturalism and the irreal / weird. #ebookweek26 #booksky
www.smashwords.com/books/view/1...

Death at Hallowtide Corrbofinn. A place where things are… different. Where the mortal world borders on the otherworlds of the sidhe. Where Jessica Quill has inherited a property and just become the number one suspect in ...

The #Smashwords Read an eBook Week sale runs until 7 March, & includes my ebooks at half price. First up is Death at Hallowtide, where I have a bit of fun engaging as a writer in my go-to comfort read genre as reader- cosy (or at least non-harrowing) mysteries. 1/5 www.smashwords.com/books/view/1...

😲

"It was almost certainly ‘The Metamorphosis’ that I read first, when it comes to Kafka. I’m not sure I was ready—it was more perplexing to me than anything else. … I still don’t know what it’s about and still very much perplexed. It’s just that, now, those are good things."
More goodies from APA

############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################

Celebrating #WomensHistoryMonth with #WomenInNoir with Dorothy Hughes, crime writer, literary critic, and historian. Hughes wrote 14 novels, primarily crime/hardboiled & #filmnoir styles like The Fallen Sparrow ('42) In a Lonely Place ('47), & Ride the Pink Horse ('46).

Anti-gravity's Rainbow

"Trying to remove the film from a bottle of squash" conjures up images of an Ipcress File era spy thriller... I hope the secret information contained therein was worth the stab wound!

An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Now that my own laptop has had its makeover, all of the (working) computers in our household are running on #Linux. Big thanks to Microsoft for switching this project status from 'desirable' to 'essential' with its relentless enshittification & AI crap. Personal computers like they used to be.

NON-FICTION Quote I did expect the story to go another way because I thought it was going to be like any other undead story. But I am very happy to see that it wasn’t. Frankly, they are a nice change from the usual OTR shows which, to be honest, are often on the sloppy side. end Quote Stories From The Radio  by Kuzhali Manickavel 23 February 2026 Strange Horizons

Stories From The Radio 
by Kuzhali Manickavel @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social

"I did expect the story to go another way because I thought it was going to be like any other undead story. But I am very happy to see that it wasn’t."

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

I'm very sorry for your loss.

It would be an honour to be like this guy!

👇👇

Sign at Phinney Books reading Wednesday at 7PM: Writer and editor Brad Bigelow

Copies of Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts and books from the Recovered Books series from Boiler House Press in the display window of Phinney Books in Seattle.

Wow! Phinney Books devoted their entire window display to my Virginia Faulkner biography and some of the books from the Recovered Books series that I edit for @bhousepress.bsky.social. @tomnissley.bsky.social, you are a superstar!

😂😂

The Masque of the Red Death certainly wears its years well - as Allen notes, it is more arthouse than schlock. It is a visual treat, and both Vincent Price and Jane Asher turn in very well-modulated performances. I must pop on the DVD again soon for a re-watch!

I have no mouth, and I must eat.

Yes, it's all too easy to get hooked and all too difficult to wriggle off the hook.

It's an interesting article, as it makes clear that it is not screens as such but the way that so many of the platforms are designed that is the problem. So here I am, being distracted on social media, but can easily focus on the screen of an e-reader or a PC (no scrolling feeds, notifications, etc)

"The people who cannot sit through novels aren’t broken. They’re adapted to an environment we built. … We give them tools designed to fracture attention and blame them when their attention fractures. We built a world that profits from distraction and then pathologise the distracted."

Owl attacks bus driver.

You’ll note that the owl-attack service is only twice per week. This is because of a growing shortage of bus drivers.

One of the few lifelines for researchers and scholars without institutional affiliation. 👍

Not just poets - this dog will help guard your home against authors working in multiple literary forms!