Helen Marshall

Christmas is coming and I'm officially on leave! Taking a break from socials to enjoy the season.
But one last book post before I go: if you're looking for some dark fantasy reading over the holidays, try a story with teeth!

Just finished "When There Are Wolves Again" by E. J. Swift and I'm still thinking about it. Fierce, gorgeous climate fiction that somehow manages to be genuinely hopeful—not in a naive way, but in a way that feels earned and necessary. This is the kind of story we need right now.

World Fantasy Con 2015, Saratoga Springs, Kelly Link, me, and Helen Marshall. @manuscriptgal.bsky.social reposted this today and it is a gleeful thing. @kellylink.bsky.social A DECADE AGO.

Davey: “What’s that rattling sound in my ear? Is it my adult teeth?”

Amazing!

YouTube video by Arkham Horror Book Club Interview with Helen Marshall

I was looking up some old horror business and stumbled across this fun interview I did with @manuscriptgal.bsky.social a decade ago!

youtu.be/WMdYdLF5w8E?...

FUTURES & FORESIGHT SCIENCE Call for Papers - Creative Futures: Imagination-Based Methodologies FUTURES & FORESIGHT SCIENCE is a methods journal publishing advances on the applications & uses of particular methods in future studies, scenario planning & more.

📢 Call for Papers: Creative Futures
We want to reimagine futures thinking with creative methodologies as rigorous frameworks for anticipating change! Papers due September 2026!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

#FuturesStudies #Foresight

In honour of getting the chance to attend World Fantasy in Brighton, I’ve been reading up on my fellow authors. There are some brilliant resonances between the work of Amal El-Mohtar and my own. #StoriesAboutStories #LyricalProse

Just received Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Caroline Bicks in the mail! Really looking forward to diving into this one. I had my own experience researching King's archive, which I wrote about here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Spotted at the Brisbane Writers Festival! #bwf #nounderstanding

Like Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita? The Lady, The Tiger, and the Girl Who Loved Death weaves together magic, political spectacle, and the power of storytelling in a world where reality and illusion blur dangerously together. Out from @titanbooks.bsky.social now!

#DarkFantasy #CircusBooks

Dark Imaginings - Brisbane Powerhouse Fairytales and historical myths are often readers’ first encounter with the darkness of human nature. Explore more at Brisbane Writers Festival.

Catch me Thursday at the Brisbane Writers Festival for “Dark Imaginings”!

Fairytales and historical myths are often readers’ first encounter with the darkness of human nature. In these stunning novels, fable and archetype are reworked in dazzling ways.

brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/dark-...

#BWF

ICYMI: We're hiring a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in #CreativeWriting at UQ!
-looking for literary fiction, poetry, graphic novels, comics, digital storytelling, new media, or games!
-international applications welcome
Apply: uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/jo... #HigherEd #AcademicJobs

Fire as cleansing, fire as transformation. The Bulgarian fire festivals—where dancers walk barefoot across burning coals—shaped how I imagined ritual and renewal in THE LADY, THE TIGER, AND THE GIRL WHO LOVED DEATH.

#Fantasy #Folklore #Inspiration #AmWriting

Life is just one tiny fright after another, isn't it?

"Why can't AI just do my research?" Because creative research isn't information retrieval. I'm working on a new academic article showing how research methods produce the distinctive textures of literary prose, looking at Octavia Butler, William Gibson, Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Weir.

Thinking about Octavia Butler's #writingadvice in Furor Scribendi today: "Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don't have it, it doesn't matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent."

While writing The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death, I found myself captivated by haunting photographs of abandoned circuses across Eastern Europe. #WritingInspiration #DarkFantasy #EasternEurope #Circus #AuthorLife #FantasyFiction #WritingProcess

ICYMI: We're hiring a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in #CreativeWriting at UQ!
-looking for literary fiction, poetry, graphic novels, comics, digital storytelling, new media, or games!
-international applications welcome

Apply: uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/jo...
#HigherEd #AcademicJobs

HUGE news! We're hiring in Creative Writing at UQ!

Looking for an amazing writer working in literary fiction, poetry, graphic novels, comics, digital storytelling, new media, or games! International applications welcome.

This is going to be AWESOME

uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/jo...

“Toward the end of a book, the state of composition feels like a complex, chemically altered state that will go away if I don’t give it what it needs. And what it needs is to write all the time.” I feel that, William Gibson — is this universal among writers?

Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War inspired my writing by revealing the erased stories of women in conflict. A masterpiece. #TheUnwomanlyFaceOfWar #Alexievich #WritingInspiration #UntoldStories (The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death is out now from @titanbooks.bsky.social !)

The cover of The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death is bright, with many colours and the three titular characters represented in a modern almost pop art style

A beautifully written Slavic fantasy featuring the circus and a tiger from @titanbooks.bsky.social. The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death by Helen Marshall #BFSReview britishfantasysociety.org/review/the-l...

Romanian bear dancers inspired the haunting folklore in my novel THE LADY, THE TIGER AND THE GIRL WHO LOVED DEATH--ancient rituals of rebirth and demons bleeding from bear skins.

Now out from @titanbooks.bsky.social (edited by the brilliant @cathtrechman.bsky.social) #DarkFantasy #FolkHorror

Tech companies are stealing our books, music and films for AI. It’s brazen theft and must be stopped | Anna Funder and Julia Powles If we don’t refuse and resist, not just our culture but our democracy will be irrevocably diminished

Brilliant Guardian piece on how Big Tech is systematically stealing books, music & films to train AI without consent or payment. This isn't innovation. It's digital colonialism threatening our entire creative ecosystem.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Featuring The Death of Stalin, The Prestige, La Strada and Moulin Rouge!

These are some of my favorite films and if you love them too, my novel is absolutely made for you! THE LADY, THE TIGER AND THE GIRL WHO LOVED DEATH has all the magic, drama, and political edge you crave🔥

Out from @titanbooks.bsky.social (and thanks to @cathtrechman.bsky.social for the fab edits!)

The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death by Helen Marshall: Review by Ian Mond The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death, Helen Marshall (Titan 978-1-80336-951-8, $18.99, 368pp, tp) June 2025. I’m a big fan of Helen Marshall’s fiction, both short and long, including he…

ICYMI! Amazing review from Locus: “I rate Marshall...as one of the best fantasists working in the field....At its core, THE LADY, THE TIGER AND THE GIRL WHO LOVED DEATH is a story about stories.” @mondyboy74.bsky.social reviews @titanbooks.bsky.social

locusmag.com/2025/08/the-...

Peggie saw a thylacine as a child. She wouldn't ever want to 'go back and see it' Even after a long life, Peggie Bassett can still remember the guttural growl and striking scent of the last known thylacine as it prowled its concrete enclosure.

Thinking about wildness today and why it matters to us. 🐅

94-year-old Peggie remembers the last thylacine's cries at Hobart Zoo—a loneliness that still haunts her decades later. "We didn't realise it was the last one until it was too late."

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Best birthday ever! 🎂 Friends, Blood on the Clocktower, and live sketching by the talented @tanaudel.bsky.social . Special shoutout to the masterpiece of Leah reading her character notes while tiny Spiderman creeps around. We all survived the night! #BirthdayGames #BloodOnTheClockTower

Words include "Chatgtp", "showcasing" "underscore" "excels" "grappling" "aligning". But not, or not yet, "clench" or "futtock".

Samuel Hume's graph: words that indicate a document is more likely to be written by AI
.