![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
merriamwebster_feedMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 10, 2025 is:
hidebound • \HYDE-bound\ • adjective
Someone or something described as hidebound is inflexible and unwilling to accept new or different ideas.
// Although somewhat stuffy and strict, the professor did not so completely adhere to hidebound academic tradition that he wouldn’t teach class outside on an especially lovely day.
Examples:
“He was exciting then, different from all the physicists I worked with in the way that he was so broadly educated and interested, not hidebound and literal, as my colleagues were.” — Joe Mungo Reed, Terrestrial History: A Novel, 2025
Did you know?
Hidebound has its origins in agriculture. The adjective, which appeared in English in the early 17th century, originally described cattle whose skin, due to illness or poor feeding, clung to the skeleton and could not be pinched, loosened, or worked with the fingers (the adjective followed an earlier noun form referring to this condition). Hidebound was applied to humans too, to describe people afflicted with tight skin. Figurative use quickly followed, first with a meaning of “stingy” or “miserly.” That sense has since fallen out of use, but a second figurative usage, describing people who are rigid or unyielding in their actions or beliefs, lives on in our language today.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
case posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6791 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #972.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
case posting in fandomsecretsThe first secret from this batch will be posted on August 16th.
| RULES: 1. One secret link per comment. 2. 750x750 px or smaller. 3. Link directly to the image. More details on how to send a secret in! Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is. Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment! |
merriamwebster_feedMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 9, 2025 is:
behemoth • \bih-HEE-muth\ • noun
A behemoth is something of monstrous size, power, or appearance. Behemoth (usually capitalized) is also the name of a mighty animal described in the biblical book of Job.
// The town will be voting on whether or not to let the retail behemoth build a store on the proposed site.
Examples:
"The author ... recounts how his grandfather turned a family spinach farm into an industrial behemoth, and exposes the greed and malfeasance behind the prosperous facade." — The New York Times, 6 July 2025
Did you know?
In the biblical book of Job, Behemoth is the name of a powerful grass-eating, river-dwelling beast with bones likened to bronze pipes and limbs likened to iron bars. Scholars have speculated that the biblical creature was inspired by the hippopotamus, but details about the creature’s exact nature are vague. The word first passed from the Hebrew word bĕhēmōth into Late Latin (the Latin used by writers in the third to sixth centuries), where, according to 15th century English poet and monk John Lydgate it referred to "a beast rude full of cursednesse." In modern English, behemoth functions as an evocative term for something of monstrous size, power, or appearance.
rocky41_7 posting in booknookToday I wrapped up Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, a horror/sci-fi novel with fantastical (?) elements about a biologist exploring a very unsettling landscape.
There are no names given in this book—the narrator and protagonist is simply "the Biologist," and she refers to her other three teammates by their job titles as well. Locations outside of the place they're exploring—Area X—are not given either, but the world is implied to be much the same as our own, with Area X a troubling and relatively recent anomaly. A private company hires the Biologist and her colleagues to venture into this strange place and take notes. They are the 12th such expedition.
I appreciate that much of the horror in Annihilation isn't in-your-face: it's the slow build of things that are just off. This quiet and subtle approach means that when something extreme happens, it feels extreme. The Biologist and her colleagues know that Area X is dangerous before they venture in, but even so, they are unprepared for how and to what degree. VanderMeer's portrayal of how trust frays among relative strangers under these conditions felt realistic.
( Read more... )
case posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6790 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #971.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
50_word_stories_feedWexford summers. Cousins. Some removed, others should be.
A bruising stick-and-ball game settles scores.
Red Lemonade, 99s, ice-cream wafers, crisps and slap-up feeds.
Ravenous teams jostle, devouring gritty ham or salmon paste sandwiches. Each liberally seasoned with sharp, salty, silica.
At day’s end, sunburnt cousins dream, war-painted with Calamine lotion.
Steven is still picking sand granules from between his teeth years after the long hot summers of childhood holidays spent visiting family in Ireland.
50_word_stories_feedWe were fifteen paces west of the boardwalk. The sun threw itself, orange and glowing, against the sea. You left to grab marshmallows.
Today I scooped a handful of sand from the spot. Brought it home and poured it on your side of the bed. Almost believed you were here.
K.C. Selby is a fiction writer living in the Midwest with her husband and too many houseplants. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Killer Nashville Magazine, Blink-Ink, several anthologies, and more. She can be found at www.kcselbywriter.com.
merriamwebster_feedMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 8, 2025 is:
winsome • \WIN-sum\ • adjective
Winsome describes people and things that are cheerful, pleasant, and appealing.
// Though a relative newcomer to acting, Maya won the casting directors over with her winsome charm, which was perfect for the role of the plucky young superhero.
// Our winsome guide put us at ease immediately.
Examples:
“Wilson’s take on Snow White is surprisingly winsome. It delivers a familiar story with a fresh perspective and some unexpected sources of nostalgia.” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable, 19 March 2025
Did you know?
Despite appearances, winsome bears no relation to the familiar word win, meaning “to achieve victory.” The Old English predecessor of winsome is wynsum, which in turn comes from the noun wynn, meaning “joy” or “pleasure.” And the ancestor of win is the Old English verb winnan, meaning “to labor or strive.” Given those facts, one might guess that the adjective winning, meaning “tending to please or delight,” as in “a winning personality,” is a winsome relation, but in fact it’s in the win/winnan lineage. Winning is more common today than the similar winsome in such constructions as “a winning/winsome smile,” but we sense no hard feelings between the two. It’s just the way things (lexically) go: you win some, you lose some.
soc_puppet posting in queerly_belovedDo you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
aprilangeldollbaby posting in addmeAge: 45
My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc Mostly sporadic. I may post 2 or more times a day or I may post monthly. It just depends on how I feel.
I mostly post about: All my workout routines, everyday things, random thoughts: some silly, some serious, my thoughts and emotions, politics.
My hobbies are: Being with my husband and baby cats, being with my mom and family, cats, working out, taking and posing in pictures, Psychology, fashion & beauty, horror movies & books, crime shows, the paranormal, fantasy movies & books, mystery movies & books, playing cards, playing board games, Facebook, journaling, ChatGPT, photo edits, graphics, digital design, edits, anime, Unicorns, scrapbooking, Stephen King, Agatha Christie, dancing, writing, poetry, reading, indie rock, pop, and alternative.
I'm looking to meet people who: Are open-minded, liberal, thoughtful, intelligent and loyal I like people who have a sense of individuality. I love expression and anything awkward and imperfect, because that's natural and that's real. ♥
.
My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc I post mostly sporadic entries. I might most 2 times a day or I may post monthly. It just all depends on how I feel.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Homophobia, racism, sexism, judgmental people, really rude and stupid people. People who can't agree to disagree.
Before adding me, you should know: That I've had MS for over 25 years now. That makes my life incredibility hard at times but we all have our cross to bear. I'm very friendly, but I am sarcastic and have a dark, morbid sense of humor. I can get depressed at times. If you comment on my entries, I'll comment back. ♥
case posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6789 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 10 secrets from Secret Submission Post #971.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
anais_pf posting in thefridayfive![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sparklesalad. 1. What is one food (or meal) you used to hate but now love?
2. If you had to give up one of your favorite foods (or meals) for good, what would it be, and why?
3. Which food seems like it should be healthy and isn't, and do you eat it? Why?
4. If you were an item of food, personified, what would you be and why?
5. You've seen tomatoes and pies used for this purpose ... now think of a more inventive item of food one could throw at someone. What is it and why would throwing it at someone be hilarious?
Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.
If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!
50_word_stories_feedAfter decades of research, rewrites, and rejections, sleepless nights, and crippling self-doubt, my novel releases tomorrow.
As doors unlock, signing pen in hand… a gamma-ray burst—life on Earth, gone.
Behind now-wide-open doors, through which no human will pass, rests my book: The Universe Hates Me.
Mike Keyser hails from Wisconsin, where past and future share a beer. A seeker of alien abduction—and receiver of none—he feeds his off-world appetite through speculative fiction.
sfwa_feedby the Planetside Crew and Stephen Kotowych
Editor’s note: This article is part of the SFWA Presents: Get to Know… series, which includes informational pieces about SFWA programs, committees, and initiatives, and also interviews with the SFWA volunteers who work to support their fellow writers in the industry.
To the untrained eye, it might seem like SFWA’s annual Nebula Awards Showcase volumes would be fairly simple to produce. What’s the big deal, right? Just reprint shorter prose that originally appeared in other publications and list descriptions of winners and finalists in other categories. All of them are the cream of the crop in any given year, according to SFWA voting members. In reality, the process is complex. A tiny, dedicated team rolls up their sleeves to make each volume a beautiful thing to behold. Leading the charge is Stephen Kotowych, the series editor, and M. L. Clark, SFWA’s communications and marketing coordinator.
In the following interview, Kotowych recounts how he leapt straight into the Showcase “fire” and explains some of the complications involved. He also describes how Showcase has needed to bend-and-flow during the current “golden age” of novellas. And he reveals why he finds the whole experience so rewarding.
Why did you decide to raise your hand when you learned that SFWA was looking for someone to work on the Showcase series?
Largely because I felt I had the skillset necessary…and because I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into!
Late last year (2024), the then-Interim President Anthony W. Eichenlaub sent out an “ask not what SFWA can do for you, ask what you can do for SFWA” email asking people to think about one thing they could contribute to SFWA as the organization underwent some internal turmoil. Someone on the SFWA Discord wondered why we no longer put out the Nebula Awards Showcase volumes, and someone replied that Showcase 56 had essentially been sitting for years on a digital shelf somewhere, in need of a few final tweaks to be ready.
I spent 15 years as an acquiring editor in the Canadian publishing industry, and I’d already edited several indie SFF anthologies, including the Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction series, which are published through my Ansible Press. So I was already familiar with the production needs of an anthology and had the skills to finish off Showcase 56 rather quickly. I’m a freelance business writer now and can make my own schedule, so I could also make the time around other projects.
With that background, I felt like the “one thing” I could do was to help get the Showcase series back on its feet, so I raised my hand. It was never pitched as “Here—now lead the Showcase series,” however. That offer came later from SFWA.
How much time was involved in getting the editions ready for publication? And what kind of tasks were involved?
After Showcase 56 was put to bed, I found out SFWA needed help getting Showcase 57, 58, and 59 done before the 60th Nebula Awards. Well, I was glad that I had the flexibility of a freelancer’s schedule because it did take a lot of time on a compressed schedule.
We brought out Showcase 56 through Showcase 59 between October 2024 and March 2025 and then went immediately into work on Showcase 60 to ensure we had physical copies available at the Nebula Award ceremony at the start of June. Having a whole year to plan Showcase 61 is going to feel like total luxury.
While Showcase 56 was basically done when I came on board, we had to put 57, 58, and 59 together from scratch—getting reprint permissions, signing contracts, commissioning a wonderful new interior layout to standardize the typeset and design for the series.
Can you tell us about any challenges you encountered during the process?
I think the biggest challenge was the compressed timeline. We caught up on five years’ worth of anthologies in the space of about five months. It was an exhilarating whirlwind, but it was a lot.
Other challenges included the persnickety-ness of all the individual ebook and print retailers. Each wants files in a slightly different format. No huge differences, but enough that it was time-consuming to get each one just so for each retailer’s in-house needs. So there was a lot of back-and-forth, uploading new files, particularly the covers. Even following their directions to the letter and using the templates they provided got us replies of “Just kidding—do it again this entirely different way.” Tons of fun.
There were also some unique challenges due to the unusual typesetting needs of certain stories in various showcase volumes. We had a wonderful new interior template designed for the series by Laurie McGregor at Page Turn—very clean and modern. That really helped in getting everything laid out the right way for those stories that needed special formatting to correspond with the authors’ vision of the text.
M. L. Clark really did amazing work wrangling InDesign to get everything laid out in our template for both print and ebook formats for each volume. I am completely indebted to them in that regard, as I am utterly hopeless with anything more than the most basic typesetting of simple paragraphs.
What did you find most rewarding, or meaningful, about the whole experience?
Well, it’s always rewarding to have a finished book in your hands. That never gets old.
It was also wonderful to get more of an insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of SFWA. I’ve never volunteered for the organization before, and I’ve only ever lurked on the chat boards. (I can’t keep up with the Discord, I’m afraid.) So, there were a lot of internal processes and volunteers I was previously unfamiliar with. It was really inspiring to see all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the organization up and running.
It was also great to interact with the authors who are included in the Showcase anthology. Some of them I’d met or interacted with online previously, but it was a real treat to get to know them a little better, even if only via email. Everyone was very encouraging and seemed really excited about the Nebula Showcase anthologies coming back after their unexpected hiatus.
It goes without saying that the anthologies can’t include entire novels—or all nominated novellas. They would be gargantuan! But it seems like excerpts might solve the problem. What was the reasoning when SFWA decided not to include excerpts in the novel category? And in the novella category, why only include an excerpt of the winner?
Yes, in our new format, we’ve elected to focus on publishing full stories and fewer excerpts or original essays. Reaction to so many excerpts of longer works in previous volumes was mixed. If you don’t believe me, you can go check out some of the reviews online.
Longer works like novels were meant to be experienced in full and not in part, so I can understand how some readers might feel frustrated to only get a section of a work. So, in the Showcase series going forward, you’ll be able to read the full short story and novelette winners and finalists. There will also be descriptions of winners and finalists in other categories, like the Best Novel, Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and Game Writing. Hopefully, that will intrigue readers enough to seek out those works in full.
One exception to this “no more excerpts” switch is in the Novella category. We’re living in a golden age of science fiction and fantasy novellas. Ironically, however, for the purposes of the Nebula Awards Showcase, this golden age poses certain problems. Unlike in years past, when we could have reprinted full novellas (published as they mostly were in SFF magazines where reprint rights would be available), many of today’s novellas are published as standalone books. As a result, reprint rights to the full work are simply not available.
So, in recognition of the novella’s special place as a mid-point between short fiction and novels, we have elected to offer an excerpt of the winning novella alongside descriptions of the finalists in that category, in hopes that the excerpt and the descriptions will whet readers’ appetites for the complete stories.
As with all things Nebula, this new format is a stage in the ever-evolving presentation of the awards. We may tweak it or adjust it or toss it out in years to come. We’ll have to see how it is received. But for now, we mostly hope people enjoy the books.
Were there particular stories that really stood out for you personally in the issues you worked on?
Haha—yes. But I’ll never tell. As the series editor, I should probably appear as neutral as possible.
Thank you, Stephen, for sharing your perspective and for your work in guiding the Showcase series forward.
Recent Nebula Award Showcase volumes are available on a wide variety of retail sites. Next year’s volume will be available for preorder shortly before the annual Nebula Award ceremony takes place.
Explore more articles from SFWA Presents: Get to Know…
Award-winning author Stephen Kotowych has been hailed as one of speculative fiction’s “talented up-and-comers” by Publishers Weekly, and as the author of “gloriously wild ideas” by Locus. He is a World Fantasy Award finalist and winner of Canada’s Aurora Award, Spain’s Premi Ictineu, and the Writers of the Future Grand Prize.
His stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and have been translated into a dozen languages. In addition to serving as the series editor for the Nebula Award Showcase, he is the series editor and publisher of the Aurora Award-winning Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction series.
The post SFWA Presents: Get to Know…Our Showcase Series appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
adoreI read the similarities documents and I cried. I have encountered ruthless, mercenary people in the book business, but this is on another level of evil. My thoughts are under a cut, since I am neither concise nor polite.
( Read more... )
Katy Waldman didn't say, in her New Yorker article, whether (after reading both books) she thought that Lynne Freeman's book had been stolen by them. Journalists can't put their personal opinion in as much, etc. But she later appeared on a podcast episode of the Write About Now podcast. And when the host asked her, she said that in her personal opinion, it was theft.
The way she describes Lynne's novel in her New Yorker piece rends my heart further.
Freeman’s manuscript is quieter, more internal. Unlike Wolff, she always knew that fantasy was her genre. She’d immersed herself in Tolkien growing up, and she used to imagine that the people walking around Anchorage were deer shifters or veela, long-haired maidens who called down storms from the sky. She wanted her novel to be as awash in mysterious possibility as her adolescence had been. Her book’s posture toward the natural world is one of respectful awe; reading it, you sense a deeply ingrained isolation.
[...]
Wolff’s story is sassy, fun, commercial, and hot. Freeman’s is raw, ruminative, interior, and possibly unsalable, given the murky volatility of the family dynamics and the protagonist’s wariness, bordering on hostility, toward other women. What is strange and spiky in one is palatable and familiar in the other. Freeman strews esoteric asides about Egyptian mythology, Captain Cook, and the passage of Celtic artifacts from New Zealand to Alaska, which have no counterpart in the “Crave” series. (Instead, there are the singer-songwriter Niall Horan, Restoration Hardware catalogues, “Final Destination.”) The mysticism that pervades “Blue Moon Rising” is muted in Wolff’s novels. The sense of phantasmagoria and unreality is gone.
In the podcast episode, Katy allowed herself to say more.
The way that the Crave novels got produced, like in a couple of months, like that felt very kind of sinister and also stupid. And I wish I had like a better critical language in which to say it, but like reading the Crave novels, they're not good books. They're not well written. They're not well thought through, and they're mean-spirited. And I just didn't find much to recommend them. I could see why people would buy them because they sort of scratch a certain itch in some ways[...] and it was very striking to me that like, if Lynne Freeman and Tracy Wolff had written the same story-ish, the same sort of blueprint of a story, one was a very kind of personal inward-looking creation, and the other was kind of commercialised slop. And that sounds like pretty vicious, but I really did leave the piece with a lot of dismay about the types of kind of book-flavoured products that some of these publishing companies are putting out.
The way she described Blue Moon Rising makes me wish I could read it. And when she described it as strange and possibly unsalable, I felt that. Because I tried for a few years to sell my debut novel (DW link) as YA, and it didn't sell. It sold as a literary-leaning coming-of-age fantasy, to a small press publishing lit fic and weird books. It's a book that's very personal to me. I wrote it to escape to this imaginary world, to make it vivid to myself, and it was, and it was also filtered through this fevered, obsessive protagonist who was on a journey similar to mine... when I imagine what happened to Lynne happening to me, I think it's unbearable.
How can one writer do this to another? How can an agent, an editor, people who live and breathe books do this to a writer? What the actual fuck?
