Margot Atwell

✨ WHAT ELEGANT STARS is now funding ✨

satellites and sewists, terminals and tailors, dandies and dying stars

www.kickstarter.com/projects/dav...

Headline in today's Guardian that reads "Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40 percent, study finds. Cognitive health in later life is 'strongly influenced' by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers."

This is why you need to be reading books and writing your own emails, by the way. When you outsource your thinking abilities, you risk turning your brain into soup. Heavy dependence on AI has already been linked with severe cognitive decline. What you don’t use, you will lose.

NYC! 🏳️‍🌈Thursday at 4pm 🏳️‍🌈

Tell your friends. Even if the only florist you can find nearby is in the Kroger produce section. There is a person putting those arrangements together and they WILL work with you and you WILL get better results with a pro who’s given a free hand

a screenshot of two tumblr posts. the first: aralintheobsessive Jan 16 if you want butterflies, you need to live with caterpillars. iam not being metaphorical, i work in a garden center, stop buying plants 'to bring in the bees and butterflies and then immediately poisoning every caterpillar that dares to consume a single leaf you will not get butterflies if you kill all the things that turn into butterflies! what are you doing! (end of post) below it, a response from afroartinc: As a poet, I also want my viewers to take this rather beautiful allegory into account.

what are you doing!

Writing this story made me happy in a dark time.

I talked to half a dozen people who started queer bookstores in their communities, and what I heard gave me hope.

These aren't just bookstores — they're a lifeline for people who have no place else to go.

I was so honored that ABSOLUTE PLEASURE was included on this list, with a lovely review from @jennyhayes.bsky.social.

100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025 The idea of 100 Notable Small Press Books was born November 2024, after The New York Times’s annual 100 Notable Books list featured eighty-two books from the Big Five publishing houses (Pengu…

Amazing to see ABSOLUTE PLEASURE on lithub's 100 Notable Small Press Books list!!! @margotatwell.bsky.social

lithub.com/100-notable-...

And remember, the main thing the profit motive gets you is…

The shutdown is pushing federal workers to food banks—just as SNAP is set to expire "There's absolutely more need, but less food. It's bad."

“There’s absolutely more need, but less food. It’s bad.”

The shutdown is pushing federal workers to food banks, just as SNAP is set to expire.

It was fun talking to Jenn for the Turn the Page Podcast 🎃👻🦇💜💋

Thank you so much!

I will be back to get some! This is my only and favorite bookstore.

Highly recommend!

Mutual aid is resistance.

Build community, share joy, feed kids, save lives.

While thinking about the No Kings protests, I realized something. Trump isn't acting like a king. He's acting like a CEO. This isn't a monarchy, this is late stage capitalism. America is being treated as a business acquisition. He's stripping it for parts before dumping it like a fucking Toys R Us.

The eight books shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction are in a stack, with a note on top that reads "Prize winner announcement 10.21.25 9 am PDT." The books are North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher; Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins; The City in Glass by Nghi Vo; The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy; The West Passage by Jared Pechaček; Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera; Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston; and Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson.

On Tuesday, October 21st—Ursula's birthday—we'll announce the recipient of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! Join Theo Downes-Le Guin and guest host Ebon Moss-Bachrach on YouTube for a live announcement at 9 am PDT.

The announcement will happen here: www.youtube.com/@ursula.k.le...

Tens of millions of people have died from Covid.

Every country should have responded with record investments in public health infrastructure.

Instead the US government is putting us all at greater risk of more catastrophes by firing hundreds of top scientists whose job is to prevent outbreaks.

Hey, I know books are expensive and money is tight right now.

But if there's a brand new book you really wanna read — including my own Lessons in Magic and Disaster — you can help get the book into way more hands by requesting it from your local library!

It's easy! Check your library's website.

Tonight in Brooklyn, join me at Franklin Park for the World Transsexual Forum, where I'll be in conversation with two of the writers in the book and the delightful @jeannethornton.bsky.social and Anton Solominik.

Today, I'll be doing an event in Somerville, MA with @allshewrotebks.bsky.social and Full Body Cast will perform fan favorites from Rocky Horror. Then tomorrow, I'll be back in Brooklyn and talking with @jeannethornton.bsky.social and @magsvisaggio.com Mel King and Anton Solomonik. #rockyhorror

From the NPR Morning edition transcript, ABSOLUTE PLEASURE editor Margot Atwell talking about seeing Frank-N-Furter for the first time: "suddenly I realized the world was a lot bigger and a lot weirder than I had ever known... Rocky Horror was my first experience with queer joy on a screen."

From this morning on NPR Morning Edition, re ABSOLUTE PLEASURE (cc @margotatwell.bsky.social ) www.npr.org/2025/09/26/n...

Absolute Pleasure: Queer Perspectives on Rocky Horror — Margot Atwell

Details and ticket links here: absolutepleasurebook.com

The next stops on the ABSOLUTE PLEASURE Tour: Brooklyn, Providence, and Boston!

I could listen to that all day!

Me, a bearded white man, holding a copy of Absolute Pleasure

The title page to my essay "Who Lives in the Old Dark House?"

My contributor copies of ABSOLUTE PLEASURE arrived today from @margotatwell.bsky.social l and @feministpress.bsky.social ress - a dream come true!! Can't wait to read all these wonderful takes on one of my favorite movies

Absolute Pleasure: Queer Perspectives on Rocky Horror — Margot Atwell

I hope you'll check out ABSOLUTE PLEASURE and join us at an event if there's one nearby. The list so far is here, but more are in the works!

absolutepleasurebook.com

At a time when the world wants us to be quiet or to disappear, it is a brave act to raise our voices in protest or in song, to share our stories and have our out and proud lives be the kind of representation we could only have dreamed of when we were young.

It's pub day for ABSOLUTE PLEASURE! It's such a thrill to get to share this incredible collection of essays by 25 brilliant, funny, earnest, thoughtful, talented writers with the world.

#RockyHorror #RockyHorrorPictureShow

Launching a book: Absolute Pleasure The last time I launched a book with my name on the cover (Derby Life) was ten years ago. Since then, I’ve been involved in launching dozens of books (or...

I haven't sent On the Books in a minute, but here's one that talks about launching an anthology, with bonus content about how Gay Pride Month was a little bit more Queer Wrath Month for me this year. buttondown.com/onthebooks/a...

I am reading books by trans women tonight. And then I will write about them, and publish those thoughts.

They want us scared. They want to deplatform us. Fuck them, culture work still matters.