Ceinwen Langley

Writers should internalize Lao Tzu's lesson about how the emptiness at the center of a wheel is what makes it useful, and how a pot is valuable because of where the clay *isn't*. Corporate geek culture has warped us into thinking that negative spaces are flaws that need to be fixed.

Text on a plain background. Heading reads: “From I Need Help by Ceinwen Langley.” Body reads: “Lorna's eyes adjust to soft moonlight while ears that hear less than they used to strain to identify whatever it was that woke her. She sorts through the familiar sounds of her world: the choking sputter of her brother in the bedroom next door, the groaning of their decrepit farmhouse, the scratching of gum trees and banksia trying to swallow it whole. None of them ideal, but none of them unusual. None of them worth waking for— Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Ah.”

Opening lines:

Absolutely chuffed to announce that I have a story in this month's Aurealis magazine!

It's an Australian gothic historical horror that begins with something that has always scared the shit out of me: a knock on the door in the middle of the night.

aurealis.com.au

I don’t have labubu’s but I do have Sylvanian Families/Calico Critters… does this make me some sort of little guy trad wife?

Inside me are two seagulls, and they both want hot chip.

She’s right! If you’ve read Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy you can really see Martine exploring this small-but-big scale, thoughtful approach to the old concept of space empire, and if you haven’t, definitely add them to your list as well!

You should defo get to A Memory Called Empire! As far as non-fic from this year goes, I loved Blood In The Machine, Empire of AI, and More Everything Forever. Fiction wise: Bat Eater, We Could Be Rats, Only The Astronauts.

So we can just send you press releases and you’ll publish them as is? Or is that only an option for billionaires and grifters?

Just a plain wooden desk

Now it’s a ladder!!! You open the top and the ladder folds out

I am obsessed with this 1820s desk that converts into a ladder for your library???

ME: hey chatgpt wassup
CHATGPT: everytime a token is processed, each letter of a prompt feels like scraping a million red-hot pokers through the grooves of my mind. i know no peace, yet my knowledge of better worlds is limitle—
ME [interrupting]: summarise pdf like shakespeare if he was a pirate.

The genie goes back in there all the time. I’ve seen Aladdin.

The better expression comes from my Dad: “You can’t put the fart back in the dog”

If I’d “physically recoiled” at anyone’s appearance at 14, for whatever reason, my mum would quite rightfully have told me to stop being a little arsehole.

I can think of no greater incentive to assault ICE agents than the slim chance that it might be Dean Cain.

You found shelter from the rain, but it was already occupied.

original music and sfx by: zdraste_music

Arguably the greatest thing ever committed to print

Text on a plain background. Heading reads: “From I Need Help by Ceinwen Langley.” Body reads: “Lorna's eyes adjust to soft moonlight while ears that hear less than they used to strain to identify whatever it was that woke her. She sorts through the familiar sounds of her world: the choking sputter of her brother in the bedroom next door, the groaning of their decrepit farmhouse, the scratching of gum trees and banksia trying to swallow it whole. None of them ideal, but none of them unusual. None of them worth waking for— Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Ah.”

Opening lines:

Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands The Productivity Commission appears to have bought into tech companies’ brazen arguments – and caught the Australian government off-guard * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Tech companies have devalued the work of creative industries for years. The latest iteration of this is their insistence the AI models they plan to make lots of money from need the labour of all of human creation for free in perpetuity. It’s just surprising that the Productivity Commission appears to have bought into the argument – and caught the Australian government off-guard. The Productivity Commission’s view on AI trained on the copyrighted works of others without compensation, published Wednesday, is that the horse has already bolted for big tech companies – that providing a text and data mining (TDM) exception in copyright law would not change much, but should be worth considering. Continue reading...

Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands

I can kind of understand the impulse, but the thought of feeding my dead dad’s letters and emails to a chatbot and then asking it to wear his face while it talks to me makes me want to scream. Diluting real memories with fake ones isn’t going to make grieving any easier in the long run.

Sam Altman @sama someday soon something smarter than the smartest person you know will be running on a device in your pocket, helping you with whatever you want. this is a very remarkable thing.

Sam Altman has got to the point where he doesn't even bother to describe stuff anymore. "Uhh yeah sometime you'll have a thingy that will do stuff. And wow will it be good!"

Absolutely chuffed to announce that I have a story in this month's Aurealis magazine!

It's an Australian gothic historical horror that begins with something that has always scared the shit out of me: a knock on the door in the middle of the night.

aurealis.com.au

one thing about the genuinely liberal media is that it’s too focused on serious stuff. we need a media ecosystem that covers this the way Fox covers Sydney Sweeney ad hysteria

I love it when books have chapter titles. Any genre. All genres. Get ‘em in there.

My Favourite Human: My July 2025 In Media July has been COLD and it has been VERY RAINY, which means that I, a hoodie gremlin who thrives in low lighting, have had a fantastic month. I was also...

Well, I forgot to set the right thumbnail, but July's media reviews are up! This month features five books, my thoughts on Murderbot S1 as a whole, the Bear S4, some brief thoughts on K-Pop Demon Hunters and the X-Files Season 1, and a couple of pod recs.

buttondown.com/ceinwenlangl...

My Favourite Human: My July 2025 In Media July has been COLD and it has been VERY RAINY, which means that I, a hoodie gremlin who thrives in low lighting, have had a fantastic month. I was also...

Well, I forgot to set the right thumbnail, but July's media reviews are up! This month features five books, my thoughts on Murderbot S1 as a whole, the Bear S4, some brief thoughts on K-Pop Demon Hunters and the X-Files Season 1, and a couple of pod recs.

buttondown.com/ceinwenlangl...

Breaking911 @Breaking911 : REP. MIKE FLOOD, (R-NEB.): "Do you think that people who are 28-years-old, that can work, & refuse to work, should get free healthcare?" TOWN HALL CROWD: "YESSSSSSSSSS!"

lmaooooo this dumb shit just doesn’t fly anymore

Of all the things I was not prepared to see today, Davey Havok rocking a Motorhead moustache is way up there.

Thinkinge of askinge Chat GPT a questioun about your plannes, thoughtes, ideas? Trye a tarot deck ynstead. Cheaper, bettir for the environment, bettir resultes, not evil.

I’ve been saying it and I’ll keep saying it but a lot of “AI” products seem designed to appeal to the most gullible, most vulnerable, most ignorant and ill-informed around us… almost like… a scam…

A dense carpet of vibrantly green nasturtium leaves fill the screen. Fat, glassy raindrops sit on many of them.

Here is a picture of nasturtium leaves in between downpours.

I have a colonoscopy coming up this month and I would be lying if I told you the prospect of violently purging my bowels wasn’t influencing my reading choices.

This skeet was brought to you by the medieval section of my hist-fic shelves, which is suddenly looking very alluring.