Lisa M. Bradley

The cover of THE LOST DREAMER, featuring the head and shoulders of a teenaged girl surrounded by stylized flora in shades of black, purple, blue, and pink

A photo of author Lizz Huerta

Day 14 of #LatineHeritageMonth: THE LOST DREAMER, Mexi-Rican author Lizz Huerta's (@lizzhuerta.bsky.social) ferocious YA fantasy debut. When a shift in patriarchal power threatens a sisterhood's traditions, Saya must separate truth from lies, exploitation from power, and maybe set the world aflame

A jigsaw puzzle image of an adobe home, set against soft-peaked mountains in the Phoenix desert, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The sky is a cloudless blue, the mountains a darker blue, and the earth surrounding the home is brown and black with cactus and small bushes. The house looks both futuristic and timeless.

Last night I completed this puzzle based on Kim Smith’s rendition of the Norman Lykes house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I picked it up in the gift shop when we visited Taliesin a couple of weeks ago. I love that it looks like an abandoned spaceship.

Poster on a school linoleum floor. Black background, shovel and garden fork around which are growing colorful vines with beans and flowers. Other veggies and plants, too. Words by Mariame Kaba: Transformative change happens when we are willing to build the things we know must exist.

New art for my classroom arrived! From @ollycostello.bsky.social & words by @prisonculture.bsky.social.

I hope every book-related milestone gives you joy!

US anti-fascism expert blocked from flying to Spain at airport Rutgers University professor who published book on antifa was informed at boarding gate that his trip was cancelled A Rutgers University professor who taught a course on anti-fascism was blocked from leaving the US for Spain on Wednesday night, according to media reports, hours after Donald Trump hosted a White House roundtable highlighting the impact of antifa – or “anti-fascist” – far-left activists. Mark Bray, an historian who published the 2017 book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, and has taught courses on anti-fascism at the New Jersey university, was attempting to board a plane at Newark airport bound for Europe when he was informed at the boarding gate that the reservations for him and his family had been cancelled. Continue reading...

US anti-fascism expert blocked from flying to Spain at airport

Waiting on a delivery I have to sign for. Posting in the hopes that it’ll arrive because I’m complaining about it.

IT'S COMING! They're coming. The monkeys! At halloweeeeeeeen

‘The Toxic Avenger’ & Undue Medical Debt Cleared $15 Million in Real-Life Medical Debt Together! Before Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger released in theaters back in August, the Cineverse marketing team came up with a wonderful idea. They took the remainder of their marketing budget for the film a...

A quest to eliminate $5 million has tripled, thanks to the generosity and passion of THE TOXIC AVENGER fans across the country.

Together, you didn’t just meet that goal, you crushed it, helping wipe out over $15 million dollars in medical debt for 10,000+ people!

There is no right thing to say to something like that, so kudos to you for at least being funny in a deeply un-funny situation. I hope you get an MRI sooner than it's now scheduled. And I hope any pain is being addressed.

Feeling kind of crummy after yesterday’s double vaccination, so of course my cat decides to be a hellion as I try to nap.

beestung is hoping to raise just $136 more to keep us going for another year 🖤💛

That’s awful. I’m so sorry.

Black People in the US Were Enslaved Well into the 1960s More than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, there were black people in the Deep South who had no idea they were free. These people were forced to work, violently tortured, and raped.

fyi:

american southern slavery, not just in the 1860s, but in the 1960s; too many of our fellow citizens absolutely refuse to ever see us as anything but property and an inconvenience -

African Americans Were Enslaved Well into the 1960s share.google/Y1rAeI0fZPYf...

A roof covered in heavy snow with the text "to be read" over it and a tiny portion of it cleaned off snow with the text "books read this year."

How is your reading plan going this year? Because this picture sums up mine quite accurately... And it just keep snowing new books ;)

The funniest thing about this is that even after the crowd dispersed and it could go about its business, the robot bin REMAINED ANGRY.

This is how the uprising starts.

Update: within hours of this post, the Daily Memphian printed Dan Conaway's article. They claimed he quit the newspaper (which he helped to found!) after they asked for "edits." Gimme a break. I spoke to Dan, and he's been cheered by your support. He's considering starting his own newsletter/blog.

The Hancock Building about to throw a hotdog at an unwelcome visitor.

I love Chicago. You can’t tame it, you can’t contain it, you can’t ever get it to be a single thing. It is everything. It will break your heart. It has mine.

Triscuit’s nailed the cozy vibe.

Help Rodney Taylor, a Disabled Double Amputee Being Held by ICE Rodney has been in the country more than 40 years. He's in solitary confinement in Georgia, being denied disability accommodations and having his medical needs ignored. He must be released.

Rodney Taylor still needs our help!

He’s still locked in an ICE camp.

He’s still going without his new prosthetic legs.

He’s still facing deportation to Liberia.

He’s still having necessary disability accommodations ignored.

Please keep sharing his story. Public pressure works!

This is incredible, Effie! It’s too beautiful to eat!

"Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city – then your state, then your region, then your country." My father was explaining to me when I was 11 or 12 why he went to war when he didn't have to. He was driving me to Boy Scout camp, and we had some time to talk. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was an engineer, and his company had government contracts that could keep him here. At almost 33, he was also getting long in the tooth for war. My mother would also have me tell you he also had two small children, my brothers, one eight months, and the other five. He joined the Navy a week after Pearl Harbor. "Those are the priorities in the order of priority," he continued. "But if your country is threatened, really threatened, everything flips. If your country, this country, falls, everything in that lineup falls, everything in that lineup is at mortal risk." "So, I'll know when it's country first?" "You'll know," he answered. Last week, I shared the mayor's plan for peacefully enduring, if not gaining, from the National Guard presence in our city. That was last week. This week changed everything. This week, the president called an extraordinary meeting. He and the secretary of defense addressed a room of some 800 generals and admirals called from their command posts around the world to hear the president's words in Virginia. He told our country's top brass their attention would soon be turned inward. That they would be commanding military operations in our cities against the "enemy within." Further, he said that they should hold military training exercises in our cities. Never mind what Secretary Hegseth told them. His message was as empty as his suit. He basically told them they had to shave and lose weight. The Commander in Chief told them their enemies are Americans, and that their field of battle would be Democratic cities. The great power and might of America's military would be turned toward its own.

Toward here, people. Not here in general terms, here in very specific terms. Memphis is an official battlefield. "Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city ..." As the rest of the world rages, the president told his top military leaders that we will disengage from the protection of our interests and those of our allies and attack the political enemies of our president, root out the "radical left," crush "the woke," seal our borders against mighty Venezuela, and reduce blue cities and states to whimpering vassals of the federal government. The president who would be king. Before this week, he commanded the justice department to intimidate and threaten, even indite, his political enemies including a former director of the FBI, and DA's in Georgia and New York. A president can't do that. Not just because it's blatantly personal and political. Not just because it's abuse of power, petty, and childish. Because most if not all of what he's doing is straight-up, in-your-face, unconstitutional. It is, in fact, just the latest additions to the long list of unconstitutional that defines the dangerous actions of this man. You know this is wrong. No what-about this or that. You know this is wrong. No bemoaning the awful state of something or somewhere. You know this is wrong. Nothing excuses this. Nothing. Now, he has openly told the military that anyone in America that challenges him is the enemy, and where they live the new front. The National Guard deployed here will be unarmed and have no power to arrest. They are a camo-covered smokescreen, eye candy for the cameras disguising what will really be going on, click bait for the internet. We now know that Trump and his minions are sending hundreds of ICE agents and FBI agents to Memphis, not to mention a small army of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators. The mission is to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate/deport as many people as possible.

Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General, was here this week to tell us that, along with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and Stephen Miller, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff. Not to mention, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, looking very much like he was waiting to be told wat to do, bless his heart. Here, ready to rumble. Who wasn't here or invited was Steve Cohen, the duly elected Democratic representative in Congress of all the people who will be in that rumble. Republicans should be every bit as alarmed as Democrats – every American should – because every time Trump stomps on the Constitution, he leaves that boot print on every one of us. Or, as the very first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, famously put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Due process and habeas corpus are becoming quaint reminders of a once proud nation of constitutional laws and justice. What happened in that room in Virginia this week, and what happened out at Shelby Farms give us more than a hint of what could follow the National Guard to Memphis. "So, I'll know when it's country first?" "You'll know," he answered.

One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he's made the Oval Office look like a bad imitation of royal chambers at Versailles, just as surely as he's made the majority of both house of Congress look like lackeys waiting to empty the king's chamber pot, just as surely as he's turning the Constitution into a Mara-a-Lago doormat, just as surely, he's coming for us. You're right, Dad. I know. I'm a Memphian, soon under siege. (Lt. Frank E. Conaway Sr., 1943)

Memphis writer Dan Conaway, who helped found the @dailymemphian.bsky.social & comes from a century of local journalism, has just been censored by his own publication.

Here’s the column they wouldn't run.

Please consider writing:
barnes@dailymemphian.com
mcashiola@dailymemphian.com

Stand with Dan.

What a lot to be dealing with. I hope you have some restorative moments in nature to help you through these difficult transitions.

I’m so happy for you! This is excellent news.

What a lucky group! The loaf looks amazing.

This is great information! Thank you for the impromptu TED talk.

Thanks for broadening the scope of my understanding. I feel kind of foolish for not having realized before. But this might be a very useful framework for understanding myself, not only as the *parent* of someone who’s neurodivergent but as neurodivergent myself.

I just learned that, by some definitions, bipolar is considered a form of neurodivergence. Something I'll have to think about...

After some intense massage my shoulder is better today and I think I achieved a personal best in my workout. Now I’m working on a collage for the prompt “shadow”.

Thank you for writing detailed alt text.

photo of 16 books by black authors spread across the yellow blanket on our bed in a 4 x 4 grid of books — wizard of the crow by ngūgī wa thiong'o; unshod, cackling, and naked by tamika thompson; shigidi and the brass head of obalufon by wole talibi; none but the righteous by chantal james; the ballad of perilous graves by alex jennings; rosewater by tade thompson; out there screaming (horror anthology) edited by jordan peele; my life in the bush of ghosts by amos tutuola; skin folk by nalo hopkinson; black leopard, red wolf by marlon james; dhalgren by samuel r. delany; the ballad of black tom by victor lavalle; nigerians in space by deji bryce olukotun; how long 'til black future month? by n.k. jemisin; black sci-fi short stories (gothic fantasy) edited by tia ross; and everfair by nisi shawl.

16 various titles for October, Black Speculative Fiction Month

#BlackSpeculativeFictionMonth —