Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 1d

Of course I'll recommend @eveninghouse.bsky.social, the fledgling bookstore my partner and I run, with our beautiful website and great selection of high-quality literature, focusing on small presses, books in translation and bangers new and old (which ship anywhere in the US:)
eveninghousebooks.com

Evening House Books

Buffalo's downtown bookstore, a parlor-style cove for deep cut indie literature and bold, diverse, voices.

eveninghousebooks.com

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Apex Magazine (is funding for 2026!) 🎉 @apexmag.bsky.social · 1d

WE'RE 30% FUNDED!! 🎉🎉🎉 Apex will be open to nonfiction pitches FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! ✨

Want to unlock the next chapter of Apex? Please consider backing our Kickstarter and help us keep publishing the strange, surreal, shocking, beautiful stories you love!

www.kickstarter.com/.../apexpu.....

30% UNLOCKED!

For the first time, Apex will open to nonfiction pitches. We are expanding our nonfiction editorial team! ZZ Claybourne has been our nonfiction editor for the past couple of years, and is doing a fantastic job. His editorial eye has elevated Apex’s nonfiction and has helped us discover many new voices. Rodney Carlstrom will be joining the Apex team as an associate nonfiction editor to help ZZ manage submitted nonfiction pitches.

cow floating in space with some astronauts next to the current Kickstarter number, "$6,000!"

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Horror Tree @horrortree.com · 6d

The Apex Magazine ( @apexmag.bsky.social ) 2026 Kickstarter is live! Help fund 4 issues of dark speculative fiction. Join the campaign and support the strange!
horrortree.com/apex-magazin...
#WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmReading

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Angela Liu @angelaliu.bsky.social · 6d

So happy to see my poem, “The Final Trick,” get an honorable mention in the Rhysling Awards! Thanks to everyone who read and voted! Eternally grateful to @ajodasso.bsky.social who gave this poem the perfect home at @strangehorizons.bsky.social.

Congrats to all the winners and nominees!

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Apex Magazine (is funding for 2026!) 🎉 @apexmag.bsky.social · 8d

HAPPY KICKSTARTER DAY!! 🎉🎉🎉

Kick(start) the first day of Spooky Month with us and come check out the cool stuff we've got planned for you!! 🎃✨

👽 www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...

two skeletons are shaking hands in a cemetery .

Alt: spooky scary skeletons silly symphony dance

media.tenor.com

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Electric Sheep @electricsheepsf.bsky.social · 9d

Our guest this week is Aimee Ogden! Excited to talk about several of Aimee’s short stories, as well as her fantastic new novelette, STARSTRUCK!

@aimeeogdenwrites.com @psychopomp.com

Starstruck, by Aimee Ogden | Psychopomp

a radish, a fox, and a boulder walk into the world... check out the cover for Aimee's amazing novella STARSTRUCK, and preorder your copy today.

psychopomp.com

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Daniel Miller @danielmiller.bsky.social · 8d

Crying screaming throwing up to be on this list with so many folks I admire! Good luck everyone!!

BRUISER @bruisermag.com · 8d

BRUISER vs. the deadline

Here are our best BRUISERS of the net nominees.

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 8d

thanks for giving my specialist and slime mold such a lovely home/incubator

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hex @hexliterary.bsky.social · 8d

Excited to see @spencerwriting.bsky.social's Sentient Slime Mold included among all this other great writing!

Vanessa Fogg @vanessafogg.bsky.social · 8d

My short fiction recs for July and Aug. Featuring work by @lchanwrites.bsky.social @clairejiawen.bsky.social @awprihandita.bsky.social @catvalente.bsky.social @spencerwriting.bsky.social @mcflycahill90.bsky.social @angelaliu.bsky.social Daniel Oluremi and--
itsajumble.blogspot.com/2025/09/shor...

Short fiction recs! July and August 2025

It’s the last day of September, and this round-up is way overdue. Some things I read and loved in July and August. Strange Tales o...

itsajumble.blogspot.com

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 8d

Ahh! What stellar company to be keeping. Thank you so much!!

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Vanessa Fogg @vanessafogg.bsky.social · 8d

My short fiction recs for July and Aug. Featuring work by @lchanwrites.bsky.social @clairejiawen.bsky.social @awprihandita.bsky.social @catvalente.bsky.social @spencerwriting.bsky.social @mcflycahill90.bsky.social @angelaliu.bsky.social Daniel Oluremi and--
itsajumble.blogspot.com/2025/09/shor...

Short fiction recs! July and August 2025

It’s the last day of September, and this round-up is way overdue. Some things I read and loved in July and August. Strange Tales o...

itsajumble.blogspot.com

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Undertow Publications 🇨🇦 @undertow.bsky.social · 9d

The following weird fictioneers will appear in Weird Horror 12 early next year. @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social @grayhaem.bsky.social @noirbettie.bsky.social @rajivmote.bsky.social @russellnichols.bsky.social @rlsummerling.bsky.social @breathinghead.bsky.social

Blue, cyan-tinged photo of hazy, fog-topped trees with white text: Chloe N. Clark
Roy Graham
Rick Kennett
Annika Barranti Klein
Aliya Whiteley
Rajiv Moté
Russell Nichols
Rory Say
R.L. Summerling
D. Matthew Urban

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 12d

This was such a nice message to start my weekend with. Thanks for reading and the high praise! Very much appreciated and super happy you enjoyed the story.

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 12d

image of bart simpsons and his dog saying "my own dog bit me!"

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 12d

this etymological shitpost is for not liking the changeling!!! (i kid i kid).

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 12d

Weird comes from the Proto-Indo-European root "wert" which means to "turn/bend". The PIE root of climate is "klei-" "to lean" (a zone's inclination toward the sun). In the Anthropocene, this postural stance no longer holds. Climate is bent by our actions. Ergo, weird fiction = cli-fi *runs away*

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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 12d

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION!!!
for literary awards, reviews, readership & general good vibes:
my 2025 books!

promo graphic for my books

text says:
"for your consideration in the categories of literary awards, reviews, readership & general good vibes:

up and coming underground artist and general societal burden John Chrostek's 2025 releases, offering never-before-seen literary adventures of the strange and sincere variety"

all in retro 70's font, then the covers of boxcutters and feast of the pale leviathan

boxcutters
malarkey books

for those adventurous souls who enjoy the variety of short stories, Boxcutters promises a diverse set of tales, spanning the shocking, sad, hilarious and odd.

find tales of cosmic horror, dystopic science fiction and mythic fantasy tied together with simpler tales of small town fight clubs, a possessed Richard Nixon and much more. Boxcutters is there to help cut through the boundaries and get you to the open air."

available at evening house books, asterism, malarkey books, Powell's, and at your local library and indie bookstore if you ask nicely

FEAST OF THE PALE LEVIATHAN
Deep Overstock Books

A man falls asleep on a river
raft tube and drifts out to sea,
where he is found & devoured
by a titan of unbelievable size.
But rather than death, what Owen
finds inside is a community of
fellow survivors carving out a life
amidst the flotsam and flesh
of the impossible Leviathan.

There seems to be no hope of escape
until a chain of events reveals to
the survivors that their damnable
fates are tied to a mysterious cult
that lives in deathless splendor
in the ivory halls of New Atlantis.

So begins a war between dimensions, culminating in the awakening of the Leviathan and its march to the shore...

available at evening house books, little ghost books, bookshop.org, powell's and at your local library & indie bookstore if you ask nicely

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Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 13d

If you liked Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, please feel free to let the world know. Please, specifically, let my enemies and childhood bullies know. Every rating and review and post will reach them somehow, I know it.

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 14d

behold!!! the sperm whale's mighty orphic return from it's bloody katabasis.

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 14d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 14d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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Charles (Cy) Payseur @cypayseur.bsky.social · 14d

Do you like queer speculative fiction? Do you want to help support my work highlighting, reviewing, writing, and discussing queer speculative fiction?

Because I'll be reorganizing my Patreon soon and it's a great time to become a patron!

www.patreon.com/c/quicksipre...

creating reviews, fiction, recommendations, & more!

www.patreon.com

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 15d

You were so right to be concerned, haha!! And omg thank you for reading and for the super kind words about this one.

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Spencer Nitkey @spencerwriting.bsky.social · 16d

Really, really excited about this piece of very small fiction out today w/ @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social. It's about high school wrestling, heart attacks, heaven, and close calls.

matchbook literary magazine @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social · 16d

"Gregor does not believe in an afterlife, though he has more proof than most that one exists."

New fiction: "Gregor, the Saint of Close Calls" by Spencer Nitkey aka @spencerwriting.bsky.social

www.matchbooklitmag.com/mb/nitkey/gr...

Gregor, the Saint of Close Calls | matchbook

www.matchbooklitmag.com

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Karlo Yeager Rodríguez @kjy1066.bsky.social · 16d

If you want to read more about the Concepción Sisters' latest case (as well as stories by @thelincoln.bsky.social and @meganflchee.bsky.social), please consider supporting this anthology!

Matthew David Goodwin @latinxfiles.bsky.social · 16d

Author Highlight #2!

"That Old Black Magic We Call Empire"

When local lucha legend El Josco loses big, Pura Concepción Domínguez is on the case! They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but what happens when your only friend is a dollar in your pocket?

@kjy1066.bsky.social

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matchbook literary magazine @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social · 16d

"Gregor does not believe in an afterlife, though he has more proof than most that one exists."

New fiction: "Gregor, the Saint of Close Calls" by Spencer Nitkey aka @spencerwriting.bsky.social

www.matchbooklitmag.com/mb/nitkey/gr...

Gregor, the Saint of Close Calls | matchbook

www.matchbooklitmag.com

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