Chelsea Davis

'Under the Influence' reading at Et al. gallery in San Francisco on Thursday September 18th 2025 at 6pm

Hey! I'm reading in SF this Thursday!

Et al. Gallery at 6pm with @milesklee.bsky.social @spookymeatball.bsky.social @chelsead.bsky.social, Colin Winette and Lucy Corin

Very excited to share the official announcement of my first book 'The Veldt Institute'!

Official Double--Negative announcement here: www.instagram.com/p/DOIx9MGkWxg

Add it on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/24...

Order it on Asterism: asterismbooks.com/product/the-...

Subscribe - Bright Wall/Dark Room Subscribe for $29 a year Subscribe now to receive immediate access to each new essay we publish, plus our entire 135+ issue archive. Bright Wall/Dark Room is 100% independent, runs no ads, and strongl...

Real talk (reel talk?):

BWDR recently lost a partnership that covered nearly half our operating budget, so things are suddenly very tough. If what we do has ever meant something to you, or you’ve ever thought about subscribing, now’s the time—it *truly* makes a difference.

Annalee Newitz’ ‘Automatic Noodle’ – Queer robots in futuristic California “I love writing gay robots,” Annalee Newitz says. It’s clear the Lambda Literary Award-winning author and science journalist had a ball writing “Automatic Noodle” (Tor), their fourth queer sci-fi book...

It was a total delight to interview @annaleen.bsky.social about their new queer sci-fi novella, Automatic Noodle. You can read the interview online now, or in print this Thursday ✨

tinyurl.com/yc53d83u

Well, we tried to stop the portal, but it looks like it’s opening anyway. Oh well. We open for submissions at midnight. Ish.

Horror. Up to 6,000 words, including flash. Originals and reprints: you may submit one of each.

Don’t agonise over your cover letter. Just send us a brilliant story.

The Heart Is a Lonely Haunter | Los Angeles Review of Books Chelsea Davis hangs out with dead people in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “The Bewitching.”

I reviewed Silvia Moreno-Garcia's newest novel for the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. The Bewitching is a reflection on misanthropy, cross-cultural witch lore, and the pleasures of research.

lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

"But who needs sex when you’ve got books? Minerva’s emotional connection to the dead authors she studies is so hot-blooded it verges on the erotic." @chelsead.bsky.social reviews "The Bewitching." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-heart-is-a-lonely-haunter/

britishfantasysociety.org Best Audio • Podcastle • The Tiny Bookcase • Breaking the Glass Slipper • Pseudopod Jurors: Elizabeth Elliott, Marc Bitterli, Jo Ross-Barrett, Edward Partridge, Graham Millichap

Woo! Delighted to have been nominated by the BFS for Best Audio! 🎉

Congratulations to The Tiny Bookcase, Breaking the Glass Slipper and, of course, our friends in the Castle! @podcastle.org

Shrieks & Howls | Chelsea Davis | Substack Dissecting what makes you laugh & what makes you scream, two movies at a time. Click to read Shrieks & Howls, by Chelsea Davis, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

Subscribe or read the archives: tinyurl.com/mcmj4pfk

In the latest edition of my horror-comedy newsletter, Shrieks & Howls, I wrote about Bring Her Back and Bring It On. File under: mourning & melancholia, pirated copies, Nancy Kerrigan. Read here, & subscribe for free at the link in the comments to catch future installments.
tinyurl.com/5b8hs6r3

@celardolor.bsky.social @incastellated.bsky.social

Naomi Falk’s The Surrender of Man | The Brooklyn Rail An editor and art book designer who has worked in galleries and museums, Falk offers up her own existential and emotional bildung (education) as a case study in how artistic experience might help nonb...

For The Brooklyn Rail, I reviewed Naomi Falk’s mesmerizing memoir-in-art, The Surrender of Man.

brooklynrail.org/2025/06/art_...

ok so an important thing i really think people on bluesky need to hear about the anti-trans megabill

the tl;dr is that you could actually turn the tide of trans rights in america right now

but if you don’t act now, then we’re all cooked indefinitely

please read on

🧵

Tysm @chronicleflask.katday.com for your thoughtful host commentary!

So this story by @chelsead.bsky.social means a lot to me, and I am very proud of the narration for it.

I hope you like it too!

Thanks, Dani. Your narration for the piece is so moving!

PseudoPod 977: The Fruits Of They’d long since passed the point where road gave way to trail gave way to forest. Bright green ferns now rose to their knees. Around them, old-growth redwoods loomed forth. It had been like this for...

They’d long since passed the point where road gave way to trail gave way to forest.

The Fruits Of, by Chelsea Davis

Narrator: Dani Daly
Host: Kat Day
Audio: Chelsea Davis

pseudopod.org/2025/05/20/p...

C/W for dementia, suicidal ideation, death of a family member

Congratulations, Kat! We're so lucky to have you!

I love this piece because the dude is clearly completely satisfied with his hairline

a very ornate wooden door with a fancy handle Alt: An ornate wooden door which opens to reveal a character with a pumpkin head, who beckons a girl to join him.

The PseudoPod portal is open, you say?

Yes! But ONLY FOR stories that have been, or will be, published in anthologies or collections in this year of our lord* 2025.

Hold on to your previously unpublished work for now: that door's opening in the summer.

[*we'll leave you to decide who that is]

a neon glowing skull wearing a party hat blowing a party horn Alt: a neon glowing skull wearing a party hat blowing a party horn

Happiest of birthdays to our audio producer, @chelsead.bsky.social!

The new OpenAI creative writing bot's "short story" has the phrase "democracy of ghosts". It's the sort of phrase that would make me stop and admire it, if I were reading a human author - which, it turns out, I was, because it's from Nabokov's 1957 novel "Pnin".

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Airplanes! Sex! ‘Sky Daddy’ Takes Object Fetishization to New Heights | KQED A visit at SFO with Kate Folk, author of this year’s No. 1 book for those sexually attracted to planes.

In her new book ‘Sky Daddy,’ author Kate Folk explores uncharted territory: It's the gently empathetic fictional story of a Menlo Park tech worker who spends her free time at SFO — because she's sexually attracted to airplanes. The author chats with KQED:

Private Rites by Julia Armfield There’s a plodding pace to things in Private Rites, and by design.

Another week, another @strangehorizons.bsky.social issue, another Monday review.

Good one of an important book, too: @chelsead.bsky.social on Julia Armfield’s Private Rites.

This novel has already rightly occasioned much comment, and right before its US publication Chelsea has new things to add.

I reviewed @katefolk.bsky.social 's forthcoming novel, Sky Daddy. For the piece, I also spoke with Folk about the inspiration behind the novel, the banal miracle of air travel, and blackpilled desire.

One of my favorites by you

PseudoPod 921: Chickamauga One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of…

“One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved.”

Chickamauga, by Ambrose Bierce

Narrator: Brian Lieberman
Host and audio producer: @chelsead.bsky.social

This story first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, 1889

In my subplot, The Erogenous Zone, you & your co-players explore an abandoned (?) grindhouse movie studio. Thank you, Caitlin Russell, for the sensuous, softly glowing illustration.

I wrote a plot for this play-to-die horror RPG & it's finally available in meatspace! Enter The Zone, where your body is changing & it's not going to be ok :) :) thezonerpg.backerkit.com/hosted_preor...

🖤