Sam Derby

Spot on. This is happening in every industry - misunderstandings from one being inappropriately transferred across to another. In education where I work we have firms now selling AI branded products which were described as machine learning 10 years ago and adaptive learning 20+ years ago.

Here it is - #82 of NOT ONE OF US ft my story "Exstasis," plus @asakiyume.bsky.social, @jordanrhirsch.bsky.social, @gwynnega.bsky.social, @writerjencrow.bsky.social, Gretchen Tessmer, Rachel Cordasco, David Closs & Ed Ahern. legacyliteraryservices.com/not-one-of-us

Ah, that looks amazing, can’t wait to see it and read all the contributions!

Latest Issue Table of Contents Not One of Us #82 Published April 2025 Theme: After the End “Our latest issue looks at what happens after the end. We have a stalker trapped as still life, a man outside himself, soft tears of regr…

Looking forward to getting my hands on #82 of NOT ONE OF US ft my story "Exstasis," plus @asakiyume.bsky.social, @jordanrhirsch.bsky.social, @gwynnega.bsky.social, @writerjencrow.bsky.social, Gretchen Tessmer, Rachel Cordasco, David Closs & Ed Ahern. legacyliteraryservices.com/not-one-of-u...

A good start to the writing year. My story “If on a lonesome road a traveller’ will be broadcast Thursday 2nd Jan on BBC Upload - on BBC local radio in Oxford, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire and Solent - at 6-8pm on 95.2FM, on Digital, BBC Sounds and
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... #writingcommunity

A blazing wood fire in an old English pub in Oxford.

By the blazing fire some of our best stories are told. #oxford #writingcommunity

A luminous jellyfish suspended in a clear glass vial

A luminous octopus-like creature suspended in a clear glass vial.

A futuristic spaceship-like building at night on a city street.

At the Museum of the Future in Dubai, an imaginary DNA archive.

A street in Frankfurt lit by a supermoon through a cloudy sky.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.

(Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Oh to be able to generate this kind of atmosphere in a story.

Show me a picture in your phone that has your energy; not a selfie.

This is incredible, thank you!

I've made two starter packs with speculative fiction publications - magazines and podcasts - on Bluesky. I hope they make it easier for people to find & follow a whole bunch of great spec-fic venues. I'll keep adding as I go.

Starter pack 1: go.bsky.app/4FbEmZU

Starter pack 2: go.bsky.app/ASWSvfZ

Flash Roundup * August 2024 A gathering of recent speculative flash & micro fiction, each presenting a tiny-yet-powerful universe. How tiny? About one-thousand words for flash; four-hundred words for micro. The word count isn’t ...

My August Speculative Flash Roundup!

@nightmare-magazine.com
@naturefutures.bsky.social
@flashfictiononline.bsky.social
@apexmag.bsky.social
@molotovlitzine.bsky.social
100-Foot Crow
@fracturedlit.bsky.social
@apparitionlit.com
@smallwondersmag.com
@translunartl.bsky.social
@havenspec.bsky.social

Great summary of a story I am really proud of - check it out along with the other stories below.

#writingcommunity

So excited to see this edition of @innerworlds.bsky.social published and to see my story Of Death in Battle in such good company. Looking forward to reading every story - do check it out including the subscription option.

The woman who sold time - and the man who tried to stop her The story of the woman who sold the time to businesses - and the man who tried to thwart her.

This is such a great story. It’s late in the evening as I post this and I can’t say I am sure if it’s brilliant sci fi or actually true. Time distribution company, London, 1908. The woman who sold time - and the man who tried to stop her www.bbc.com/news/article...

Really delighted that my short story 'Of Death in Battle' will be published shortly by the excellent @innerworlds.bsky.social magazine. Inspired partly by Old English poetry, partly by D&D nostalgia, partly by Time Team...

Photo by Sara Gacic on Unsplash

Great looking writing event in Oxford this August featuring George RR Martin in conversation with Philip Pullman courtesy of Oxford Writers’ House. www.oxfordwritershouse.com/events #writingcommunity

Fantômes Fantômes is a collaborative ghost story zine, bringing together story-telling, poetry, folklore, illustration and photography in small cobbled-together publication.

I was really delighted to get a story in the beautifully illustrated and typeset fantomeszine.com. "Susannah" is a ghost-POV story and looked great on the printed page.

This story, The Hunting of the Masu'wa, is a (fond) pastiche of the M. R. James style of ghost story. Longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award 2019 it was then published in Ghosts and Scholars, the M. R. James newsletter, issue 41.

Gardening/horror is a wrongly-overlooked subgenre. Change my mind.

thequietreader.com/magazine/blo...

Five Per Cent - Coffin Bell sam derby     “We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”  HP Lovecraft   “This is the voice of Dr Andrew Kneal…

The rather brilliant and brilliantly-named Coffin Bell Journal published this story, Five Per Cent, a few years ago. coffinbell.com/five-per-cent/

Combining polar isolation, experimental physics and the infrasound theory of ghosts.

The excellent Oxford Writing Circle published this story, Rook, in its anthology Departures and Arrivals. www.waterstones.com/book/departu...

Oxford is a city with a highly transient population and this was my attempt at capturing some of that.

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

The story 'Follower' is a very creepy riff on a common horror theme, the pursuer who won't be shaken off. Published on Horla.

Photo: Taofeek Obafemi-Babatunde on Unsplash

A rare, pure ghost story for me; though I love reading them I rarely write them. Dead End was highly commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize 2019 and then published on the now defunct Horla.

Why do we wander, where can we turn?
Under the moon where the dark flames burn.
Why do we wander, who shows the way?
Come to the wood on the eve of May.

"Sold" - a folk-horror tale, of a sacrifice made in return for, well, give it a read: published in Schlock webzine or via my website.

A favourite of mine: The Librarian. Placed 3rd at the 2019 ChipLitFest short story competition judged by Nicholas Royle, it's a weird fiction tale of books left unopened.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič – @specialdaddy on Unsplash

Two travellers on a lonely road - this story, Hurry Up Please, It's Time, was published by Horla in 2020. Horla has now folded as far as I can make out. The image was sourced by Horla from Flickr flic.kr/p/29Jtu3v.

There's something about a dark road on a dark landscape that gives me liminal feels.

The Wrathful Sky - a five-act short story that captures the alienation of the long-distance traveller - was published by Storgy in 2019; rights have now reverted to me so get in touch...
Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash

The first short story I had published once returning to writing in 2018. Annunciation, in the printed anthology Oxford’s Haunted by Oxford Writing Circle. The news brought by angels is not always welcome.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
www.amazon.co.uk/Oxfords-Haun...