Alex

ICYMI, all you Ditmar voters.

Purple background, white text, which says Grimes's geography occupies ambiguous spaces, shifts out perspectives, and invites us to contemplate what, if anything, they mean. "Glass Geographies: Finding places and spaces in Ivy Grimes' Glass Stories" -- Ben Lockwood

Ben Lockwood's essay about the role of geography - and the ways in which place & space can be ambiguous - in Ivy Grimes' short stories has made me think hard about inside/outside, domestic, and wild, safe and not...

Read it now (for free!): www.speculativeinsight.com

Donate to Help Nisi Shawl write the book of her dream!, organized by Eileen Gunn Nisi Shawl, a wise and wonderful writer of science fiction and fantasy, had a… Eileen Gunn needs your support for Help Nisi Shawl write the book of her dream!

Nisi Shawl is one of my favorite writers, a queer elder & a BIPOC icon. I hate that the state of publishing is such that the book of their dreams would struggle to find a home, but I love that we as a community can come together to make it happen!! Give/boost as you're able? 🙏

gofund.me/3a52097a

And to you sir! Hope it’s as you would like it to be!

REVIEW: Freakier Friday (2025) Legacy sequels: they’re not just for science fiction and horror any more. One of the advantages of the physical media and streaming eras of cinema is that films made 20 or more years ago, whi…

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back in legacy sequel Freakier Friday, out in Australian cinemas today.

The original embroidery that became the book cover for the most recent Speculative Insight book arrived in the post today. And it’s glorious.

Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings Unsettling baroque image of a person in a white shirt, head obscured by birds and flowers Art by Lindsey Carr, design by Christine Foltzer, edited by Ellen Datlow

HONEYEATER, a haunted subtropical tale, comes out September 2025 PREORDERS open now from your favourite bookstore or:

USA: torpublishinggroup.com/honeyeater/?...
Australia: panmacmillan.com.au/9781761562303/

ICYMI, all you Ditmar voters.

Getting history teachers to suggest possible ways of implementing a new curriculum. It was very intense - they worked hard! I just told them what to do… and now I have to write it all up 😬

I ran my first workshop yesterday and it went really well. But most exciting was that the catered afternoon tea included possibly the best slightly-salted caramel slice I think I’ve ever eaten.

ICYMI

Escapist Routes #20 You take Eric Bana, you put him in a national park, THERE, DONE.

My newsletter is up! We were like, "We need a break from cop shows," and then we found out that Eric Bana was fighting crime in a national park. Again.

Repeal Job-Ready Graduates Policy Now: Restoring Equity in Higher Education - Online petition We sign this petition in solidarity with those who signed the Open Letter to the Prime Minister on 28 July 2025…

We are so close to reaching our target of 2500 signatures on this petition calling for the repeal of Job-Ready Graduates! If you care about equity in higher education and want the BA to be affordable and accessible for *all* students, please sign! www.openpetition.org/au/petition/...

For Reasons, I went looking for Paul Keating's website.

If you want to contact him, you can do one of two things: call a landline, or send him physical correspondence.

I admire that.

Brigands & Breadknives I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Tor Books, in exchange for a review. It’s out in November. I was a few months late to the Legends & Lattes party, but I don’t regr…

I got to read the new Travis Baldree novel; it's out in November. It's a sort-of sequel to his two previous books; this one follows Fern, the rattkin bookseller.

randomalex.net/2025/08/04/b...

Thanks! Doing some new things this week, we'll see how that goes! Hope yours is excellent.

Purple background, white text, which says Grimes challenges the comfort of places like the home, often bringing the unknown into the known, and space into place. "Glass Geographies: Finding places and spaces in Ivy Grimes' Glass Stories" -- Ben Lockwood

Ben Lockwood - @benlockwood.bsky.social - points out how complicated place & space can be as he examines Ivy Grimes' short story collection.

Differentiating place & space is something I only considered when I had to teach geog!

Read it now: www.speculativeinsight.com

Tag @ivygrimes.bsky.social

Purple background, white text, which says Combined, the narrative style and generic settings of short stories create unique geographic interactions within the text via reader interpretations. "Glass Geographies: Finding places and spaces in Ivy Grimes' Glass Stories" -- Ben Lockwood

New essay! In which Ben Lockwood (@benlockwood.bsky.social) made me stop and consider how place & space can work in short stories, in ways I previously hadn't appreciated (thru Ive Grimes' collection).

Read now! It's free! Tell your friends!
www.speculativeinsight.com

Tag @ivygrimes.bsky.social

Books Read: The Red Labryinth by Ben Peek He’s a mate. And a great writer. What are you gonna do about it!?

My review of this came out in the July issue of @locmag.bsky.social. Go read that if you want my detailed thoughts about this excellent novella. This review is about why I review my writer mates. open.substack.com/pub/ianmond/...

The cover of The Green Man's Holiday by Juliet E McKenna. Art by Ben Baldwin. The image shows an animal-like face with many sharp teeth peering out from a pile of stones. Foliage and white flowers surrounds the stones.

Coming your way in October, the new Green Man novel from Juliet E. McKenna.

Purple background, white text, which says Upon revisiting the pieces I found that Grimes is doing much more with the places and spaces her characters inhabit than I initially realised. "Glass Geographies: Finding places and spaces in Ivy Grimes' Glass Stories" -- Ben Lockwood

Ben Lockwood (@benlockwood.bsky.social)
brings a geographer's eye to Ive Grimes' 2024 short story collection in this new essay. He finds place & space doing intriguing things in the stories.

Read it now (for free!) and tell your friends - www.speculativeinsight.com

YouTube video by forget me not - Topic Peace (Live)

Youtube link to that EP for those who don't do Spotify. For all those who enjoy acoustic music, good songwriting, and a lot of feelings

youtu.be/iKFw6NC1QL4?...

ICYMI!

Aurealis Awards 2025 – Changes implemented this year We live in an ever-evolving world, and this year the Aurealis Awards have some changes occuring to help us stay abreast of things and able to continue to deliver Australia’s premier speculati…

Changes afoot for the #AurealisAwards: aurealisawards.org/2025/08/01/a...

REVIEW: The Last Command (1955) ‘Remember the Alamo,’ goes the popular phrase, and it seems as if Hollywood has been determined for well over a century to ensure that nobody does. This 13-day siege, a pivotal event of…

32 westerns from 1955 and counting - it was inevitable that, sooner or later, one of them would include the Battle of the Alamo. Let's take a look at Frank Lloyd's The Last Command.

fictionmachine.com/2025/07/31/r...

I did! This weekend is for reading and making lasagne! Hope yours also has good things.

I’m cognisant of the recent flurry of posts regarding Substack and Nazis. I have no plans of leaving Substack. That’s my choice. It’s your choice, which I respect, not to access my reviews on Substack.

Most of my reviews—those I don’t write for Locus—will be available on Goodreads. Most. Not all.

🎉✨ NEW ISSUE OUT!! 🎉✨

☀️ Fafnir's issue 1/2025 welcomes midsummer with a blazing selection of cutting-edge speculative fiction research, essays, book reviews, and a prefatory by Marek Oziewicz.

Check out the full issue for free here!: fafnir.journal.fi

Happy reading!

Issue #72 This is the July 2025 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.

Issue #72 of Salon Futura is now online, featuring books by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Emily Hauser; an Archipelacon 2 report; and the Murderbot TV series
www.salonfutura.net/...

OMG does that mean I get to sleep now?