I've been longing for some kind of "Spec Fic Critical Roundup" for a while. Here's a stab at starting one:

600,000 children & their families, famished & traumatized, displaced multiple times by 4 months of military assault in the Gaza open-air prison, are now ammassed in Rafah. The risk of a massacre of unparalleled scale looms on the horizon. #CEASEFIRE_NOW unicef.org/press-releases…

Reminder that for most Indian women, not travelling and staying at home also exposes one to sexual violence at some stage of one's life. This isn't defamation, it's the Union government's National Family Health Survey data.

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS is a finalist for the Lammy Awards in the LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction category. I'm grateful for this unexpected and difficult joy. As a Lammy nominee—so very strange!—I have three painful things to say. I'll try to keep it short. vajra.me/2024/03/27/the…

2024's Best Related Work Hugo list is quite the thing, not least for featuring m'learned friend Niall Harrison. Poignant, too, that Maureen Kincaid Speller has been nominated posthumously for what Aisha and I refer to in the book as "decades of truth-seeking". Quite the thing.

A lot of feelings about this, but mostly just: I miss Maureen; reading this collection reminded me of how much.

I tweet a lot about Strange Horizons and the small part I play there. I sincerely think it an important magazine that does essential, valuable work. Words matter, imagining others matters, doing this responsibly matters. It also needs funds. If you can spare some, please do. 💫

Now just a few hundred dollars from a *brand new episode* of the Critical Friends podcast. That's right! For a few dollars more you get Aisha and me talking about genre and boundaries. What donor can resist the temptation?* *Other prizes are available.

We've just hit our *penultimate* milestone of $12.5K, so here's a new episode of the Critical Friends podcast: Dan Hartland and Aisha on boundaries in genre! strangehorizons.com/podcasts/criti… We're now under $1K away from our base goal! To get us there: kickstarter.com/projects/stran…

Episode 1 is live! Casella & Dan Hartland talk about THE SCAR: bold, partially-substantiated claims about the New Weird! Deep dives into narrative & aesthetics! Unexpected comparisons! Listen now: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2024/07/01/a-m…

Bangladesh update: Just been informed by credible journalist that 57 protestors/bystanders were killed today, apparently all by law enforcement authorities - bringing total number of deaths since Monday to over 100. Figures based on police and hospital reports

OK, gang, heads up: the Strange Horizons Criticism Special is coming, in January of 2025. What crazy ideas have you got for us? Aisha and I are always particularly keen to welcome new critics to SH for these issues. We want essays, dialogues, exegeses of every kind!

🌿🍂 "I think I am at peace now, he said, for my dreams move like the thinnest veil of mist over water." ~ Keki Daruwalla, Notes from the Underground (24 January 1937 - 27 September 2024) Go gently, and thank you for the words, the heart, that conscience.

Doing this in Glasgow later this month!

Yesterday at Strange Horizons, Areeb Ahmad | اریب احمد on One Hundred Shadows from Erewhon Books. It’s a piece that gets a sense of the novel by making an argument: “a fascinating exploration of how we go on when we are alienated from the labour we perform.” strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/on…

It's here! The Strange Horizons Criticism Special: one editorial, five critical essays, three poems, one podcast, three special reviews. We'll be publishing 1 essay per day all week, and the reviews will appear on the usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle. strangehorizons.com/issue/27-janua…

The issue opens with a quick introduction from me and Aisha, in which we advocate for the special - and criticism - with our usual boldness. "What of material effect will all this criticism have achieved? Reader, we can’t say. Maybe none.“ strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/az…

Can't stop thinking about this perfect illustration of TERFism: it offers women nothing, no hope, no vision for a better future, and expects us to put up with this appalling reality for the simple sake of degrading others. In its feminist guise it's a doomed movement. Thankfully