David Bamford

Blur > Oasis

Forever

Stay mad about it

Byeee

‘I’ll never fall in line’, said Sum 41, penning a radio-playable pop-punk single.

‘…become another victim of your conformity’, they continued, ensuring their commercial success for the next 20 years.

Front cover for Darkest Margins: 24 essays on liminality and liminal spaces in the horror genre. In hues of crimson and deeper blacks, a nondescript Doorway opens onto an abyss void of black.

Back cover for Darkest Margins. Hues of crimson and black form an ominous forest.

#DarkestMargins features 24 essays on liminality and liminal spaces in the horror genre

COMING SOON!

Got my first rejection from a publisher today. Taking (and agreeing with) the feedback given, and applying it to future projects. Next!

A dark red background, on which black text reads SPIDERS.

The Phobia Files - SPIDERS is live! Alive, and skittering across your eyeballs…

davidbamford.me/2025/07/31/S...

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

The Wicker Basket Man

#MildHorror

The Blair Witch Crochet Project

#MildHorror

I'm Politely Interested in What you Did Last Summer

#MildHorror

Fair 🤣🤣🤣👏🏼

JK Rowling. Writer of Harry Potter. Transphobe. Billionaire. TERF. Horrible woman.

4/4
And so many more. Fantasy, sci-fi and horror are SO rich with brilliant authors. Please don’t give JKR your money.

3/?
BINTI by @nnedi.bsky.social
BLACK LEOPARD RED WOLF by Marlon James
UNDER THE PENDULUM SUN by @ngjeannette.bsky.social
THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS by @aliettedebodard.com
GIDEON THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir
A MASTER OF DJINN by @pdjeliclark.bsky.social

2/?
LEGENDS & LATTES by @travisbaldree.bsky.social
MADE THINGS by @aptshadow.bsky.social
NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo
LOCKE AND KEY by @joe-hill.bsky.social
ABARAT by Clive Barker
DRAGON’S GREEN by Scarlett Thomas
DRAGONFALL by @lrlam.bsky.social
THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD by T L HUCHU

Apparently it’s JK R*wling’s birthday today, so here are some alternatives to read: 1/?

THE BOOKS OF EARTHSEA by Ursula LeGuin
UN LUN DUN by China Miéville
ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY by @charliejane.bsky.social
SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi
A MARKET OF DREAMS AND DESTINY by @trip.bsky.social

26) Now more than ever we need queer horror, trans horror, horror that speaks to the pain of the moment. It is cold comfort to write odes to the victims of concentration camps to forget how little we did while they died.

I miss Code Orange. And I hate that Reba Meyers has chosen to join M*rilyn M*nson’s live band - given his treatment of women it doesn’t give good optics. Aaaaanyway - doesn’t look like Code Orange are coming off hiatus anytime soon, but they were pretty great.

I didn’t cry but it was close. The Wake sequence in the graphic novel had me BAWLING though.

*MINOR SANDMAN SPOILERS*

Finished S2 of THE SANDMAN last night (I know, I know, sorry) and while I won’t say they fucked up the ending, they could have done something incredible with the whole Wake sequence and they just… didn’t.

Look, I know it’s popular to hate U2, and I’m no great fan of them myself, but you’ve got to admit that With Or Without You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and Where The Streets Have No Name are near-perfect songs.

I love this

Thank you! 🤩

Oh this sounds PHENOMENAL 👏🏼

Thank you!

Been sat on this for almost a year but can finally reveal that my essay ‘The Room You Must Not Enter’, making the case against queerness as a force for evil in DAHMER and AHS: HOTEL, will feature in DARKEST MARGINS, the debut release from 1428 Publishing, curated/edited by @bavalamp.bsky.social ! 🥳

“banning pornography” is bad on its own but it is imperative that everyone understand that these people consider the very existence of queer people to be pornographic

they consider the most chaste depiction of a queer relationship, or an openly trans person, to be porn and they want it banned

Woken up to the realisation that no, what happened last night was not some horrible dream, and yes, I have roughly outlined an entire book of critical essays about horror movies.

Welp.

@octothorpecast.bsky.social Would the potential Best Translated Work Hugo give impetus to Other Countries (eg - Poland, The Netherlands, Spain etc) to want to run a Worldcon? Because at present it feels very much like USA/Canada OR Ireland/Scandinavian countries and basically no one else.

I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now you're selling it!

If you didn't know this was about genetically engineered dinos, it could easily be a rant about AI.

Black and white still from the video game LIMBO. A small child stands, facing to the right of the screen, on a platform over some water and a slight drop. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, a HUGE spider is crawling towards him from behind.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR ATTACHED PHOTO - SPIDER

Ready for more from #ThePhobiaFiles?

Something is coming…

31.07

What are you afraid of?