@zutsuit
sff writer/playwright · pop culture critic at Reactor, Lit Hub, Den of Geek, NPR Books · stories at PodCastle, Icarus Writing Collective · Viable Paradise 2025 · PlayPenn Playwright Entrepreneur Program 25/26 · she/her
Even if AI could write a novel what problem has been solved? The problem of knowing what you’re reading was written by another person? Who loves reading novels but hates the part where your mind briefly and mysteriously touched another?
Thinking about this wrt how LLMs are being posited for archival scanning/digitization, creating records, and doing research. LLMs distract from the actual systems problems of a lack of funding, lack of resources, and lack of staff paid at a liveable wage.
Reminder: we are OPEN to reprints all month long! We are looking for reprints that cannot currently be read online for free! This includes stories that were never available online or are no longer online after a publication closed, etc. Find all the details in our guidelines!
THIS but also as someone on the other side -- i.e. second kid is almost 2 and keeping up with her 4-year-old brother -- it kinda rules
THREAD: I got laid off from NYMag/Vulture after 14 years. The family lost 75% of income + medical. Now mzs.press bookstore, once a side project. is do-or-die for Judith & I. I feel weird telling you this because others are doing much worse. But if you could like or share this, we'd be so grateful!
Threads thread: thriller_instinct 3d Is it okay to bully 40 and 50 year olds who are on social media just for being on it, cuz like why are you here - 254 Q 3.1K G 28 746 corporateash 18h ••• My ICQ UIN is 7231680. That number is burned into my consciousness. I inadvertently learned that you could see private conversations in public chat rooms when using Telnet instead of a browser on GeoCities. I can tell you the difference in audible dial-up handshakes between 1200, 2400, 14.4 kbps modems. I needed a edu email address to join Facebook after my university was admitted. We were here at the beginning. We made social media. You wouldn't be in my Top 8. I have usernames older than you. 852 Q62 G6 72
“I have usernames older than you.”.
Holy shit
IT'S SO GOOD I was just thinking about it again this week (even before the latest news bleh). When I first heard of Tilly I was like, "there's an SF story in this" and then Betty Gilpin just blew it out of the water.
Ooh, just put in a library hold—thanks for this! Didn't realize she had a whole collection.
They killed 180 children and their teachers in a double-tap strike on a school. The girls were 7 to 12 years old.
My latest story is very angry and timely and I'd like it to stop being timely.
Gideon Nav:
let the new (FINAL sniff) Outlander theme song get you amped for this week's premiere, and enjoy this analysis slash song feels post that I've updated every season for the last eight (!) years
My open call with @flashfictiononline.bsky.social is live! ffo.submittable.com/submit/35050...
it's march, beloveds
which means we are currently open for
POETRY SUBMISSIONS
read the guidelines and send in those poems 🖤💀
psychopomp.com/the-deadland...
It's time! Nominations are now open for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which will be given to a work of imaginative fiction, published in 2025, that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.
Nominations open for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize!
www.ursulakleguin.com/prize-nomina...
Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist
Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.
From left to right: Abi Stevens's FF#24 cover (a psychedelic and colourful space whale dwarfing an observatory, amidst planets and a rocketship), Nickolej Villiger's FF#25 cover (featuring comic-book style art of 9 different scenes from the issue's stories), and Evelyne Park's FF#26 cover (a painting of a woman's face surrounded by shards of glass and fragments of a noh mask, all containing different eyes).
For awards season, I'd like to take a moment to hype FF's 2025 cover artists. FF's cover art is commissioned, based on stories from each issue, and @abistevensart.bsky.social @almosthomefree.bsky.social and @evelynepark.bsky.social did an incredible job of bringing these stories to life!
1/4
As hard as we are fighting, book bans are having an impact on the books being written and published. To put this another way, a very small number of well-funded people who don't write books, don't teach books, don't work in libraries are trying to decide what books are available for everyone else
*gutting (complimentary)
but also yes, there's probably a German word for it
I've had this tab open to read for weeks and this was a useful reminder to finally sit down and do it -- damn!! Gutting on so many levels.
🚨🚨Submissions call. 🚨🚨
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Please send in your mycelial pitches to gautam.strangehorizons@gmail.com.
For word-count, formats, and remuneration:
strangehorizons.com/submit/non-f...
Reminder: we open to reprints on March 1st! We are looking for speculative stories (by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors) that cannot currently be read for free online.
We will stay open to reprints until the end of March and will likely open again later this year.
📝Guidelines: othersidespec.com/guidelines/
So psyched to share a TOC with all these incredible authors! Adventitious Issue 2 letsgoooo
The empire needs someone to play the prophesized hero. Instead, they get Gev, a 40yo quartermaster with more talent for the logistics of supply lines than killing actual gods. Fake-it-till-you-make-it…or die trying (spoilers: he'll probably die trying). #WSPit #Q #A #F #LGBT
Moodboard picturing caves, desert at night, a snake, a city in a desert, sheet music and musical instruments.
THE ELEGY AT LAKE LAMENDO
Lucio is a court mage in Lamendo, a conquered Imperial territory. When his rebel sister attempts to assassinate Lamendo's puppet ruler—Lucio’s not-so-secret amor—Lucio risks everything to protect his familia.
> Mesoamerica-inspired setting
> tM/M
#WSPit #Q #A #F #LGBT #ND
Exiled overdramatic telepathic space elf joins off-brand Starfleet. And, very much against his will (he protests! He protests so much!), makes friends. And learns how to (badly) pilot a starship with his mind. Space adventures ensue! Not necessarily in that order. #WSPit #W #A #SF #LGBT
ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT against a fantasy map backdrop
PITCH Remi's peaceful life as a nun is interrupted when an invisible wall appears, sweeping her across her magical, shifting world like a 3D sidescroller. To escape this curse, she’ll have to break her vow of silence, not fall in love with (or murder) the chatterbox traveling with her, and confront the Mapmaker Themself—the god who created her world.
HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE X DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL bi 4 bi golden retriever boyfriend travelogue but they’re in a sidescroller god: fmk??
FIRST LINE The monastery’s map had just gone out of date again when Remi found another crack in the world.
ECONOMY OF MOVEMENT
Remi's peaceful life as a nun is interrupted when an invisible wall appears, sweeping her across her magical, shifting world like a 3D sidescroller. To break this curse, she’ll have to confront the Mapmaker Themself—the god who created her world.
#WSPit #W #A #F #LGBT #ND
