Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Iona

@singlecrow.bsky.social

690 followers 150 following 3.9K posts

Writer, lawyer, part-time sapphic, among other things. not Scottish, but it's complicated. (repped by Kurestin Armada; fiction and other work at www.generalist.org.uk/iona) (they/she) newsletter: https://singlecrow.kit.com/f6f21b439b

singlecrow.kit.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · Jan 2

Some pins and things: here is my most recent short story collection: bsky.app/profile/sing...

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · Jan 1

Happy new year! The book is out- You Are Here: Nine More Stories, a new short story collection including a brand-new novella. Dragons, smugglers, witches, Indian mothers, meddling lesbians, telepaths who love to troll you, space! 🌈🚀🏴‍☠️🪔 🐉

available most places, paperbacks at Amazon, links below.

Book cover: text, YOU ARE HERE: NINE MORE STORIES, IONA DATT SHARMA, on illustration of grim South Asian woman with greying hair, orange hair scarf and shoulder tattoo of a violet, holding a floating Earth

Blurb text: It is not a sin, to love a wild thing…

A witch falls out of the sky; a dragon joins the resistance; a smuggler of magical trifles loves a girl she can’t have. A spaceship lights up for Diwali; an arch in the woods leads to wonders; and in a small community in lunar orbit, for no reason understandable by normal people, romance has been abolished.

Here are nine more stories, of hope and passion, grief and bureaucracy, and how you can’t go home again but it doesn’t mean you’ll never be found.

(In a white room, full of ghosts, a woman cries and will never be found.)

You Are Here is a follow-up to the author’s first collection of short fiction, Not For Use In Navigation (2019). This new volume collects eight more stories, plus an exclusive previously unpublished novella, Wish You Were Here. Published 1 January 2025.

1 1 4

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5m

it's a reread after maybe 30 years! this book is very very funny, but SO WEIRD, omg! Caspian and the Pevensies don't meet till 80% of the way through, and they don't do anything! what's with Aslan and the bacchanal! then it turns out the Telmarines are the mutineers off the Bounty, or something!

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 8m

WHAT. K, no. what is this.

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 2h

Cair Paravel has crumbled into a thousand-year ruin, but they know about vaudeville. I'll take it.

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 4h

a fandom classic you may like: archiveofourown.org/works/8980018

First Choices - rsadelle - Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

archiveofourown.org

1 2

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5h

ahhh, I'm rereading these too! my favourite is The Lives of Christopher Chant, for the same reason; I don't hate his adult version, but Christopher as a child is so funny and compelling!

1 1

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5h

excellent point well made. they have a packed schedule in Narnia.

1 2

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5h

must be! they go through, play a couple of gigs, take in the sights, shuffle on back to 1930s England.

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 6h

How do the Ancient Creatures of Narnia know what a concert party is!!

3 9

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 6h

Aaaaah! Thank for for this information

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 6h

Reading Prince Caspian, and forgot how funny Lewis can be when he wants to be

The gloomiest of all was Giant Wimbleweather. He knew it was all his fault. He sat in silence shedding big tears which collected on the end of his nose and then fell off with a huge splash on the whole bivouac of the Mice, who had just been beginning to get warm and drowsy. They all jumped up, shaking the water out of their ears and wringing their lit-

tle blankets, and asked the Giant in shrill but forcible voices whether he thought they weren't wet enough without this sort of thing. And then other people woke up and told the Mice they had been enrolled as scouts and not as a concert party, and asked why they couldn't keep quiet. And Wimbleweather tiptoed away to find some place where he could be miserable in peace and stepped on somebody's tail and somebody (they said afterwards it was a fox) bit him. And so everyone was out of temper.

2 1 15

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 10h

I don't know what prompted this but I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

1 3

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 22h

this story about a guy who was a doctor only he wasn't a doctor getting shot only he didn't get shot (and also the Earth is flat) has been revealing itself slowly

Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 1d

I got very curious about this. You can trace Shearer's unit (21 CCS) and you can see what looks like the echo of his little blaze of fame: in Sept 1916 you get visits from various grandees including ... the editor of the BMJ, who presumably came to see for himself.

Reposted by Iona

KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 2d

This is it, the most unhinged literary opinion. I will be adopting it as fact immediately.

Luke Seaber @thelong1930s.bsky.social · 2d

Lord Peter Wimsey is the narrative voice of The Waste Land.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

9 54 270

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 2d

it's brilliant. cannot ever unthink it.

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 3d

"no one will know"

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 3d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 3d

"The chancellor approved it"

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 3d

🔥

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 3d

I climbed up to Castlerigg with P the year before she died, and the wondrous part was that it wasn't on purpose: we just walked out of the mist among the stones. I wasn't the first, probably, to cry for the dead by those stones.

Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social · 3d

Poem about Castelrigg that's almost thirty years old, which is nothing to the age of the stones www.jowaltonbooks.com/poetry/place...

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 4d

other very good works of SFF I've read in the last few years: Ancillary Justice, Ammonite, The Incandescent, Remember You Will Die, North Continent Ribbon, Metal From Heaven. But Vo really is special.

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 4d

I completely missed that there's a new Nghi Vo Singing Hills book this week, I'm wondering if it's time to reread the entire series. I honestly think Empress of Salt & Fortune is the best work of SFF I've read this decade.

1 11

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 4d

I forgot to answer this! A small rainbow just to try doing it again- I think my days of giant A4 Star Trek cross-stitch may be behind me 😂

Reposted by Iona

Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 4d

Absolutely loving the idea that there are a string of little regional museums with second-hand mannequins in innocuous displays where everyone keeps going "wait, why is that..." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Tony Blair waxwork in soldier uniform gives ex-secretary a tickle

The New Labour leader can be found dressed in combat attire, lined up near a Hugh Laurie waxwork.

www.bbc.co.uk

1 2 2

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 4d

I loved this book!

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5d

oh wow I love this for you! my favourite modern arrangement of a waulking song is this one from Karen Matheson, chuir mise m'athair dhan taigh charraideach; www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd_t...

Karen Matheson - My Father Sent Me to the House of Sorrow

YouTube video by tomtscotland

www.youtube.com

Iona @singlecrow.bsky.social · 5d

She’s so hot omg

1 1

Reposted by Iona

Llinos Cathryn Thomas @llincathryn.bsky.social · 6d

All Is Bright, my Christmassy F/F romance novella set in a little village in Wales, is out TODAY!

You can get it in these places and more:

Kobo: www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...
Smashwords: www.smashwords.com/books/view/1...
AZ: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FS4G5PKX

A promotional graphic for All Is Bright, by Llinos Cathryn Thomas. The book cover, with the title in large text over twinkling lights, is at the centre. Behind the book, there are glowy lights. Text blocks highlight features of the book: "F/F Christmas romance", "advent calendar style - one chapter a day", "Hallmark small-town Christmas movie with a queer twist", "one has elaborate Christmas lights, the other one hates them", "outdoorsy butch and city girl femme", "Wales!".

2 13 19