Speculative poet here so “form” is kind of how I frame it for myself but I’m also interested in this. For me narrative prose style, or poetic form, is also an extension of the cultures of the secondary world. Form and style are world building
Jump scare at seeing that byline
I wish a very happy “additional week delay on poetry submissions because all the editors are schmoozing in Baltimore” to all who celebrate
Now that I’m reading a famous fanfic-to-traditional-published novel, I’m super fascinated by the influence of fanfic on mass market fiction, especially the spread of romance plots/tropes/techniques to other genres. It’s a big evolution in audience tastes that I want to understand better.
I was thinking about the people insider betting on the Iran war, and I believe they are the most depraved evil fucking freaks ever. Consequence of a society that soothes the wealthy, stokes their resentful assurance that it’s nobody’s business how they get rich, but everyone must praise them. Filthy
My thing is that no matter what I write I never wink at the audience. I always take it incredibly seriously, put a lot of thought into the world building and poetic form, and believe every word the speaker says/sings. So if I’m going to write a flash-in-the-pan dance song, I’m going to go all in.
“What if the Wobblies parodied Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but again, in space” just narrowly broke out of ‘this is stupid’ containment and actually got published in a cool venue. “Haddaway in space” doesn’t have the juice yet
Most of the time the sci fi poetry prompts I give myself are really generative (“put Baudelaire in space to think about voyeurism and gender”), but this current one (“Haddaway or La Bouche, but in a microgravity disco”) is so far yielding results that are incredibly stupid
B2B wholesale sales manager (the cool Jewish socialist inventor one) and insurance salesman (the one who was racist)
One of my favorite parts of teaching business writing is “union week,” where we go over students’ rights as workers under the NLRA, and learn the basics of organizing conversations and workplace mapping. Some students are totally bewildered and some are totally fired up by it
Reading Alchemised but making rapidly shifting obscure facial expressions so people know I’m reading it as a cultural artifact and not out of support for Harry Potter fandom, J.K. Rowling or the book’s fraught sexual politics
Please do whatever you can for Odai, please tinyurl.com/odai-care
I grew up on this game, absolute treasure
I expect to return to my Behind the Poem substack essays this month, but two form tidbits for now:
1. I was really interested in long verse lines plus multi-part compound words.
2. The poem is secretly a knapsack!
I’m officially a weird fiction author! (Whether my writing is “weird” vs just weird is a bigger question). See my human-alien separation lament in @utopiascifi.bsky.social weird fiction special issue. So honored to be included!
www.utopiasciencefiction.com/product-page...
It's here! The Weird Science Fiction Issue. Visit our website to get yours today! #Weird #sciencefiction
www.utopiasciencefiction.com/product-page...
Hands off Iran, death to American imperialism, may our swords be bent to ploughs and the land freed to the dispossessed
I’ve got work in this!!! Get very excited to feel grief over extinct human-alien xenoathletics
Overjoyed and honored at the Rhysling nomination, and to @rhunedhel.bsky.social for first publishing the work!
alliteration.net/poetry/knot-...
I ate two sticks of celery after lunch and now I feel like Goku
We have to resist the death cult targeting trans people, not for dumb “first they came for…” reasons, but because trans people deserve not to be targeted by the death cult
The arm gesture for it is sick too
As of today, HORRIFIC SCRIBES has been publishing for a year! Birthday horror party! horrificscribblings.com
#shorthorrorstories #darkfiction #darkpoetry #transgressivefiction #callforsubmissions
My gut read on Mamdani is that he won’t be a model socialist mayor, but will instead by a broadly liked 4-5 term political machine that is more progressive than his predecessors but still betray labor and support cops
Life hack: aimless scrolling is cognitively equivalent to and just as enriching as completing a pressing task or pursuing a hobby you love
I’ve just read Radiance, Space Opera and a few short stories but she really blew my world wide open when I was first taking spec fiction seriously as something I wanted to write
I don’t want to grade, I want to write poetry!
Great thread. The only other thing I’d add is another purpose for speculative poetry: pointlessly elaborate world building in the service of Marxist political economy
Gotta say Alysa Liu winning gold with her anti authoritarian figure skating is an extremely welcome and unexpected vibe reset
Everything about it is awesome
One more go! If you are an SFWA member and can nominate for the Nebulas, or a WorldCon attendee who can nominate for the Hugos, please consider nominating my poems! See linked thread of eligible works!
