Andrew Variously

Text reads: "Goalkeeper Craig Gordon, 43 next month, has his hands in his gloves in disbelief as the Hampden Park DJ hits play on Freed From Desire. This is not a dream."

I'm very happy for the Scots about getting to a football World Cup for the first time in nearly 30 years, but I don't think the BBC's reporting quite encapsulated the depth of feeling on the night

NOVELETTE AVAILABLE NOW A picture of the cover (Black silhouette of a house, trees, and fence over a red sky. Text: The House of Forgotten Things by Addison Smith" Arrows point to the cover, denoting "Generational Trauma, Haunted Cellar, Karma Ghosts, Twisted Tradition, Haunted House."

Releasing my horror novelette "The House of Forgotten Things" into the world today! In the spirit of "Fuck Amazon," the book is only available on my Payhip store, which provides information for downloading and transferring to your device!

Please share! 🥹

payhip.com/b/Dxa78

A blue card reading "Featured Programming" and "The Blue Pencil Cafe" leads three circular avatars of editors, Rebecca Bennett, Carl Engle-Laird, and Andrew Leon Hudson. A white TriCon logo is in the bottom right corner, and a yellow button reading "Sign-ups begin December 22nd" in the bottom left.

What kind of programming will you find at TriCon? All kinds of stuff, like the Blue Pencil Cafe!

Sign up for a 1-on-1 session with an editor! Spaces are limited, & sign-ups open December 22nd!

Featuring @englelaird.bsky.social, @mythaxis.bsky.social, and @heartlines-spec.com, with more to come!

Picture of Barcelona, taken from a wooded hill within the city with a clear, pale morning sky and the ocean horizon in the distance

Just finished the best book I'll read this year: "A Natural History of Empty Lots" by @christopherbrown.bsky.social – thanks for writing something so beautiful!

Pic (because why not? 🙂) is Barcelona as viewed from one of the wooded hills within the city, beside Parc Güell and just uphill from home.

Putting out my shingle for a limited number of customers for November! All proceeds go to getting me a new computer that can handle design better than my poor laptop. Please share, and if you are interested, drop me a DM!

Portal fantasy. But the portal is the door on the front of a cuckoo clock.

Science fiction. But the science is phrenology.

Body horror. But the body is the student body.

Think I'm going to grow my moustache party-long but keep it business-short online to maximise the admiration/horror when I'm encountered in person

Guess what? Delighted to welcome contributors new and returning, and delighted by their stories: serious, moving, sinister, and heartfelt. Also some great audio versions and other reading recs.

Thanks to all who've gotten involved!

Very much our pleasure 🙂

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🧭 Maps
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🦇 Winged cartographer

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YouTube video by Kevin Palmeri Tom Lehrer - An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (Full Album) (Public Domain)

Very sad today: RIP, Tom Lehrer.

I've been a fan for maybe 40 years. He was a favourite of my grandfather, and my mum introduced me to "An Evening Wasted with..." (and deftly dodged my confusion about the Oedipus Rex lyrics).

I'll poison a dove for you today, Mr. Lehrer 💔🕊️🥹

youtu.be/PYA-jgI1ryg

Ten (technically eleven) authors by whom I've read more than five books (who aren't on the same list as @addi.social 😉):

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Patrick O'Brian
Edith Pargeter (as Ellis Peters)
Colin Dexter
John Sandford
Ian Fleming
Kim Stanley Robinson
Stephen King
Enid Blyton
Frank Herbert

Photo of "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" by Joseph Wright 'of Derby', a beautiful oil painting of a scene that would get you well cancelled if you tried it these days.

Close up on a painting of a girl's face that looks like an AI botched it, from "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" by Joseph Wright 'of Derby'

I was at London's the National Gallery last week, and surprised to discover that Joseph Wright 'of Derby' was using Generative "AI" to do his paintings for him back in 1768.

Ah, people throw that word around too easily these days 😉😂 but thanks!

Okay, needed a little time to fan away the vapours, but I've got myself under control again. Congrats to all involved in Motives Unknown, either between the covers or behind the scenes!

The closing story is "Skeletons" by @bethrdb.bsky.social (excuse the fannish gush here 😊) and I thought it was just beautiful in every way - the characterisation, the narrative, the prose, all of it. And, as a final sentence with which to end this story, and book, you could not really ask for more

I can't speak for the Motives Unknown editors, but I can speak for myself as one: when I put together a collection, I try to give it a structure (even if it passes beneath the notice of everyone who reads it!)

All I can say about Motives Unknown is: they must have decided to save the best for last.

I was already proud to be included in this anthology, even more so now I've read it. Lots of stories to enjoy here - particular favourites for me include "What Gets Forgotten" by Joey McGarvey, "Algorrhythmia" by David Lawrie, and "Table 4" by Abby Walker, but everything had something

Motives Unknown: A Northern Crime Anthology - Dead Ink Books Welcome to the North. Sprawling cities. Lawless rural landscapes. A long and unforgiving history. Here is where the winds blow cold and the nights are long. An actor takes his preparation a little too...

Finally got myself back to Blighty and collected my copy(z) of MOTIVES UNKNOWN from @deadinkbooks.bsky.social - cue immediate reading binge, now completed

It's this, buy a copy:

deadinkbooks.com/product/moti...

🙂

As always, huge thanks to our latest group of contributors! Some very nice fiction, some very interesting analysis.

Also, my most grave apologies to Josh Pearce for having to tolerate ME providing the read of his story... 😉

Speaking not as editor but as, currently, @mythaxis.bsky.social's one-man slushteam, I welcome the prospect of a six month break from submissions. Still lots to do around the zine, though – but I might even finish a bit of writing myself as well 🙂

I once observed to someone when we first met that her attitude to having kids was the same as my attitude to having drinks, specifically that seven was enough. Still friends.

I love all our storychildren equally, of course...

Duncan Fallowell's April 1972 review of Nick Drake's Pink Moon (in Records and Recording magazine).

I will always love Parasite.

Guess we know which the 51st state is going to be then.

Fresh from Belfast Eastercon, it's submissions time!

mythaxis.co.uk/submissions....

We're hungry for sf/f/h with our eye on 2026, but especially for crime subs - slots to fill in our winter All-crime issue.

Photo(shopped) credit to @rickandwrite.bsky.social

Tfw you're a massive jits-wrestler/fantasy writer crammed into an aircraft rest room when you should be accepting your BSFA award