aliyahmk
writer & lover of Black queer horror • none of us are free until all of us are free 🇵🇸🇸🇩🇨🇩 • sydney, aus
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1d
Crudo
Olivia Laing
A brilliant, funny, and emphatically raw novel of love on the brink of the apocalypse, from the acclaimed author of The Lonely City.
"She had no idea what to do with love, she experienced it as invasion, as the prelude to loss and pain, she really didn’t have a clue."
Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It’s the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart. Fast-paced and frantic, Crudo unfolds in real time from the full-throttle perspective of a commitment-phobic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker.
From a Tuscan hotel for the superrich to a Brexit-paralyzed United Kingdom, Kathy spends the first summer of her forties adjusting to the idea of a lifelong commitment. But it’s not only Kathy who’s changing. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is heating up, and Trump is tweeting the world ever-closer to nuclear war. How do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all?
In Crudo, her first work of fiction, Olivia Laing radically rewires the novel with a fierce, compassionate account of learning to love when the end of the world seems near.
3
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1d
Monstrous Feminine Resources — August 2026
Hi folks! As mentioned a while back, I’ll be jumping in here every month or two to highlight resources and opportunities for those who want to read/write more on the Monstrous Feminine.
Here’s what I’ve got for the moment.
SEED TALKS (online talks, often available to be viewed on demand)*:
- The History of Witchcraft & Women: Magic, rituals & the patriarchy - 25th August, 7pm BST
- The Real History of Witchcraft Course - 30th August, 5pm AEST or 8am BST
- The Female History of Fairy Tales - 9th September, 7pm BST
- Gothic Literature & Women: The female history of horror - 20th September, 5pm ET or 10pm BST OR 21st September, 7am AEST
- The History of Greek Mythology & Women - 28th September, 7pm BST
- Witchcraft, Women & Power: The Untold Story of Irish Magic - 6th October, 6.30pm BST
- Gothic Literature & Women: The female history of horror - 11th October, 5pm AEDT or 7am BST
- The Banshee in Irish Folklore: Folklore, history, gender and belief - 20th October, 7pm BST
*NOTE: I’m just using the timezones provided here which advertise for UK, AU/NZ and US audiences, but I believe these talks are accessible elsewhere.
NEW RELEASES:
- The Brides by Charlotte Cross - Before Dracula, there were The Brides. . .
- A Fate Worse than Drowning by Sarah L. Hawthorn - One deal with the devil makes a fool. Two? A villain...
- The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley - * A savage, hypnotic dive into the lives and deaths of a coven of vampires living in 19th Century Paris*
WRITING OPPORTUNITIES:
- $3000 Strange Pilgrims Prize - closes 31st August. Strange Pilgrims loves ‘urreal, speculative, and fabulist stories; unhinged, lyric, and fragmented essays; voice-driven experimental narratives and slow-burn realism’ and have published more than a few stories that align with the Monstrous Feminine - including my own!
- Black Warrior Review General Submissions - closes September 1. BWR wants stories ‘that reject reality in favor of the surreal, pieces which embrace the mystical and the mythical, the spectacular and the magical’ and poems that ‘explore the history of things and place, poems that interrogate the personal and how the colonial and postcolonial histories are embedded in the body, the tongue, the tree, the cushion, the roof, and the land and by history, what has changed through this history and what is their influence in the present’. For non-fiction, they want ‘your speculation, your “maybe”s, your “absolutely”s, your “never”s, and we want them all with a grain of salt.’
The following literary magazines are currently closed but frequently publishes monstrous writing:
- The Rumpus’ Sunday Scaries
- Sans. PRESS
- Banshee
- Bloodletter Magazine (specifically publishes ‘perspectives on the horrific by women, trans, and non-binary writers’)
- Fairy Tale Review
Note that these are a few opportunities of many, but I’ve prioritised including magazines that align the most with the Monstrous Feminine. I’ll also be guest editing an issue of a literary magazine with a focus on the Monstrous Feminine opening for submissions in early 2027, so if you’re interested in submitting something but you don’t know what, here’s your exclusive tap on the shoulder to get writing!
Hope some of these resources have been of use to at least someone! Stay filthy!
72
18Reply
Post from the The Monstrous Feminine forum
2d
Monstrous Feminine Resources — August 2026
Hi folks! As mentioned a while back, I’ll be jumping in here every month or two to highlight resources and opportunities for those who want to read/write more on the Monstrous Feminine.
Here’s what I’ve got for the moment.
SEED TALKS (online talks, often available to be viewed on demand)*:
- The History of Witchcraft & Women: Magic, rituals & the patriarchy - 25th August, 7pm BST
- The Real History of Witchcraft Course - 30th August, 5pm AEST or 8am BST
- The Female History of Fairy Tales - 9th September, 7pm BST
- Gothic Literature & Women: The female history of horror - 20th September, 5pm ET or 10pm BST OR 21st September, 7am AEST
- The History of Greek Mythology & Women - 28th September, 7pm BST
- Witchcraft, Women & Power: The Untold Story of Irish Magic - 6th October, 6.30pm BST
- Gothic Literature & Women: The female history of horror - 11th October, 5pm AEDT or 7am BST
- The Banshee in Irish Folklore: Folklore, history, gender and belief - 20th October, 7pm BST
*NOTE: I’m just using the timezones provided here which advertise for UK, AU/NZ and US audiences, but I believe these talks are accessible elsewhere.
NEW RELEASES:
- The Brides by Charlotte Cross - Before Dracula, there were The Brides. . .
- A Fate Worse than Drowning by Sarah L. Hawthorn - One deal with the devil makes a fool. Two? A villain...
- The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley - * A savage, hypnotic dive into the lives and deaths of a coven of vampires living in 19th Century Paris*
WRITING OPPORTUNITIES:
- $3000 Strange Pilgrims Prize - closes 31st August. Strange Pilgrims loves ‘urreal, speculative, and fabulist stories; unhinged, lyric, and fragmented essays; voice-driven experimental narratives and slow-burn realism’ and have published more than a few stories that align with the Monstrous Feminine - including my own!
- Black Warrior Review General Submissions - closes September 1. BWR wants stories ‘that reject reality in favor of the surreal, pieces which embrace the mystical and the mythical, the spectacular and the magical’ and poems that ‘explore the history of things and place, poems that interrogate the personal and how the colonial and postcolonial histories are embedded in the body, the tongue, the tree, the cushion, the roof, and the land and by history, what has changed through this history and what is their influence in the present’. For non-fiction, they want ‘your speculation, your “maybe”s, your “absolutely”s, your “never”s, and we want them all with a grain of salt.’
The following literary magazines are currently closed but frequently publishes monstrous writing:
- The Rumpus’ Sunday Scaries
- Sans. PRESS
- Banshee
- Bloodletter Magazine (specifically publishes ‘perspectives on the horrific by women, trans, and non-binary writers’)
- Fairy Tale Review
Note that these are a few opportunities of many, but I’ve prioritised including magazines that align the most with the Monstrous Feminine. I’ll also be guest editing an issue of a literary magazine with a focus on the Monstrous Feminine opening for submissions in early 2027, so if you’re interested in submitting something but you don’t know what, here’s your exclusive tap on the shoulder to get writing!
Hope some of these resources have been of use to at least someone! Stay filthy!
72
18Reply
aliyahmk is interested in reading...
2d
Carpentaria
Alexis Wright
Hailed as a "literary sensation" by The New York Times Book Review, Carpentaria is the luminous award-winning novel by Australian Aboriginal writer and activist Alexis Wright.
Alexis Wright employs mysticism, stark reality, and pointed imagination to re-create the land and the Aboriginal people of Carpentaria.
In the sparsely populated northern Queensland town of Desperance, loyalties run deep and battle lines have been drawn between the powerful Phantom family, leaders of the Westend Pricklebush people, and Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob, and their disputes with the white officials of neighboring towns. Steeped in myth and magical realism, Wright's hypnotic storytelling exposes the heartbreaking realities of Aboriginal life.
By turns operatic and everyday, surreal and sensational, the novel teems with extraordinary, larger-than-life characters. From the outcast savior Elias Smith, religious zealot Mossie Fishman, and murderous mayor Bruiser to activist Will Phantom and Normal Phantom, ruler of the family, these unforgettable characters transcend their circumstances and challenge assumptions about the downtrodden "other." Trapped between politics and principle, past and present, the indigenous tribes fight to protect their natural resources, sacred sites, and above all, their people.
Already an international bestseller, Carpentaria has garnered praise from around the world.
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
6d
The Accidental
Ali Smith
Winner of the Whitbread Award for best novel and a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, The Accidental is the virtuoso new novel by the singularly gifted Ali Smith. Jonathan Safran Foer has called her writing “thrilling.” Jeanette Winterson has praised her for her “style, ideas, and punch.” Here, in a novel at once profound, playful, and exhilaratingly inventive, she transfixes us with a portrait of a family unraveled by a mysterious visitor.
Amber—thirtysomething and barefoot—shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner.
Eve Smart, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband, Michael, is sleeping. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down. Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks she’s her mother’s friend. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks she’s an angel.
As Amber insinuates herself into the family, the questions of who she is and how she’s come to be there drop away. Instead, dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of Amber’s perceptions. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not—they discover when they return home to London—from their profoundly altered lives.
Fearlessly intelligent and written with an irresistible blend of lyricism and whimsy, The Accidental is a tour de force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.
9
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
6d
The Tunnel
William H. Gass
Thirty years in the making, William Gass's second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus. The Tunnel meditates on history, hatred, unhappiness, and, above all, language.
8
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
6d
Scoop
Evelyn Waugh
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the century, Scoop is a "thoroughly enjoyable, uproariously funny" satire of the journalism business (New York Times). Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. So begins Scoop, Waugh's exuberant comedy of mistaken identity and brilliantly irreverent satire of the hectic pursuit of hot news.
5
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
6d
The Wall
John Lanchester
Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall―an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will result in death or a fate perhaps worse: being put to sea and made an Other himself. Beset by cold, loneliness, and fear, Kavanagh tries to fulfill his duties to his demanding Captain and Sergeant, even as he grows closer to his fellow Defenders. A dark part of him wonders whether it would be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if he had to fight for his life.
5
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
6d
Sisters
Daisy Johnson
A New York Times Notable Book (2020) from a Booker Prize finalist and international literary star: a blazing portrait of one darkly riveting sibling relationship, from the inside out..
Now she returns with Sisters, a haunting story about two sisters caught in a powerful emotional web and wrestling to understand where one ends and the other begins.
Born just ten months apart, July and September are thick as thieves, never needing anyone but each other. Now, following a case of school bullying, the teens have moved away with their single mother to a long-abandoned family home near the shore. In their new, isolated life, July finds that the deep bond she has always shared with September is shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand. A creeping sense of dread and unease descends inside the house. Meanwhile, outside, the sisters push boundaries of behavior—until a series of shocking encounters tests the limits of their shared experience, and forces shocking revelations about the girls’ past and future.
Sisters is a one-two punch of wild fury and heartache—a taut, powerful, and deeply moving account of sibling love and what happens when two sisters must face each other’s darkest impulses.
3
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
1w
The Island of Dr. Moreau
H.G. Wells
Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.
Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.
While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.
7
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
1w
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
D.H. Lawrence
Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.
7
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
1w
Morvern Callar (Morvern Callar Cycle, #1)
Alan Warner
An utterly unforgettable novel that portrays a vast internal emptiness by using the cool, haunting voice of a young woman in Scotland lost in the profound anomie of her generation—from “one of the most talented, original and interesting voices around” (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting ).
Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket in a desolate and beautiful port town in the west of Scotland, wakes one morning in late December to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on the kitchen floor. Morvern's reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even more appalling. Moving across a blurred European landscape—from rural poverty and drunken mayhem of the port to the Mediterranean rave scene—we experience everything from Morvern's stark, unflinching perspective.
Morvern is utterly hypnotizing from her very first sentence to her last. She rarely goes anywhere without the Walkman left behind as a Christmas present by her dead boyfriend, and as she narrates this strange story, she takes care to tell the reader exactly what music she is listening to, giving the stunning effect of a sound track running behind her voice.
In much the same way that Patrick McCabe managed to tell an incredibly rich and haunting story through the eyes of an emotionally disturbed boy in The Butcher Boy , Alan Warner's Morvern Caller is a brilliant creation.
5
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aliyahmk TBR'd a book
1w
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
7
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aliyahmk TBR'd a book
1w
O Caledonia
Elspeth Barker
In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet.
Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…
Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family’s motto—Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)—is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.
5
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
1w
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner
Published in 1936, Absalom, Absalom! is considered by many to be William Faulkner's masterpiece. Although the novel's complex and fragmented structure poses considerable difficulty to readers, the book's literary merits place it squarely in the ranks of America's finest novels. The story concerns Thomas Sutpen, a poor man who finds wealth and then marries into a respectable family. His ambition and extreme need for control bring about his ruin and the ruin of his family. Sutpen's story is told by several narrators, allowing the reader to observe variations in the saga as it is recounted by different speakers. This unusual technique spotlights one of the novel's central questions: To what extent can people know the truth about the past?
6
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aliyahmk is interested in reading...
1w
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
4
0Reply
Post from the The Monstrous Feminine forum
1w
aliyahmk
Edited
ANNOUNCEMENT — sept 1 - nov 30 2026 unofficial readalong — WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE
hi folks! excited to announce that our inaugural unofficial readalong will be shirley jackson’s WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE. i’m currently reading another of jackson’s works (the sundial, which i can’t recommend enough), and i’m so excited to get to discuss such a formative, influential and inimitable voice in horror.
i think that we have always lived in the castle will be a great read for horror readers both old and new, so if you’ve been eying up the quest but haven’t yet committed, now’s a great time to jump in. as this is a very popular text, it should be rather accessible at libraries and i’m sure there are a fair few used copies floating around if people are looking for affordable copies to purchase. but also, i’ll be running the read-along on a ‘read at your own pace’ basis, with both spoiler-free and spoiler-friendly discussion threads, so don’t fret if you won’t be able to access a copy until later in the readalong.
the unofficial readalong will run from the beginning of september to the end of november. as we get closer to the date, i’ll start posting resources and discussion threads.
hope you’re all as keen as i am! stay filthy 🕷️
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