So Mayer

honestly, hiring erin was worth every cent and more. it's such a relief to know everything i put on paper was true (and she caught lots of the inevitable mistakes that pile up over tens of thousands of words)!

Nobody who should fuck off actually fucks off anymore. We're stuck with all these fucking people.

Headline: Immigration and asylum Mahmood faces calls for compassion and clarity over hardline asylum policies Home secretary urged to explain statement that asylum admissions will start at ‘a few hundred’ people

Headline: Deeply shocking’: Nigel Farage faces fresh claims of racism and antisemitism at school Nigel Farage Nigel Farage Photograph: Tom Pilston/The Guardian Bafta-winning director among contemporaries urging contrition and apology from Reform UK leader, who denies the allegations

If anyone was looking for evidence the Guardian has capitulated to far-right politics becoming mainstream, this must be it:

Farage being asked for "contrition" for the millionth time and Mahmood being asked for "clarity" for ideas that should be beyond the pale in democracy

TIL: boundary work

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundar...

Maggie Helwig Podcast Episode · What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books · 11/17/2025 · 26m

"I'm afraid the award has really been completely overshadowed. The eviction of the encampment was such a trauma." - Maggie Helwig on winning the City of Toronto Book Award less than 24 hours before the city cleared the encampment she writes about in the book.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m...

*Annette!

Anne Weber's Epic Annetre (English translation by Tess Lewis).

L is for Lankum in my #folkhorroralphabet and this linocut illustration takes inspiration from the haunting video for ‘Go Dig My Grave’.

matpringleillustration.bigcartel.com/product/folk...

A good reminder that much thinking around "useful skills" and "worthwhile knowledge" is rooted in whiteness & colonialism.

The animals are getting ready to bring some order back to the world.

"Every tool is a weapon — if you hold it right."
—Ani DiFranco

Not to brag (this is me bragging) but we got an advance copy of @chanda.blacksky.app 's upcoming book so I'll be busy the rest of the week.

We were like, "But the markings on the basalt look human-made, they're so regular and even." Ten minutes later: horizontal rain. 💡

A rainbow arcs down to the right, appearing to touch ground on a red sandstone beach beneath a green, flat/topped cliff. The sea is brisk with whitecaps in the bay and in the foreground are the black basalt boulders for which Giants Causeway is famous.

The weathered hexagonal basalt columns of Giants Causeway, maybe 80 foot (2 houses) high, with brown heather cliffs beyond them.

Two laughing people stand braced on a slope of red sandstone by a basalt outcropping. They are both wearing big coats. A big fluffy cloud passes behind them over the sea.

Yeah so Giant's Causeway actually is all that. Literally found the end of the rainbow, as well as the location for the final scene of MAEVE (Pat Murphy & John Davies, 1981) (Not pictured bc it was hailing by the time we worked it out.)

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny by Mark Seliger 1997 🖤

The Cloudflare outage has taken out chatGPT. Maybe AI did become sentient and decided the internet was horrible and it would rather just live in a data center in the woods away from all of this.

#Booksky We’re doing our first ever ebook set and it’s up for preorder now! Get a great deal on the entire Astreiant Series for some great gay fantasy reading to end the year! Releases 12/15 and preorders are up at our site, Smashwords and beyond - queenofswordspress.com/product/comp...

A rainbow arcs down to the right, appearing to touch ground on a red sandstone beach beneath a green, flat/topped cliff. The sea is brisk with whitecaps in the bay and in the foreground are the black basalt boulders for which Giants Causeway is famous.

The weathered hexagonal basalt columns of Giants Causeway, maybe 80 foot (2 houses) high, with brown heather cliffs beyond them.

Two laughing people stand braced on a slope of red sandstone by a basalt outcropping. They are both wearing big coats. A big fluffy cloud passes behind them over the sea.

Yeah so Giant's Causeway actually is all that. Literally found the end of the rainbow, as well as the location for the final scene of MAEVE (Pat Murphy & John Davies, 1981) (Not pictured bc it was hailing by the time we worked it out.)

Hahaha, I shall try to remain upright & not disgrace myself with swooning. Looking forward to it so much!

Housmans Poetry Series: Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain launches ‘Grief is a Thing in Pleather’ Join us for another poetry evening, this time in collaboration with our great friends Osmosis Press, launching a new collection, ‘Grief is a Thing in Pleather’, from Prudence Bussey-Chamberlai…

Described by @suchmayer.bsky.social as containing ‘life after life after life […] with all the sardonic seriousness, [and] the deadpan profound, that characterises Bussey-Chamberlain’s work’ - this launch is not to be missed!

housmans.com/event/housma...

Methodology

It's the anniversary of Section 28's demise. By me: "Section 28 was largely a creation of the right-wing press, and many of the people, publications and proprietors who contributed to the anti-gay panic back then are at the forefront of the anti-trans panic today."

On the night of October 22-23 1957, the poet John Wieners composed a long poem on a single 10ft continuous scroll of teletype paper. Now Face Press have released it in a gorgeous new publication containing not just a transcription but a full scale facsimile!

puzzled looking pink tiger cartoon

#globalmajority #LGBTQ+ #Poets send us your poems of #queer #resistance by 26Nov Everyone else - make sure your global majority queer poet friends know, and if you can, contribute to our Crowdfund by 2Dec please-thankyou links via QRcodes on the tiger picture
pls share w/ anyone suitable

WE HAVE NEWS. We've been shocked go discover that the UK's biggest book.cjaon is moving in mere steps from our front door. Waterstones, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh shop less than 100 metres from Argonaut Books at the Foot of the Walk in Leith. We know that our community is what makes it possible for us to do what we do here at Argonaut and we're going to need your help. Please share this post with everyone you know, read.on for more info about what we're going to do and what happens next.

Ways you can help. Please share this post with friends ans followers. Yoi have supported us through the end of the lock down, a rocky outlook for the retail industry and two years of relentless disruptive roadworks.

Argonaut Books needs your help 📣

Waterstones are set to open a store less than 100m from the indie bookshop's front door.

Full info on @argonautbooks.bsky.social's Insta: www.instagram.com/p/DRMULI1jCI...

Get your tickets to After Section 28: LGBTQIA+ Rights in an Age of Censorship and Backlash - a day of learning and action on 6th February 2026 👇🏾
mailchi.mp/94450cee9bbe...

8/8🧵

🐒 Join EYE OF THE MONKEY author Krisztina Tóth in conversation with @lucyjpop.bsky.social 🐒

Thursday 29 January 2026
🕓 6:30pm GMT
📍 Waterstones Islington, London

Tickets are available to purchase here: www.waterstones.com/events/eye-o...

Best books of 2025: Crime and Thrillers Barry Forshaw and Adam LeBor select their must-read titles

Super chuffed that The Good Liar is one of the FT’s best books of 2025 www.ft.com/content/6b46...

Comic strip showing a stand-up comedian under the title "The Ones Who Bomb In Omegas" He is saying "Hooboy, I should not have brought up the child. This is a tough room, but not the worst room in the city. Am I right?"

The anti-asylum proposals being set out by the Home Secretary reinforce the dehumanisation of individuals coming to the UK to seek safety and set the UK on a course for even more inhumanity. We know from the existing 20-year-route how it put people's lives on hold and prevents them from settling. It leaves people in precarious positions and at more risk of exploitation. It denies them the ability to be able to rebuild their lives after suffering unimaginable horrors, as well as leaving them in fear that at any moment they may be ripped away from their family and friends once again. We need an asylum system which treats those coming for safety with dignity and respect. A system which processes their applications faster and more effectively. A system which allows them the right to work so that they can integrate and support themselves. What the Home Secretary proposes is one which treats them with contempt and hostility.

We must stop the hostility towards, and demonisation of, people just trying to seek safety. Our statement on just some of the Home Secretary's proposed changes to the asylum system

YouTube video by Atelier Oncléo James Baldwin — I'm writing for people, baby (Meeting the man)

Your regular reminder to spend some time just watching James Baldwin talk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjGz...