I don’t know that this piece is entirely ready - it’s very much a case of writing to work something out, rather than writing something I’ve already worked out.

But, I am in NYC, and I will be very busy, so it’s either send this now, or probably not send it for a week, and I didn’t want to keep you waiting.

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The accumulated detritus of lost futures piles up around us. At this current point in time, most of these futures are neon-tinged and haunted by an analog synth soundtrack. Old futures. Safe futures that would not have looked out of place at any point in the past 35 years. My entire life has been lived under the neonoir-black shadow of these 80s visions.

MJW: Welcome to the latest issue of nothing.here. CJW is at a workshop on another continent, so we’ve given him a fornight off from editing the newsletter and you’re all stuck with me writing the intro. Ha! Fools!

Maybe it’s all the ‘civilisation is gonna collapse’ in the air, but I know I have been utterly unable to consume any media lately aside from comfort/trash: rereads of Stephen King books and reruns of Project Runway. So you don’t just get a rehash of The Dead Zone and a tribute to the father figure I seek in Tim Gunn, I’m lucky enough to be joined in newletter efforts by the usual team who have trawled through various content so you (and I) don’t have to, and they’ve linked it all here. We also have a special guest:

CJW: We’re a few days late with the bonus. Blame me - I got on a plane to the USA on Saturday morning with the newsletter login details tucked into my back pocket.

Anyway, here’s an article from Marlee Jane Ward on the Creative Precariat. We hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to another edition of nothing here. We’ve got another varied selection of goodness for you, and a weird slice of the now. Again, we’ve tried to keep it a little slimmer wordcount-wise, but if you’re following the links that tickle your fancy, you’ll still find plenty to keep you occupied.

If you want, and are able to, you can support us by becoming a paid subscriber and receive bonus letters as well as these ones. The most recent bonus was a brain-melting essay on cartoon metaphysics from Austin. I can’t tell you what you’re going to get next, but I can tell you it’s going to be good (and probably weird).

Hi all,

Austin here with the latest Nothing.Here bonus installment. This time around I’m sending you a short essay – it was inspired by Barthes’ Mythologies, which I recently read in a weekend and found perfectly suited to my attention span and the brief little pockets of time available to me. I was aiming for a kind of Herzogian “ecstatic truth” with this essay – I can’t say I entirely believe everything I’ve written, but it certainly felt more convincing and true as I wrote it, something like hypnotising myself. I hope you enjoy it, and if you have any comments, please hit reply and let me know what’s on your mind. Have a great week, and we’ll talk to you again soon.

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CJW: Welcome to the latest edition of nothing here. We’ve shuffled things around a little bit for this issue, brining the Self-Promotion section up-top, because we’ve got some exciting stuff to share with you all.

Past that, you’ll notice the Articles section is a little briefer than usual, but we’ve made up for it by sharing some really great essays in the URL section, including one from former guest and friend of the newsletter, .

Greetings netizens and residents of the Dark Forest internet.

I, m1k3y, am beset on all sides by sounds of deadlines whistling past my head.

So here’s something else from the Archives. Or, how I guess I’m now very belatedly serialising my last great writing project, circa 2016 - the InvizMon diaries; AKA

Welcome to another issue of nothing here. We’re still experimenting a little, and this time around we’re trying to do a better job of keeping the newsletter (and the articles section in particular) a little shorter. One of the ways we’ve done this is by trimming some article links right down to just the links and a line for context, and putting this under the “Cutting Room Floor” at the bottom of the articles section.

Along with all the articles, we’ve got experiments with AI text generation, AR experiments, book and film reviews, and more.

Here in Australia we just had our Federal Election. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Australians just voted for another 3 years of climate change denial, austerity measures damaging the lives of people with disabilities and poorer folk in general, continued racism and marginalisation against Indigenous people, cuts to health care, a continuation of our abhorrent immigration policy, and a mainstream right-wing party that is not afraid of racist dogwhistling and getting into bed with actual fascists. Basically, Australians in general, and rich boomers in particular, just voted for the economy over the actual lives of other Australians living today, as well as future generations. So we’re feeling a deep sense of dread here this morning.

As ever, if you want (and are in a position to) you can support us by and receive bonus letters (on top of these ones), the ability to comment on the posts (though anyone can hit reply if they have something to share with us). So far the bonuses to date include a recipessay on weed & fascism, essays on 4th-Generation Warfare, the multiplicity of places, and religion in video games, a live music review, and some short fiction. You’ll get access to all these (via the ) and all the rest we come up with over the coming months.

CJW: I am neck deep in novel edits and have no mental energy to spare for a bonus letter this week, but I had this recipe/essay (recipessay?) lying around, from good friend of the newsletter Hilario Bukowski, which he’s given me permission to share with you all. My original plan was to put together some sort of Drug zine/capsule for Oh Nothing Press, but this is the only piece that came through before I got distracted by something else.

Enjoy!

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CJW: Welcome to another issue of nothing here. As ever, we’ve got a lot to share with you - articles, reviews, a reader letter (thanks Ed!), and plenty more.

Hi, how are you? I’m working hard on novel edits and stressing a variety of other things, and I’ve had Love Shack by the B52s stuck in my head since last Saturday. But on the plus side, I’m past the con-crud, and in the next few hours I’ll find out if won the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella.

MJW: I was inspired to write The Beasts and the Birthday after reading Garth Nix's Shades Children. I started thinking on books that put their characters through such brutal situations, like and , and then leave them to get on with their lives, make families. After coming across a few articles on intergenerational trauma, I decided to write a story about a family living in the aftermath of a massive, worldwide event. 

Welcome to another issue of the nothing here newsletter. The last issue went out a little earlier than usual, and that seems to have been well received, so we’re trying the same again.

The last 2 weekends, Marlee and I have been at Supanova, talking books, our books, writing, sci-fi, and other nonsense to anyone who would listen. We had an absolutely fantastic group of fellow authors on tour with us this time around, Victoria/V.E. Schwab was the big international author, and she was delightful, smart, and incredibly hardworking, was (as we Aussies like to say) good value (and she’ll be the guest on an upcoming episode of Marlee’s podcast), was a real sweetheart, was kind, intelligent, and endlessly generous with her many fans, and last of all was the absolute bastard, . I’M KIDDING. Alan is a great guy, and is also our special guest for this issue. Being the only 2 male authors of the Supanova bunch, and being the authors of some violent tales, Alan and I were scheduled together on panels, and I had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time chatting to him across both weekends.

CJW: Here is another bonus letter for you all from Marlee and I, but with this one we’re going to open it up to the public in a couple of days’ time and link to it in the main newsletter. I didn’t want to dump the whole thing into the main for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it’s a bit long for that, and for another, I’m always hesitant about talking mental health issues publicly. A voice in the back of my head warns me that talking about this might close some career doors for me in the future, but at the same time, I have to talk about this. Because it might help someone. Because we aren’t in this alone. Because every time I've brought up a big mental health issue, I've had at least one person respond to say that it helped them to better think about their own depression, or the issues of people they know. Because I would rather lose some theoretical future work than let someone suffer alone. The greatest trick depression ever pulled was convincing you you’re alone. But you’re not.

So here’s this. It’s heartfelt and true, and it hurts. If you aren’t in a place where you can read a couple of thousand words about suicide ideation, then please skip it.

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Edit: The full Creeper Issue 1 PDF is now free for download, but read below for a sneak peek.

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Hello loyal subscribers,

AA: Welcome to another instalment of the Nothing.Here newsletter. Corey and Marlee are at Supanova Melbourne this weekend (if you’re quick and local you might still be able to catch them, which is why this is going out a bit early - just look for the "Literary Legends" section). I guess m1k3y was busy wing-suiting into the Amazon to rescue a famous tree (or something), so you’re stuck with my sleep-deprived and rambling intro instead. Sorry. Hi.

There’s a lot of fascinating reading ahead of you - AI and the nature of “intelligence”, the villainous associations of classical music, extended discussion of The OA, the gamification of civic participation, and much more besides -  so I won’t take up too much space here. Your time is valuable, and we’re glad you saw fit to spend some of it with us.

MKY: Here’s an unpublished, lightly updated piece from a couple years back I like to call Bond vs the anti-Bourne, taken from one of my classic megaposts that almost was, Lifestyle Tips for the Empire 2.0: Ghostin' in the Surveillance Marketing State

Welcome to another edition of the nothing here newsletter. This time we have special guest Damien Williams, who has graced these pages previously when I occasionally share links from his must-read Technoccult newsletter.

Damien Williams (DW) is a PhD researcher at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society. His research areas include ethics, epistemology, philosophy of technology, philosophy of mind, and the occult. @Wolven most places;

I’ve recently been playing Far Cry 4, because I am an extremely dedicated gamer who plays only the latest games (this is a joke: not only did Far Cry 5 come out last year, but a new standalone game based on FC5 recently dropped). All told, I’m enjoying the game—even 5 years later it looks gorgeous, the missions are interesting (would be better in co-op, but for some inexplicable reason only sidequests are open to co-op), and the gunplay feels good—but there’s one thing about the game that irks me. The karma system.

Welcome to issue 19 of the nothing here newsletter. This issue we’re joined by Andrew Dana Hudson, an award-winning speculative fiction writer, and part of the team that put together the upcoming Weight of Light anthology from ASU (but more about that below).

We have a whole variety of awful for you, as well as some art and some hope to help see you through.

Last week I said we'd be organising regular bonus content when we hit 20 paid subscribers, and whilst we aren't there yet, I wanted to get something out to you fine people who jumped on board immediately and supported us. Thank you.

Initially I was going to write a little something about a video game I've been playing lately (maybe next time), but after seeing the band MY DISCO last night, I decided to write about that instead. Their most recent album Environment just dropped, so track that down on spotify if that’s a thing you do, or otherwise listen to their last album Severe at bandcamp while you read on. Play it loud.

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