N. A. Dawn, Author
@nadawn.bsky.social
Beauty against barbarism. | Essays, poetry and speculative fiction in New Contrast mag and Catalyst Press: 'Captive' (2024) and 'Disruption' (2020)
A #suspense classic.
A #Murakami -esque protag drifts through the detritus of a souring #romance, where dalliances in #polyamory seem to conceal something considerably #darker.
Tatam considers #love as appetite, #sex as hunger, violence as kink, intimacy as threat.
#horror #shortstory #fiction
A #Murakami -esque protag drifts through the detritus of a souring #romance, where dalliances in #polyamory seem to conceal something considerably #darker.
Tatam considers #love as appetite, #sex as hunger, violence as kink, intimacy as threat.
#horror #shortstory #fiction
New Fiction at NIGHTMARE: “Backseat Kiss” by James Tatam, with a podcast narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.
www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/back...
www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/back...
January 15, 2026 at 8:38 AM
A #suspense classic.
A #Murakami -esque protag drifts through the detritus of a souring #romance, where dalliances in #polyamory seem to conceal something considerably #darker.
Tatam considers #love as appetite, #sex as hunger, violence as kink, intimacy as threat.
#horror #shortstory #fiction
A #Murakami -esque protag drifts through the detritus of a souring #romance, where dalliances in #polyamory seem to conceal something considerably #darker.
Tatam considers #love as appetite, #sex as hunger, violence as kink, intimacy as threat.
#horror #shortstory #fiction
What resplendent defiance.
What radiant vitality.
Formal innovations become mesmerising incantations in this comet of a #poem, lighting up a dark sky, and leaving a trail of power and possibility in its wake.
#sff #poetry #poem #literature #aflit
What radiant vitality.
Formal innovations become mesmerising incantations in this comet of a #poem, lighting up a dark sky, and leaving a trail of power and possibility in its wake.
#sff #poetry #poem #literature #aflit
New poem! "Time loop for the day I die." by Abdulrazaq Salihu! buff.ly/aaYBYJF
January 13, 2026 at 7:36 AM
Morris’s understated #characterstudy teases out the quiet #horror of #pandemic isolation through questions of virtuality and escape, the gaps between ourselves and others; gulfs between who we are and who we wish we were - between our world and one beyond predation.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
Reading 2025 fiction? Try the short story "The Island with the Animals" by Stephanie Malia Morris!
You can read it here!
buff.ly/bAeschv
You can read it here!
buff.ly/bAeschv
January 13, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Morris’s understated #characterstudy teases out the quiet #horror of #pandemic isolation through questions of virtuality and escape, the gaps between ourselves and others; gulfs between who we are and who we wish we were - between our world and one beyond predation.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
“The Night Heron” by Alice Towey in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social is a case study in elegance without ostentation: unassuming #prose lit by the innate vividness of her characters’ words and actions.
#Simplicity is an #art, and Towey is a master.
#writing #sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction #booksky
#Simplicity is an #art, and Towey is a master.
#writing #sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction #booksky
January 9, 2026 at 6:03 AM
“The Night Heron” by Alice Towey in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social is a case study in elegance without ostentation: unassuming #prose lit by the innate vividness of her characters’ words and actions.
#Simplicity is an #art, and Towey is a master.
#writing #sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction #booksky
#Simplicity is an #art, and Towey is a master.
#writing #sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction #booksky
@annewilkins.bsky.social’s “A Good Brother” in @bcsmagazine.bsky.social’s looms over the heart, despite its unassuming size.
Its pathos - the imminence of grief and the resilience of devotion - lingers like a shadow long after the final words.
#booksky #sff #fiction #fantasy #shortstory #flashfic
Its pathos - the imminence of grief and the resilience of devotion - lingers like a shadow long after the final words.
#booksky #sff #fiction #fantasy #shortstory #flashfic
BCS of 2025! "A Good Brother" @annewilkins.bsky.social BCS #447 "A thick grey fog hugs the castle’s stone, and blackened trees climb its walls trying to escape. One of the walls is starting to crumble into an oily moat. “Not long now.”" www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-go... #BCSof2025
Beneath Ceaseless Skies - A Good Brother by Anne Wilkins
As we get closer, the land turns dark, the shadows grow longer, and the wind picks up in a ghostly howl. A thick grey fog hugs the castle’s stone, and blackened trees climb its walls trying to escape....
www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com
January 5, 2026 at 6:01 AM
@annewilkins.bsky.social’s “A Good Brother” in @bcsmagazine.bsky.social’s looms over the heart, despite its unassuming size.
Its pathos - the imminence of grief and the resilience of devotion - lingers like a shadow long after the final words.
#booksky #sff #fiction #fantasy #shortstory #flashfic
Its pathos - the imminence of grief and the resilience of devotion - lingers like a shadow long after the final words.
#booksky #sff #fiction #fantasy #shortstory #flashfic
#Uncanny imagery. #Existential ruminations. A quasi-apocalyptic #retrofuturist meditation on collective #trauma.
@ramirosanchiz.bsky.social’s ‘Trees at Night’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com sublime tragedy of our suffering, the nightmares we can’t escape.
#Librarians rule.
#sff #scifi #fiction
@ramirosanchiz.bsky.social’s ‘Trees at Night’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com sublime tragedy of our suffering, the nightmares we can’t escape.
#Librarians rule.
#sff #scifi #fiction
January 5, 2026 at 5:05 AM
#Uncanny imagery. #Existential ruminations. A quasi-apocalyptic #retrofuturist meditation on collective #trauma.
@ramirosanchiz.bsky.social’s ‘Trees at Night’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com sublime tragedy of our suffering, the nightmares we can’t escape.
#Librarians rule.
#sff #scifi #fiction
@ramirosanchiz.bsky.social’s ‘Trees at Night’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com sublime tragedy of our suffering, the nightmares we can’t escape.
#Librarians rule.
#sff #scifi #fiction
Reposted by N. A. Dawn, Author
Here's your regular reminder that Steven Pinker is -not- some centrist wise man.
He's a conservative who whitewashes far-right talking points, a long time participant of the Bari Weiss/Heterodox anti-"woke/progressive" disinformation network, who boosted grifters from science racists to Orbanists.
He's a conservative who whitewashes far-right talking points, a long time participant of the Bari Weiss/Heterodox anti-"woke/progressive" disinformation network, who boosted grifters from science racists to Orbanists.
January 2, 2026 at 12:47 AM
Here's your regular reminder that Steven Pinker is -not- some centrist wise man.
He's a conservative who whitewashes far-right talking points, a long time participant of the Bari Weiss/Heterodox anti-"woke/progressive" disinformation network, who boosted grifters from science racists to Orbanists.
He's a conservative who whitewashes far-right talking points, a long time participant of the Bari Weiss/Heterodox anti-"woke/progressive" disinformation network, who boosted grifters from science racists to Orbanists.
Empathy, physicality, ambiguity.
Also beauty, love and true creativity.
@gregegansf.bsky.social’s bold, intricate, startlingly smart and expertly told ‘Understudies’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, like a real human, is rich in all of it.
My first tear-jerker of 2026.
A triumph.
#sff #scifi #ai #llm
Also beauty, love and true creativity.
@gregegansf.bsky.social’s bold, intricate, startlingly smart and expertly told ‘Understudies’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, like a real human, is rich in all of it.
My first tear-jerker of 2026.
A triumph.
#sff #scifi #ai #llm
January 2, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Empathy, physicality, ambiguity.
Also beauty, love and true creativity.
@gregegansf.bsky.social’s bold, intricate, startlingly smart and expertly told ‘Understudies’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, like a real human, is rich in all of it.
My first tear-jerker of 2026.
A triumph.
#sff #scifi #ai #llm
Also beauty, love and true creativity.
@gregegansf.bsky.social’s bold, intricate, startlingly smart and expertly told ‘Understudies’ in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, like a real human, is rich in all of it.
My first tear-jerker of 2026.
A triumph.
#sff #scifi #ai #llm
Capitalism commodifies #beauty, reducing it to vapid, cosmetic #spectacle and #kitsch.
What if beauty were more?
The force of experiential meaning.
The care of fragile things.
Solace in the arc of a life.
Clarity in a world of chaos.
Harmony amidst suffering.
Beauty is the lifeblood of the soul.
What if beauty were more?
The force of experiential meaning.
The care of fragile things.
Solace in the arc of a life.
Clarity in a world of chaos.
Harmony amidst suffering.
Beauty is the lifeblood of the soul.
December 31, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Capitalism commodifies #beauty, reducing it to vapid, cosmetic #spectacle and #kitsch.
What if beauty were more?
The force of experiential meaning.
The care of fragile things.
Solace in the arc of a life.
Clarity in a world of chaos.
Harmony amidst suffering.
Beauty is the lifeblood of the soul.
What if beauty were more?
The force of experiential meaning.
The care of fragile things.
Solace in the arc of a life.
Clarity in a world of chaos.
Harmony amidst suffering.
Beauty is the lifeblood of the soul.
Favourite reads of 2025:
Asunder by @kerstinhall.bsky.social
Starling House by
@alixeharrow.bsky.social
The Emily Wilde Trilogy by Heather Fawcett
The Lost Spells by Jackie Morris &
@robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
And too many phenomenal stories and poems to name.
#reading #books #sff #booksky
Asunder by @kerstinhall.bsky.social
Starling House by
@alixeharrow.bsky.social
The Emily Wilde Trilogy by Heather Fawcett
The Lost Spells by Jackie Morris &
@robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
And too many phenomenal stories and poems to name.
#reading #books #sff #booksky
December 31, 2025 at 7:03 AM
Favourite reads of 2025:
Asunder by @kerstinhall.bsky.social
Starling House by
@alixeharrow.bsky.social
The Emily Wilde Trilogy by Heather Fawcett
The Lost Spells by Jackie Morris &
@robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
And too many phenomenal stories and poems to name.
#reading #books #sff #booksky
Asunder by @kerstinhall.bsky.social
Starling House by
@alixeharrow.bsky.social
The Emily Wilde Trilogy by Heather Fawcett
The Lost Spells by Jackie Morris &
@robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
And too many phenomenal stories and poems to name.
#reading #books #sff #booksky
How tedious is this spectacle of excellence: of awards won, units sold, rankings & net worth.
Celebrity has no #soul.
Seek and share your #wisdom.
Make and celebrate #beauty.
Cultivate #virtue and nurture bonds of #love.
Build #justice with your #comrades, and savour the fleeting #miracle of life.
Celebrity has no #soul.
Seek and share your #wisdom.
Make and celebrate #beauty.
Cultivate #virtue and nurture bonds of #love.
Build #justice with your #comrades, and savour the fleeting #miracle of life.
December 30, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by N. A. Dawn, Author
Regularly recharge the negative energy that builds up inside you by spending time in nature.
#Illustration
#LineArt
#CommentPls
#Illustration
#LineArt
#CommentPls
December 30, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Regularly recharge the negative energy that builds up inside you by spending time in nature.
#Illustration
#LineArt
#CommentPls
#Illustration
#LineArt
#CommentPls
Fill your day with holiday cheer this festive season, just like the Cape rain frog. Hoppy #Christmas and a Hoppy #NewYear.
December 25, 2025 at 6:55 AM
Fill your day with holiday cheer this festive season, just like the Cape rain frog. Hoppy #Christmas and a Hoppy #NewYear.
Conversation types that match my #neurotype:
1. Special interest geek-out / show n tell
2. Deep analysis of moral/ societal issue
3. Vulnerable emotional sharing/ bonding
4. Personal development / lifestyle design game-plan
5. Goofy musical wordplay
#autism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurospicy
1. Special interest geek-out / show n tell
2. Deep analysis of moral/ societal issue
3. Vulnerable emotional sharing/ bonding
4. Personal development / lifestyle design game-plan
5. Goofy musical wordplay
#autism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurospicy
December 24, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Conversation types that match my #neurotype:
1. Special interest geek-out / show n tell
2. Deep analysis of moral/ societal issue
3. Vulnerable emotional sharing/ bonding
4. Personal development / lifestyle design game-plan
5. Goofy musical wordplay
#autism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurospicy
1. Special interest geek-out / show n tell
2. Deep analysis of moral/ societal issue
3. Vulnerable emotional sharing/ bonding
4. Personal development / lifestyle design game-plan
5. Goofy musical wordplay
#autism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurospicy
What can’t be co-opted?
Who can’t be corrupted?
What does it take to make a lifestyle - a philosophy - out of defiant, gritty hope?
@phoebebarton.bsky.social’s “In Luck’s Panoply, I Stand” in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, we find our answer: never kneeling. Inspired.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
Who can’t be corrupted?
What does it take to make a lifestyle - a philosophy - out of defiant, gritty hope?
@phoebebarton.bsky.social’s “In Luck’s Panoply, I Stand” in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, we find our answer: never kneeling. Inspired.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
December 22, 2025 at 6:56 AM
What can’t be co-opted?
Who can’t be corrupted?
What does it take to make a lifestyle - a philosophy - out of defiant, gritty hope?
@phoebebarton.bsky.social’s “In Luck’s Panoply, I Stand” in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, we find our answer: never kneeling. Inspired.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
Who can’t be corrupted?
What does it take to make a lifestyle - a philosophy - out of defiant, gritty hope?
@phoebebarton.bsky.social’s “In Luck’s Panoply, I Stand” in @clarkesworldmagazine.com, we find our answer: never kneeling. Inspired.
#sff #scifi #shortstory #fiction
@carrievaughnco.bsky.social’s The Job Interview in @clarkesworldmagazine.com comes in hot as an armed unionist, slicing red tape all the way to my S-tier of stories for the year.
Gum-grinding office politics and a smooth, hard reboot of the epistolary form. Masterful. Bullseye.
#sff #fiction #scifi
Gum-grinding office politics and a smooth, hard reboot of the epistolary form. Masterful. Bullseye.
#sff #fiction #scifi
December 17, 2025 at 9:36 AM
@carrievaughnco.bsky.social’s The Job Interview in @clarkesworldmagazine.com comes in hot as an armed unionist, slicing red tape all the way to my S-tier of stories for the year.
Gum-grinding office politics and a smooth, hard reboot of the epistolary form. Masterful. Bullseye.
#sff #fiction #scifi
Gum-grinding office politics and a smooth, hard reboot of the epistolary form. Masterful. Bullseye.
#sff #fiction #scifi
Praise Osawaru’s “moth boy” wrenches at the soul, in search of a serenity in the face of mortality, but awed by the magnitude of loves lost and tragedies too close.
It falls to us to Mercy in a world of pain, Wisdom before suffering, Beauty against violence.
#sff #poetry #poem #scifi #fantasy
It falls to us to Mercy in a world of pain, Wisdom before suffering, Beauty against violence.
#sff #poetry #poem #scifi #fantasy
December 15, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Perhaps it is the glaring depravity of our system, and the odiousness of the false gods who feast on its hollow fruits, that gives the overwhelming majority of us, who yearn only to flourish among our neighbours, the perfect motivation to build something better.
If not hope, then spite will do.
If not hope, then spite will do.
December 9, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Perhaps it is the glaring depravity of our system, and the odiousness of the false gods who feast on its hollow fruits, that gives the overwhelming majority of us, who yearn only to flourish among our neighbours, the perfect motivation to build something better.
If not hope, then spite will do.
If not hope, then spite will do.
Reposted by N. A. Dawn, Author
If some guy stole my shit and made millions off it while wiping out my job prospects, and you, as my friend, bought that guy's cheap mass market replica of my shit, you and i would for obvious reasons have a problem. It being a massive company, not a guy, actually makes it even more of a problem.
December 8, 2025 at 5:14 AM
If some guy stole my shit and made millions off it while wiping out my job prospects, and you, as my friend, bought that guy's cheap mass market replica of my shit, you and i would for obvious reasons have a problem. It being a massive company, not a guy, actually makes it even more of a problem.
How do we start afresh when it means letting go of the only things - and the only people - we’ve ever known?
@bjcooper.bsky.social’s “The Robot and the Winding Woods” in @analogsf.bsky.social traces the attachments that sustain our sense of home.
A raw, understated hope.
#sff #scifi #shortstories
@bjcooper.bsky.social’s “The Robot and the Winding Woods” in @analogsf.bsky.social traces the attachments that sustain our sense of home.
A raw, understated hope.
#sff #scifi #shortstories
December 8, 2025 at 5:52 AM
How do we start afresh when it means letting go of the only things - and the only people - we’ve ever known?
@bjcooper.bsky.social’s “The Robot and the Winding Woods” in @analogsf.bsky.social traces the attachments that sustain our sense of home.
A raw, understated hope.
#sff #scifi #shortstories
@bjcooper.bsky.social’s “The Robot and the Winding Woods” in @analogsf.bsky.social traces the attachments that sustain our sense of home.
A raw, understated hope.
#sff #scifi #shortstories
Queer solidarity. Southern progressivism. A baseball bat to techno-evangelism.
@jamessanford.bsky.social razor-witted satire “A Summary of Our Neighbourhood’s Salvation After the Storm” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social spotlights secular community with fists clenched and beer cold
#clifi #scifi #sff
@jamessanford.bsky.social razor-witted satire “A Summary of Our Neighbourhood’s Salvation After the Storm” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social spotlights secular community with fists clenched and beer cold
#clifi #scifi #sff
December 1, 2025 at 6:05 AM
Queer solidarity. Southern progressivism. A baseball bat to techno-evangelism.
@jamessanford.bsky.social razor-witted satire “A Summary of Our Neighbourhood’s Salvation After the Storm” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social spotlights secular community with fists clenched and beer cold
#clifi #scifi #sff
@jamessanford.bsky.social razor-witted satire “A Summary of Our Neighbourhood’s Salvation After the Storm” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social spotlights secular community with fists clenched and beer cold
#clifi #scifi #sff
@spyscribe.bsky.social’s “Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit” in @apexmag.bsky.social spotlights the impact of toxic dogmatism on the families of political elites. Humane and unadorned - a space-faring Hemingway, a child-sized Orwell.
#sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction
#sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction
November 19, 2025 at 5:07 AM
@spyscribe.bsky.social’s “Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit” in @apexmag.bsky.social spotlights the impact of toxic dogmatism on the families of political elites. Humane and unadorned - a space-faring Hemingway, a child-sized Orwell.
#sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction
#sff #scifi #shortstories #fiction
An irresistibly wacky premise, delivered in a wry, flippant, sleuth-style voice, Alex Jablokov’s vividly imagined “Lady Ballistic: Fast and Accurate Cleaning” in @analogsf.bsky.social gives exactly the right kind of brain tickles.
Douglas Adams meets Doctor Who.
#shortstories #fiction #sff #scifi
Douglas Adams meets Doctor Who.
#shortstories #fiction #sff #scifi
November 18, 2025 at 10:14 AM
An irresistibly wacky premise, delivered in a wry, flippant, sleuth-style voice, Alex Jablokov’s vividly imagined “Lady Ballistic: Fast and Accurate Cleaning” in @analogsf.bsky.social gives exactly the right kind of brain tickles.
Douglas Adams meets Doctor Who.
#shortstories #fiction #sff #scifi
Douglas Adams meets Doctor Who.
#shortstories #fiction #sff #scifi
Every so often I find a slam-dunk banger of a #scifi #shortstory with a wry, unassuming voice, irresistible suspense and flawless payoff.
Witty and playful, Mark Ferguson’s taut monster tale “It Eats Metal” in @analogsf.bsky.social is a small-town #horror of heroic retirees with gumption to spare.
Witty and playful, Mark Ferguson’s taut monster tale “It Eats Metal” in @analogsf.bsky.social is a small-town #horror of heroic retirees with gumption to spare.
November 4, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Every so often I find a slam-dunk banger of a #scifi #shortstory with a wry, unassuming voice, irresistible suspense and flawless payoff.
Witty and playful, Mark Ferguson’s taut monster tale “It Eats Metal” in @analogsf.bsky.social is a small-town #horror of heroic retirees with gumption to spare.
Witty and playful, Mark Ferguson’s taut monster tale “It Eats Metal” in @analogsf.bsky.social is a small-town #horror of heroic retirees with gumption to spare.
Unneighbourly shenanigans, the fragile pride of a bourgeois villainess, colonial manners and high-society tedium - @henrylienauthor.bsky.social’s “The Lady’s Aquatic Gardening Society” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social is more than screamingly funny.
#colonialamerica #historicalfiction #feministlit
#colonialamerica #historicalfiction #feministlit
November 3, 2025 at 5:48 AM
Unneighbourly shenanigans, the fragile pride of a bourgeois villainess, colonial manners and high-society tedium - @henrylienauthor.bsky.social’s “The Lady’s Aquatic Gardening Society” in @asimovssfmag.bsky.social is more than screamingly funny.
#colonialamerica #historicalfiction #feministlit
#colonialamerica #historicalfiction #feministlit