Lauren Bajek

that IS a fun fact!

I definitely agree that genre content is common in literary mags, but I have never read a poem in a genre mag that I felt would have made sense at a literary mag. Just a very different sense of what a poem is. But maybe I'm under-read!

I really disagree here, actually! I have a (literary/performance) poetry background and I feel that what's "good" poetry to SFF mags is usually quite different from what's "good" to litfic mags.

17. If you spend enough time learning about best practices for dog training, you will look at your own work habits and say "what the fuck am I training myself to do?"

REQUIRED, even

one like, one writing opinion (void while prohibited, while supplies last).

If you are unwilling to risk being wrong, you will write boring fiction. Certainty does not permit vulnerability.

HISS

Oh they're incredible. Their Gotye cover had me actually crying.

What's interesting to me is that as solo artists, I'd listen to Aaliyah for sure, Donzell maybe, not sure about the other two. But in the group I think Cameron really steals the show. He just makes such interesting choices!

I am SALIVATING for the SZN4 album though. I feel like when they start thinking strategically about creating a whole arc, it's going to be out of this world. Can't wait to hear their songwriting too.

I'm a SZN4 fan through and through BUT I also like 3quency a lot and I think they earned it. They were very strategic and they showed themselves as a well-rounded band-- I felt like SZN4 tried to blow the doors off with every single song and it got a little boring.

OH I WANT TO TALK

also, if you have for-pay content on itch: the best time to get your itch payout was yesterday, but the second best time is _right now_.

3. Somebody should ask me about the role of religion in North Continent Ribbon sometime.

deleting your number

I have never been so close to blocking @therotund.bsky.social as when they said that if it's under 80, it's too cold

Delete everything you possibly can without the piece becoming gibberish, down to each individual article and preposition. Look at the bones and decide what you want to add.

I just got caught flat footed on an urgent request need: YA romantic contemporaries where the kids don't end up together, but mostly just bc the timing was wrong, or somehting not bc of infidelity (as in Why We Broke Up)

(To clarify, I don't think any of the above is BAD-- I don't think IRL queer "assimilation" is bad either-- I just think it's limited, as you say.)

omg yes. I love reality TV so this is exactly the flavor of shame that feeds me

I love weird and culty. I resent Kevin Wilson slightly because I was a bookseller when Nothing to See Here was EVERYWHERE, but I should get over it 😂

okay this looks AMAZING, but can I have a back-up that will be more gentle on my tender sensibilities? Please girlie may I have some more, etc

Right-- like it's deeply assimilationist and not very introspective about that fact! I share your preference-- what interests me is rules and roles and what people do when they chafe against what they're "supposed" to do and be.

Oh I want to play! I loved The Scarlet Letter (big fiddly sentences, dread) & Ellison's Invisible Man (super on-the-nose but never shallow). Currently enjoying Burrowes's Lord Julian series and loved Fellman's The Two Doctors Górski.

The Gardener Have I lived enough? Have I loved enough? Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions? Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace? I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it. Actually, I probably think too much. Then I step out into the garden, where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man, is tending his children, the roses. Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings, p. 7 © 2012 by NW Orchard, LLC First published by Penguin Press 2012

#PoetryBreak

Remember, ladles and jellyspoons--

The rules are made up and the points don't matter. Buffoons and brutes shape the vast majority of possibilities for us all.

What are you doing, doubting that you are enough, when you could be living the fullness of your "enough" right now?

#Poetry

YES-- I feel like a lot of "queernorm" settings are... settings where nobody is queer within the terms or the setting. And that feels very depressing and flat. I'm much more interested when DIFFERENT stuff is considered boundary-crossing/queer in-world.

North Continent Ribbon book cover on the left; Dr. Ursula Whitcher author photo on the right.

Dr. Ursula Whitcher's "North Continent Ribbon" was nominated for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. We spoke to the Ann Arbor author and mathematician about her debut book of sci-fi tales.
pulp.aadl.org/node/644386

@yarntheory.bsky.social @neonhemlock.bsky.social @ursulakleguin.com

👀

Updates Been a little while since the last update, but we've been busy. I want to say, before I launch into the bullet-point update, that if you've registered for ConCurrent but have not received a...

New updates! Some important ones regarding con safety inside and out. Specifically, we'll have a quiet space for folks to unwind during or between panels. Also, ConCurrent is a private event. We and the ACT can and will deny access to people at our discretion.

concurrentseattle.weebly.com/updates

My university has announced a fund to essentially poach doctoral students from US institutions. DM me if you do work on the history/social impacts of AI and are interested in being poached 😂