I’m staring down the barrel of a .45 very busy September*, how about you? There’s no off-season in public libraries; summer is definitely the busiest season, but once the big kids go back to school, we shift into our main gear, which is a lot of weekly pre-k service offerings and a ton of outreach. Suffice to say I’m tired. Add in more social events than usual, the seasonal assault on my sinuses, and the ever-escalating State of Things…

Well, how about some lighter topics? Such as: I met up with friends recently for sci-fi-themed trivia and we mopped the floor with every other team except the venue’s kitchen staff. A couple weekends back I saw Pile and NNAMDÏ, and a favorite local band opening for them covered one of my absolute favorite Big Black Songs, a little treat just for Dianas.

I also had a nasty flash story accepted to Cosmic Daffodil’s “Body Archive” issue, which will drop in October, and a trunked piece to Pink Hydra. I’m totaling up wins so far this year (on the heels of some other, bummer publishing news) and feeling pretty good about my return to short fiction form. It’s possible—doomer voice speaking—that short fiction is my correct form? I guess we’ll never know because my brain simply cannot be pinned down to a singular format or even genre, no matter how much failure I run up against.

However, short fiction in general is making a comeback, according to various tastemakers. Do with this information what you will (I’ll be still trying to sell my story collection, fruitlessly).

Welcome to the link jungle:

• For DIS/MEMBER, I present a summer vacation reading list for those of you planning not to return from your travels. Editor Justin talks about Weapons and Alien: Earth, two pieces of media seemingly tailor-made for me about which I either feel ambivalent (the former) or totally uninterested (the latter). Tell me YOUR thoughts!

• Are you one of the zillion authors whose copyright was infringed by Anthropic, but apparently not in a legal sense because your publisher failed to register your book’s copyright? My sympathies, and same.

• ARB’s Wow! Signal is a great monthly list of critical reads, curated by someone with an eye for both popular and more academic topics. Thanks to Casella for including this Matthew Cheney piece on Arthur Machen, M. John Harrison, and K.J. Bishop; I enjoyed it immensely. Just the kind of thing I want rotating in my mind as we move toward the most haunted reading season.

• In just about a week, the Backerkit for Golden Apples and Poisoned Chalices goes live! Having seen some of the works-in-progress for this zine (including a gorgeous art piece to accompany one of my poems), I’m so excited for the end product.

Got a suggestion or request for September’s long-form newsletter? Hit me, because right now I’m blanking.

*I’m not suicidal, I’m just thirty or forty years old