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So Mayer

@suchmayer.bsky.social

5K followers 1.9K following 5.8K posts

They/them. Overthinker. Reads things, writes things. BAD LANGUAGE out now with Peninsula Press 🐉 THE WORD FOR WORLD (co-ed) out now with @silver-press.bsky.social 🌳 Website & newsletter: somayer.net. Won't age-verify so no DMs.

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 26d

It's here.

BAD LANGUAGE
13/11/25

"made with love and horror, & a guidebook for our time" — @adamzmith.bsky.social
"Mayer's words & a gift and a gateway" — @elizabethlovatt.bsky.social
"incantation & spell distil a complex argument" — Lola Olufemi

Pre-order: peninsulapress.co.uk/products/bad...

Cover of Bad Language by So Mayer: hand-drawn illustration of an illuminated capital B, which is a grey dragon wrapped around a blue tree. The dragon has a red eye and smoke rising from its nostrils. The author's name and book title are written in a simple, non-joined-up cursive, as if on a chalkboard.

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John Carpenter's AJ MacReady @ajmacready.bsky.social · 12h

Hey! It's not how long it's been since the original TRON opened in 1982. It's that if you went back the same amount of time from that date it would be 1939.
Have a great day, Gen X🤘🏼😎

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Democracy Now! @democracynow.org · 9h

Sudan’s famine is the biggest and most intractable in the world.

Man-Made Famine & Malnutrition in Sudan, Exacerbated by U.S. Aid Cuts

Starvation is now being used as a weapon of war in numerous conflicts across the globe — including Sudan, which continues to endure a yearslong famine. Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric doctor who jus...

www.democracynow.org

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Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 14h

BBC News explain that because of Brexit, Brits will be photographed and have their fingerprints taken when going into the EU, as the UK now is a third country

BBC News forget to explain that the UK helped create these rules when we were part of the EU because we wanted stronger border control

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The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 9h

Congratulations @genni.bsky.social on winning the #2025IgnyteAwards in Outstanding Creative Nonfiction for AFRO-CENTERED FUTURISMS IN OUR SPECULATIVE FICTION

2025 Winner Outstanding Creative Nonfiction for AFRO-CENTERED FUTURISMS IN OUR SPECULATIVE FICTION edited by Eugen Bacon

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The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 9h

Congratulations @soniasulaiman.bsky.social on winning the #2025IgnyteAwards in Outstanding Anthology/Collected Works for THYME TRAVELERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PALESTINIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION

2025 Winner Outstanding Anthology/Collected Works - THYME TRAVELLERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PALESTINIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION edited by Sonia Sulaiman

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The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 9h

And the Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre goes to @authorsabb.bsky.social
#2025IgnyteAwards

2025 Winner of the Community Award: Authors Against Book Bans

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Sonia is an Ignyte and Ember Award winner! @soniasulaiman.bsky.social · 9h

I didn’t know what to say before, with Thyme Travellers winning just now. All I have to say is please continue to support Palestinians loudly and without apology.

So much love to you all!

The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 9h

The Ember Award for Unsung Contributions to Genre goes to @soniasulaiman.bsky.social
#2025IgnyteAwards

2025 Winner The Ember Award: Sonia Sulaiman

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Stephen Morgan @drsmorgan.com · 9h

This specific 'horror' is basically this week's theme in my Film History 1895-1930 class at @kingsfilmstudies.bsky.social.

Shelley Stamp @shelleystamp.bsky.social · 10h

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

Griffith, father of cinema.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h

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

Archives banned making copies.

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Wear The Peace @wearthepeace.bsky.social · 11h

The beloved Saleh Al-Jafarawi has been murdered. We are absolutely devastated. For 2 years he reported on the genocide of his people, just for him to be murdered during the ‘ceasefire’

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elia ayoub 🌱 @ayoub.bsky.social · 9h

Absolutely horrible news - Saleh was killed today

www.middleeasteye.net/news/saleh-a...

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 14h

"Slashdot: What's the reason OneDrive tells users this setting can only be turned off 3 times a year?

[Microsoft's publicist chose not to answer this question.]"

Microsoft's OneDrive Begins Testing Face-Recognizing AI for Photos (for Some Preview Users) - Slashdot

I uploaded a photo on my phone to Microsoft's "OneDrive" file-hosting app — and there was a surprise waiting under Privacy and Permissions. "OneDrive uses AI to recognize faces in your photos.....

slashdot.org

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John Grindrod @grindrod.bsky.social · 12h

Next July am going to be running a residential Arvon course with @lamornaash.bsky.social on Writing Lives: how to write about and with other people’s stories. www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

Residential Writing Course: Non-fiction | Writing lives | Arvon

At the heart of so much great non-fiction are real people’s stories. On this course we will help you to discover how to capture the voices and lives of other people – through interviews and archival r...

www.arvon.org

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Bo Bolander @bbolander.bsky.social · 12h

like i am way less concerned with if ais can eventually obtain anything like a consciousness or a soul when we can societally barely fuckin recognize that other human beings do

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 12h

I have some more thoughts on censorship (inc of Anne Frank) & systemic diseducation of young people & how we resist in BAD LANGUAGE

preorder from Peninsula (UK) peninsulapress.co.uk/products/bad...

& @asterismbooks.bsky.social (US/Can)

Bad Language

by So Mayer published 13 November There is no such thing as a safe word In Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has ...

peninsulapress.co.uk

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Ricardo Levins Morales Art Studio @rlmartstudio.bsky.social · 12h

This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.

A photograph from the 1988 ACT UP demonstration outside the FDA. Many people are participating in a die-in on the front steps, holding mock tombstones with messages like "RIP - killed by the FDA" and "Dead from lack of drugs." A line of police officers (some with classic 80s mustaches) wearing riot helmets stands between them and the building; one cop wearing white gloves is walking through the demonstrators. Affixed to the 2nd story windows of the building is a series of posters and a large blank banner reading Silence = Death.

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Cameron Johnston @cameronjohnston.bsky.social · 13h

As an author, especially when you're not a big-name author, you definitely have to celebrate all the small milestones along the path of publication, to stop and admire the view sometimes.
It's all-too easy to dwell on deadlines, self-doubt, bad reviews and donut-brains.

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

😬🫠🤬

So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

😂

So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

"Sales have title thoughts."

So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

"Suggest cut."

[only two words needed]

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

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

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

😭

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HerRoyalBOO👻bies @ourflagmeansbeth.bsky.social · 13h

I read Peter Thiel’s essay on Alan Moore’s Watchmen and it unquestionably proves that piss poor media literacy is foundational to this recent rise of fascism.

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 2d

DO NOT MISS The Word for World: The Maps of @ursulakleguin.com, Architectural Association, Bedford Sq, London. It's truly beautiful. (I've never been involved w a project that's had massive banners before, it's v exciting).

Spend time with the maps, inc my niche fave, The City Ansul from VOICES 💙

The Architectural Association, a Georgian house of dark brick on Bedford Square, with two-storey high banners outside reading The Word for World and Ursula K Le Guin.

A cyanotype white-on-blue banner with fern prints at the top and a map below hangs in a gallery. Other similar banners featuring different maps are glimpsed behind it.

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

I wrote this for @the87press.bsky.social on queerness & survival in THE BOOKS OF JACOB (and THE MATRIX), one of my favourite essays of the last few years... let's talk queer Olga!

www.the87press.co.uk/thehythe-ope...

Beyond the Pale, or Crossing Borders with 'The Books of Jacob' by So Mayer — the87press

So Mayer’s review of ‘The Books of Jacob’ looks at how Olga Tokarczuk explores Jacob Frank as a border-dweller; as a Jew who converted to both Islam and Christianity; as a Messiah who numinously embod...

www.the87press.co.uk

So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 13h

Finally reading THE EMPUSIUM by Olga Tokarczuk & translated by @antonialloydjones.bsky.social, & want to kick off a chat about (gender)queerness in Tokarczuk's work. Yes it's a feminist novel AND it's getting into invert theory (inc entartet assoc of TB & inversion), and a Schulzian textile kink...

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