Daniel Ausema

roses are red
chocolate is nice
read books, punch nazis
moreover, destroy I.C.E.

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it.

I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”

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The People of the Moth Plateau Fantasy writer Daniel Ausema's page of Lyrical Worlds filled with Strange Wonder

"Young Riders but make it Weird"... Here are some of the characters you'll find in the Moth Plateau. I have my favorites. Any jump out as piquing your curiosity? www.danielausema.com/2026/02/the-...

It feels a bit old-school to put background info posts on my old blog, but I'm going to dip back into that blog era with a few posts about the world and series of the Moth Plateau.

Starting with, Welcome to the Moth Plateau: www.danielausema.com/2026/02/welc...

The Grammys. The Olympics. The Super Bowl. The message is that the world loves diversity. Don’t let the billionaires tell you otherwise.

Amazon link: www.amazon.com/Riding-Moth-...

and Universal links: books2read.com/u/3L7rEX

Cover art for Riding the Moth Plateau, featuring a public domain image of a moth, caterpillars, and a plant in a 19th century natural history book style

bothered by others. When another agent dies on the upper plateau, reportedly of natural causes, he is sent to retrieve the body. But the upper plateau is a land of recluses and secrets, and Drusk questions more with each interaction whether he--or anyone--is safe in that land.

And the cover:

Today is my birthday!

And also release day for Riding the Moth Plateau. What better pairing?

The blurb: Rugged prairie wanderer and cattle agent, Drusk wants to be left alone to do his job. Head down, his pet hawks circling to clear the air of moths, he can take care of himself and not be...

It's a steampunky, space-travel-by-zeppelin story that alternates between the instructions/information for passengers on a luxury airship and the story of those who discover its derelict.

I always enjoy this kind of two-layered story telling, and Marie uses it to tell a creepy and yet fun story.

From this week's short fiction readings, I really enjoyed @swantower.bsky.social 's "The Final Voyage of the Ouranos" in Sunday Morning Transport:
www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/the-final-...

Thanks, Deborah! I just recorded my self reading that poem for Jake the other day, too, so there’ll be audio up at Merganser eventually as well

And then to go straight from this track into the opening of Lux—sublime

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Fascism wants you to believe that you are alone. That you are isolated. That the feelings you have are yours and nobody else has them because everybody is too afraid to speak.

But love is stronger than fascism. Community is stronger than fascism.

Communion There's no bread. The bakers have gone into hiding. The seats at the table are empty. The Twelve are out marching with the thousands. The streets are filled with a new song. Only Judas sits at Target Plaza, counting his silver, while Pontius Pilate issues a carefully-worded statement. Meanwhile, the centurions have quotas to fill. But out on the streets there's a Communion. Jesus takes the city in his hands and says, "This is my body, broken for you." Rob Hardy February 2, 2026

Making the rounds this week among Christian progressives: new poem by Rob Hardy, poet laureate, Northfield, MN. Yes, the protests and all the work being done to throw sand in the gears and provide aid to those at home and being released from Whipple are a kind of liturgy — “work of the people.” ⚓️

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes (Paul Simon)

honorable mention to “Life is a Lemon (and I Want My Money Back)” by Meatloaf. That cassette was soundtrack to my high school years, and the song itself wasn’t my favorite, but the title is great. (Several others on there are 6+ words long and better)

Moth Plateau Fantasy writer Daniel Ausema's page of Lyrical Worlds filled with Strange Wonder

I have a new series launching very soon. I'll be saying plenty more about it in the coming days and weeks, with the first novella release in just one week, but for now check out the landing page for this weird western series, the Moth Plateau: www.danielausema.com/p/moth-plate...

Most came from the Netherlands around 1890s to 1910s, mostly economic reasons, with a strain of wanting a more extreme version of Calvinism than the state church allowed. One family came for the dry American Southwest air, hoping to cure their TB

The cover for Small Wonders issue 32, February 2026. The predominant colors are white, pink, black and gray. The central artwork is an eerie black and white picture of a bird on a bare branch. Authors: R.J. Aurand, Mari Ness, Suzanne J. Willis, Lucy Eller, Marisca Pichette, Marie Vibbert, M.J. Pettit, Diana Olney, Aimee Ogden. Cover photo by Deborah L. Beauchamp. Edited by Cislyn Smith and Stephen Granade.

February is almost here, and that means a new issue of Small Wonders! Subscribe now and get this whole issue in your inbox! Our cover art this month is by Deborah Beauchamp - find more of her work here:
dlbeauchamp.myportfo...

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took at university.

Modern poetry for the ordinary reader
Spanish linguistics
Free play: improv for inspiration
Writing for the mass media
Latin American cinema

each named and individual, and so the narrator has to bargain with each wind as she asks its assistance. It has shades of Elric summoning the aid of elemental powers (not derivatively).

Add in the pirate vibes and the daughter-father dynamics of her past, and it's a really fun, well told story.

With that intro, I really enjoyed @amulderwrites.bsky.social 's "Rewilding the Many-Tethered Winds" in Kaleidotrope: kaleidotrope.net/winter-2026/... The central image of winds as a not-entirely-renewable resource gives it a strong and clever base, but I especially liked that the winds are...

subscription) because I like to support that accessibility. So far I've been reading SH, BCS, Uncanny, Lightspeed, FFO, and some others, usually one per market before I circle back around to read another. But I don't anticipate anything systematic about that. Hoping to be surprised by many zines.

...but I'm not going to be able to maintain that level of reading, reviewing, analyzing. Still, I'd like to at least share an occasional story that stands out for me. So, I think I might use this thread to do so.

Most of what I read will likely be freely available online (even if I have a

I've been trying to increase my current short fiction reading recently, so I'm not left with only reading others' reccs at the end of the year. I used to review short stories for various sites as well as share reccs on my blog.

I'm always in awe of the people who review short fic on social media,

I have a series of novellas coming out over the next few months. The Moth Plateau is a Weird Western/fantasy/steampunk series set in a rugged land where people go to escape their pasts. The wealthy factory owners are always looking for ways to tame even a place like this www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHLLNBGY

I love when my translators have questions. The splendid Mikael Cabon in France needs to know if a river in Written on the Dark flows into the sea or into another river: his word choice will be different.

When translators are careful it is a gift to an author AND a reminder to protect them from AI.

Five jobs I’ve had:

- Christmas tree trimmer (wielding machetes!)
- Research library assistant (wielding knowledge?)
- High ropes course lead facilitator (wielding…ropes)
- K-8 Spanish teacher (wielding stories)
- Writer (wielding words)

My first association with that word is that it feels like a Le Guinian usage. Was she first to use it? I'm not well-versed enough to say so with any confidence, but it wouldn't surprise me

All of this is fucking senseless. Minnesota did not have an immigration problem. Trump sent his Nazi thugs here because he's racist against Somali people and to own libs like Tim Walz. Now two Minnesotans are dead and Minneapolis is on the verge of going up in flames. None. Of. This. Was. Necessary.