@spooktapes.bsky.social
Author of dark fiction. Shirley Jackson Award winner. Co-host of the Let The Cat In podcast. Also: father, insomniac, moth dust gatherer. he/him. spooktapes.net
J. Ashley-Smith holds up a copy of Kathe Koja's new novel Dark Matter.
Privileged AF to get my grubby mitts on an ARC of this near-future fever dream. Avail yourselves of a copy - and a pair of knee-high railroad spike boots - the split second it drops!
@kkoja.bsky.social @meerkatpress.bsky.social
meerkatpress.com/books/dark-m...
Fantastic thread, thank you! 🙏🏻 I loved “The Beautiful Thing You One Were” by @spooktapes.bsky.social in Bourbon Penn. I also have a FUBF “Bird’s Eye View of the Old City” (magpies again) upcoming in Drabblecast in a few months 🖤
www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/33/the...
Scene from Twin Peaks - The Return. An enormous black kettle spewing steam, and the numbers 4, 8, 5, 5 and 1.
This David Lynch episode of Sesame Street is the worst.
06.08.2025 05:21 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A five thousand year old megalith poses beside author J. Ashley-Smith (who is almost as old).
Separated at birth?
15.07.2025 10:45 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Spooky writer friends, if you have a project @australasianhorror.bsky.social mentorship program applications are open until the 17th! 👻
australasianhorror.com/mentorship-p...
I had a fantastic experience being mentored by @spooktapes.bsky.social in 2022 and blogged about it if you want more info:
Meant every one of them.
11.07.2025 14:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Undertow’s Best Weird Fiction of the Year is the gold standard anthology for strange stories - I’m so glad it’s back after what seemed a lifetime. Delighted and honoured The Beautiful Thing You Once Were made it into the list of notable stories, alongside some of my favourite authors of the genre.
11.07.2025 03:23 — 👍 22 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0A chapter, for sure. I stop noticing it after a para or two.
22.05.2025 00:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Mary Gaitskill quote: "I would sometimes get five rejection letters in my mailbox at once. The main thing editors would write was that the characters were too hapless, and it was all too depressing."
Life goals
19.05.2025 21:06 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Weird fiction people? Legends! 🖤
Thinking also about the writing advice I got from my amazing AHWA mentor @spooktapes.bsky.social back in 2022 to imagine your ideal reader (singular) when revising, and the effect you want the story to have on them, which I still find really helpful today
Ha ha, yup. Still writing for Cody. ❤️ (Thanks, Celia!)
15.05.2025 22:05 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Huge congrats!
06.05.2025 08:00 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0It was pretty close for me. (Didn't recognise that I would always put Libs bottom on principle, but otherwise all good.)
17.04.2025 07:13 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0It's now made of carcinogenic sugar alternatives, sawdust and my childhood tears.
16.04.2025 01:45 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
Check out the shortlist here: aurealisawards.org/2025/04/15/2...
And the story @bourbonpenn.bsky.social : www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/33/the...
3/3
It's the 30-year anniversary of the Awards, too, so doubly special to get a nod.
Congrats to all on the shortlist, especially the many good friends and colleagues! (I'll spare you all another round of multi-tagging – know that I love you all and think you're ace.) 2/3
Street mural of a magpie speaking with an old lady with green skin who may or may not be a witch (she has a pointy nose)
Delighted to learn my tragic, magic realist magpie love story – The Beautiful Thing You Once Were – has been shortlisted for an Aurealis Award. Some stories you just love irrationally, and this one broke my heart over and over as I wrote it... 1/3
Ping: @bourbonpenn.bsky.social
They’re fucking awful. What were we like as kids that that shit tasted like fucking ambrosia?
14.04.2025 07:58 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Editor: Love the book, Leo. It’s another masterpiece. But do you really need the 2nd epilogue?
Tolstoy: Stet. How else will my readers understand my book’s themes without an essay to explain them?
Editor: Ok. Let’s say we keep the 2nd epilogue… does it really need all 5 chapters?
Tolstoy: Stet.
So glad it arrived safe and sound!
02.04.2025 21:48 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
#womeninhorrormonth CALVARIA FELL by @CatSparx & @KaaronWarren blurred so many genre lines. And horror was one of them. Salute to these two talented authors!
https://smpl.is/8sbjz
#CatSparks #KaaronWarren #CliFi #WeirdFiction #DarkFantasy #Horror @Kaaron Warren @Cat Sparks
I can almost taste it.
13.03.2025 02:10 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Woman in black with silver hair, laughing her head off while holding a book and two small paper prints and a sticker and wooden bookmark
SKIN is a very intense book about love, art, pain and letting it all go, and if @lostmirror.bsky.social didn't make me laugh so hard this would have been a very serious portrait 💀 And @meerkatpress.bsky.social has the presales now plus incredible swag #queerhorror #industrial #art
12.03.2025 13:08 — 👍 49 🔁 13 💬 1 📌 3
My stuff from last year in case you're voting for awards and need a reminder of stuff!
12.03.2025 03:09 — 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0
Congratulations to Joel Dane's THE RAGPICKER, a Foreword Indies Finalist | Science Fiction. An amazing book and we are so happy to see it on this list!
https://smpl.is/a3lmo
#forewordindiesaward #JoelDane #DarkSciFi #Dystopian @Joel Dane
I don't, in a million years, think my novella will garner enough votes for a Hugo nom. I'm not deluded. But I do know it is a damn good book, & worthy of your time. And to paraphrase Bilbo: why shouldn't I, have a crack at the prize?
(Ballot closes March 14).
Congrats! And omg that cover!
10.03.2025 23:14 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Huge congrats to Seb Doubinsky's THE SUM OF ALL THINGS, a Foreword Indies Finalist | Fantasy. We love this book & are excited to see it on this list.
https://smpl.is/a3lhw
@SebDoubinsky.bsky.social #SebDoubinsky #ScienceFiction #forewordindiesfinalist
Thank you so much, Em. Appreciate the shout out.
02.03.2025 21:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less."
02.03.2025 00:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
