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Lauren Beukes

@laurenbeukes.com
9.9K followers 221 following 1.2K posts

Novelist, scriptwriter, imaginative futurist, recovering journalist. Winner of the Arthur C Clarke and the University of Johannesburg Prize. Author of The Shining Girls (now on Apple TV), Zoo City and Bridge.

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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
Hole! is the funniest and most heartfelt musical comedy about the apocalypse, cults, and butt plugs. (Totally a genre of musical) www.edfringe.com/tickets/what... Finally, fellow South African and sweetest magician Stuart Lightbody blows my mind every time. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
And shows I'd highly recommend that I've seen before: Cinemadrome: clowning, trashdrag, millennial lesbian angst & heartache. (This was the best thing I saw at last year's Fringe and I saw it again at Soho Theatre two months ago where Cabbage took my 17 year old daughter as her teenage bride)
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
Similar vein immersive horror comedy: I had a blast being in the studio audience for Grubby Mitt's Late Night 70s Game Show, a work in progress that felt fully realised, with more sinister shenanigans beneath the surface, along with the horror of the UK in the 70s. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
5/? Ed Fringe faves: Jill's Tupperware Party is a ridiculously fun immersive horror comedy at an annual convention to crown the best tupperware salesper-, uh, salesJill. But pop those airtight lids and you'll find something very sinister... (coming to London too) www.coralbevan.com/jills-tupper...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
4/? My Edinburgh Fringe faves: Alone, a taut two-hander from New Zealand, about two astronauts on a doomed mission confronting their choices and their pasts and what it means to be connected. www.alonetheplay.com www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
3/? My EdFringe faves: performance artist Harriet Richardson's powerpoint comedy show, Creep, a true story of batshit bad behaviour (including her own, that led to her hiring a PI with the best name ever and adopting a priest) was a hilarious, squirmy delight www.pleasance.co.uk/event/harrie...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
Creepy Boys: Slugs, which was weird and gross and delightful and ALSO humane and beautiful. Ostensibly about nothing! On purpose! Cos feelings suck! it's goes deep. And gross. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what... Sad I couldn't catch SE Grummett's WIP, Nude Parade. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2026
Saw 25 shows in 4 days at Edinburgh Fringe! My highlights: Sanctuary, trad theatre, debut by Jack Sparrow, already winning awards, about a young gay man taking refuge in the countryside during the HIV/AIDs crisis, which was humane and beautiful and uplifting. www.pleasance.co.uk/event/sanctu... 1/?
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 29/04/2026
Need a little genre tasting platter for your May Day? Catch me and 5 excellent NB and women authors reading at Strong Women Strange Worlds virtual lit event on Friday 1 May, 12pm EDT or 5pm UK. Tickets are free! Click here to get yours-> www.eventbrite.com/e/first-frid...
Text on a purple magical background above photographs of six women / non-binary authors. 
Text reads: "Strong Women Strange Worlds presents First Friday Quick Reads of Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror by Elly Bangs, AL Kaplan, Lauren Beukes, Anne EG Nydam, AY Chao and EDE Bell. May 1, 12 noon EDT. Free on Zoom. Preregister now at StrongWomenStrangeWorlds.weebly.com."
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/03/2026
Hey South Africans, the brilliant writer/director/actor/activist Qondiswa James (who also narrated the new audiobook of Zoo City) is offering theatre mentorships, which you can apply for by 11 March, small stipend paid. www.instagram.com/blqgrl.radikl/. All info in alt. text.
Cape Town Theatre Mentorships. 

Looking to develop your skills on a fresh and edgy theatre production. 
The following mentorships are available: 
1 Technical Intern (Lighting, Sound and Projection)
1 Stage Management Intern
1 Marketing Intern
1 Production Intern
1 Art Design Intern

Looking for any young people, especially newly trained, interested in developing their technical theatre skills! No practical experience necessary, but some knowledge is preferred.

All mentees must be available for full work days from 16 March to 22 March at Magnet Theatre in Observatory and Azande Theatre in Khayelitsha. There will be a small stipend.

Email your CV, a short bio & a letter of motivation (max 1 page) to info@umhambidigital.com by 11 March 2026
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 20/11/2025
lauren beukes in blue hair days in Cape Town stares adoringly at little  calico cat
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 09/11/2025
this is absolute representation of my process:
a funny and accurate bar graph representing the creative process from work starts on one end to deadline on the other. from left to right: a large red band that takes up most of the bar: work begins: “fuck off”. a narrow yellow band marked “panic” and even thinner band marked “all the work while crying.” Deadline
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 09/11/2025
Mamdani poster format reads "which is not inconsistent for any of us going through some shit right now (all of us really) because irreverence and our delight in each other makes the world better and more bearable. We all contain multitudes all at once, all the time. And our art (and our dumb jokes) are the fire we light against the darkness."
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 09/11/2025
Mamdani poster generator with bespoke text that reads "AH, THE INTERNET for holding simultaneous conversations about sillyh writer-y Mamdani memes and also dead moms, sick cats and grief.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 09/11/2025
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 08/11/2025
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 08/11/2025
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 08/11/2025
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 08/11/2025
I was more articulate on FB, with a longer wordcount. Full text in alt. text.
I've found an amazing palliative care vet so she doesn't have to go into hospital again, who is helping me manage her decline and will help me decide when it's time to go, so she doesn't suffer, so she gets to have a good life as long as we can manage. 
I recently heard again the bouncing ball theory of grief, that it's a ball bouncing off the hot button of sadness that could get triggered at any moment by the stupidest thing, and as your life continues, the button gets smaller or the room gets bigger or the ball Pokemons into a more adept form that is better at dodging "here's all the terrible agony of your loss all over again for no good reason" button some inconsiderate psychopath asshole installed in the room. 
Right now, it feels like I'm in that old video game Arkanoid with lots of multiplying buttons with built-in amplifiers that reverb the other griefs, and also they're on fire, and my ball is a clunky idiot that keeps richocheting into them and setting the walls of the room alight. 
Apparently this gets better.  At least I get to choose when my kit can go and fuck knows this is easier to talk about.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 29/10/2025
Esp. this quote: (full text in alt text)
I felt I had chosen the right thing to do, because I found what I was photographing so outrageous that I couldn’t wait to get back to England and see my pictures published, to show the world how wrong it was. When you’re young and ambitious, you haven’t really worked it all out. You’re drawn to this tragedy, but it doesn’t belong to you – you’re imposing yourself upon the situation. You’re not welcome or invited and you’re stealing in a way. You’re stealing other people’s emotional tragedies. You’re stealing images of people, dead, who haven’t given you consent. I was aware it wasn’t totally right, and I believe it to this day. That’s why I come back here and do the English landscape. I feel as if I have to release myself from my guilt, which I still carry."
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 14/10/2025
Got to shout out the novel that scared me the most for The Stylist's round-up of spooky reads by spooky writers: Mariana Enriquez's Our Share of Night. www.stylist.co.uk/books/best-h... (paywalled).
Black and white photograph of novelist Lauren Beukes against a red background, overlaid with the image of the front cover of Mariana Enriquez's Our Share of Night, white type over a dark blue/black cover featuring the image of a midnight-black hand outstretched and clawing at the air with long golden talons, the skin flecked with gold. "Lauren Beukes recommends…

Our Share Of Night by Mariana Enriquez

Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez understands that the real horror is people – and everything we’re capable of and how we justify it to ourselves. Set against the backdrop of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ and its aftermath, Our Share Of Night follows a father and son born with a terrible magical gift who are trying to escape a centuries-old cult that wants to enslave them to The Darkness and their own burgeoning influence. There’s plenty of gruesome imagery I will never, ever get out of my head, inspired by bruja witchcraft and political atrocities, but the bloody heart(break) of the story is the familial relationship and all the frightening and awful ways we fail ourselves and each other. "
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/09/2025
We also did an album launch for the official soundtrack, curated and mixed by African Dope Records, featuring artists like Krushed & Sorted, Dank and Mix n Blend, available on LastFM www.last.fm/music/Variou... and Spotify open.spotify.com/album/11i5Mf... or your music streamer of choice...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/09/2025
... and part science experiment. As you came in the door, you were handed a vial to take for testing at the lab downstairs. If your sample turned out to be "infected", you'd be given a shot of apple sours in an oversized syringe as the cure.
A young Black South African activist with a zealous look in his eye hands out flyers warning about genetically modified police dogs outside the Book Lounge and coincidentally down the road from South Africa's parliament so people mistook him for a real activist and wouldn't take the flyers. The character was played by actor Anelisa Phewa (the voice of Pax Afrika from URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika, which Lauren Beukes was head-writer on). One of the prototype Moxyland monsters among a collection of the books on display. The monster was handmade by a rural women's sewing group, the Montague Sew-and-Sews, with all proceeds of the merch going directly to the women, and based on artist Michelle Son's original design for the cover critter. A young Black South African man with dreadlocks and a goattee in a white lab coat and white gloves with his face mask pulled down arond his chin holds up a syringe with a suspicious greenish liquid to his mouth ready to take his medicine. In reality, Lauren Beukes' brother Thabo Mataboge self-administering the "cure". Beside him is a notice, black text on white beneath a biohazard symbol that reads "You may have been infected. Please report to your nearest Govt Quarantine Centre immediately for a full evaluation and treatment. Rurals without valid passes may be repatriated. The Health Dept cares about you." The white block is overlaid over a yellow background with black stripes marked "notice: quarantine"Two young South African men in white lab coats and white gloves and masks stand beside a yellow medical biohazards disposal tub in the basement of the Book Lounge, against a backdrop of bookshelves. Both were colleagues at Clockwork Zoo, the animation studio where Lauren Beukes worked at the time. The man on the right is author and animation writer/director, Sam Wilson, whose new novel, The First Murder on Mars, is creepily prescient about a broligarch Mars colonizer and his estranged rebel daughter.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/09/2025
It was part book launch, part tie-in album launch with African Dope Records, part immersive experience with fake activists protesting robot dogs outside, segregated entrances for corporates and non-corporates, actor Rob van Vuuren playing a sleazy exec from the Inatec pharmaceuticals...
South African actor Rob van Vuuren on the couner at the Book Lounge bookstore in front of a crowd at the 2008 launch of Moxyland, playing a sleazy pharmaceutical company exec. Bookstore crowd at the 2008 launch of Moxyland at the Book Lounge in Cape Town. Lauren Beukes four months pregnant, black dress, blonde hair, coloured tear drop necklace. 
The "corporate entrance" for the Moxyland book launch with two "greeters" (friends of the author who worked at the same animation studio in Cape Town at the time). The young woman on the left has long curly hair, a red and black spotted top and skull necklace, black jeans and white heels, standing casually in front of the security gate, and her colleague on the right is a young woman with blonde hair in a high ponytail, blue jeans and a black button up shirt with a bespoke Moxyland badge, holding flyers. The greeters warmly welcomed people from a fake guest list or sent them at random to the "non-corporate" entrance round the corner. They also handed guests a vial of liquid to take downstairs for testing.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/09/2025
I'm already feeling dazed that my teen is turning 17 next week so this anniversary shouldn't be a shock. I was about 4 months into new human incubation at the Moxyland launch at the Book Lounge in Cape Town and freaked out the owner, Mervyn, when I climbed onto the counter in high heel boots to read
Author Lauren Beukes, blonde and four months pregnant, in a black dress, standing on the counter to read from her debut novel, Moxyland at The Book Lounge in Cape Town in 2008.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 02/09/2025
Thanks so much, Nathan! I think it's even better. At the very least it was harder to keep track of not just multiple timelines but multiple universes and different iterations of the characters in each of them! (Much more complex than my Shining Girls murder wall: laurenbeukes.com/string-theor...)
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 27/08/2025
Some actual stats on migration from the UK GOV. In 2024: 1 million extensions of stay, 374k EU settlement, 257k citizenship, 163k settlement, 436k study visas, 286k work visas, 71k family visas, 111k asylum seekers, 33k humanitarian www.gov.uk/government/s...
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 17/07/2025
You can absolutely support African literature from afar and good news is that even small amounts of pounds or dollars or Euro or yen or [insert forex currency of choice] go a LONG way in Rands. So if you have even ten bucks to spare, please consider!
Writers on stage at the Open Book Festival A woman presenting at the Open Book Festival. She's wearing a blue dress, a kids book on the white board beside her. A huge black and white photograph behind her. A small audience of teens is watching, including one with a cheeky grin turning to take a photo of the photographer on their cell phone. Readers browsing books for sale at the Open Book Festival. A woman in an amazing crocheted outfit is in the foreground.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 17/07/2025
My favourite book festival in all the world, Open Book in Cape Town, has fallen foul of funding shortages. If you love African lit, and want to support a vital and electric and critically important festival that highlights African writers, please donate here: booklounge.co.za/product/open...
Image shows two Black women writers laughing and chatting in bright pink outfits on stage at the Open Book Festival in Cape TownImage shows a Black woman storyteller in a t-shirt and peach coloured trousers, kneeling and animatedly reading a kids book to kids and parents at The Book Lounge (the beloved indie bookstore that runs Open Book Festival)Image shows a young Black woman with a natural afro and glasses in a black top and black and white geometric print pinafore, smiling and talking into a microphone in the audience at the Open Book Festival. Out of focus behind her on the left is a young Black man with a lanyard and a film camera. On the right, an older White woman with a red scarf is laughing in delight.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 10/06/2025
You guys! The Genre for Trans Rights 2 auction raised £10 840 for our UK & SA charities, GenderedIntelligence.co.uk 🇬🇧 and GenderDynamiX.org.za 🇿🇦. Thank you SO DAMN MUCH to everyone who donated amazing things and everyone who bought them. The total across both auctions is over £30k! 🏳️‍⚧️💙
Screengrab from Genre for Trans Rights Auction 2 admin page. Text reads Start: 02 May 2025, 11.45PM BST. End: 07 June 2025, 01.00AM BST. RAISED: £10840.69Black sci-fi-ish text reads: Genre Creators for Trans Rights in the UK & SA over a trans flag. Screengrab from Genre for Trans Rights Auction 1 admin page. Text reads Start: 21 April 11.45 AM BST. End: 02 May 2025 At Midnight BST. RAISED: £20619.73
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Saving the best for last: Get a character named for you in new works by @patricknessbooks.bsky.social @clacksee.bsky.social @julietemckenna.bsky.social @jamesmoran.com @wiswell.bsky.social @richardkadrey.bsky.social and @maryrobinettekowal.com www.32auctions.com/organization...
screengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisationscreengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisationscreengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisationscreengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisation
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Tickets to live RPG events from Curious Pastimes, Modern Mythic LARP & Profund Decisions www.32auctions.com/organization..., Starburst albums and subscription www.32auctions.com/organization..., an Eastercon glass www.32auctions.com/organization... (who helped make this auction possible)
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Decorative things: including a framed Tiptree donated by Geoff Ryman, a signed hand-written version of @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social's "Jesus at the Gay Bar", maps, an art nouveau dwarf, custom chibi, embroidered flora, and a hand-turned wooden pyrograph fountain pen. www.32auctions.com/organization...
Hand embroidered flower Listing for Jackie Ducksworth's Night Warrior print, featuring a blue and grey and black warrior on horseback, and a signed & handwritten poem, "Jesus at the Gay Bar" by poet Jay Hulme.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Also many hand-crafted things, from folk horror stickers by @hackashic.bsky.social to a Gideon the 9th hat, a trans butterfly, linocut patches, chibi original art, custom dice, a whole crocheted catalogue of toys, scarves, bespoke beasts by @ngjeannette.bsky.social www.32auctions.com/organization...
screengrab of hand-crafted items from Genre for Trans charity auction including octopi, an axolotl, dinosaur puzzle toys, custom dice, hand-knitted socks, a dragon toddler hooded blanket and folk horror stickersA collection of folk horror stickers by Hackashic art, including a fish-headed person prancing, a devil who looks like he swallowed a ghost pepper, a weird bat with wrap around wings, a startled hare with a saddle, a dancing owl-headed figure, a seed pod with shapely dangling legs, a bird and a ram's head. Gideon the Ninth crocheted hat Award-winning Author and crafty crochet-er, Jeannette Ng, with dark hair, middle parting, black glasses, giving a cute side eye, wearing a silky mustard yellow shirt, with a bespoke crocheted beasts resting atop their head - a pink and purple whale with winged fins. Bakground has a collection of books, interesting paintings.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
SO many signed books! bit.ly/genrefortrans Tagging ppl I know @joe-hill.bsky.social, @starkholborn.bsky.social @older.bsky.social @drkatedevlin.bsky.social @kashinggiwa.bsky.social @nnedi.bsky.social @rebeccafraimow.bsky.social @karisperring.bsky.social @ianthegreen.bsky.social @cjtudor.bsky.social
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
So many awesome signed books by authors in care and solidarity for trans rights! From @joannechocolat.bsky.social, @lrlam.bsky.social @nmjcoveney.bsky.social, @maryrobinettekowal.com @stinaleicht.bsky.social @tanyahuff.bsky.social @jamesmoran.com @tjalexandernyc.bsky.social... bit.ly/genrefortrans
Signed 1st edition of Chocolat by Joanne Harris, blue book with a nest with gold eggs atop a desk with an old telephone. screengrab of books from charity auction, Dragonfall and Emberclaw by LR Lam and Everything Not Saved by NMJ CoveneyBooks featured on the Genre for Trans Rights charity auction by Mary Robinette Kowal, Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Sylvie Cathrall, Kari Maund
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
...Original pencilled page from Survivors Club, the Vertigo horror comic I co-created with Dale Halvorsen & artist Ryan Kelly, signed by Ryan. It's in a white box frame, and comes with a copy of the graphic novel. Colour page for reference, the illustration is b&w www.32auctions.com/organization...
Image shows a pencilled page from Survivors Club issue 6 page 19, illustrated and signed by Ryan Kelly in a white box frame. The page shows the sequence where Chenzira entering a haunted video games arcade. Resting on top of the frame is a copy of the Survivors Club graphic novel by Lauren Beukes, Dale Halvorsen, Ryan Kelly & Eva dela Cruz atop it, with bloody red cover and characters arranged around a warehouse room. Page from Survivor's Club issue 6, page 19 in full colour (this is not the item on sale, but the final version as featured in the printed comic). Sequence shows Chenzira walking past punters playing video games in a haunted arcade, and pushing through a door, a look of grim resolution on her face, natty dreads and leather jacket. Close up of the pencilled page from Survivors Club issue 6 page 19, signed by artist Ryan Kelly. The sequence on the page shows protagonist Chenzira, natty dreads and leather jacket stalking through a haunted arcade where punters are trapped playing a hellish game, to burst through the doors and confront the demonic brogrammers. In a white box frame.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
More comics collectibles: Graphic novel adaptation of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lionness, signed by @definitelyvita.bsky.social, www.32auctions.com/organization... Wonder Woman Historia signed by @geneha.com www.32auctions.com/organization...
Cover of graphic novel adaptation of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lionness book 1 featuring a scamp of a red-head on a light coloured horse against a fantasy city backdrop. In the bottom corners, left, a  sharp-featured man with dark blue hair and a crafty look stares  into a glowing ball, on the right, another man with reddish-purple hair and a blue shirt stares up with a raffish grin, gold coins suspended above him as if he's flipped them into the air or they're raining down. The cover of Wonder Woman Historia featuring a woman with a sword, dark furs and bloody face paint holding a small child. Around her are various female warriors from an assortment of cultures, in different armour, and a witchy person in the bottom left corner. Behind her are two malevolent looking eyes, glowing green with arched eyebrows and lime green eye shadow on hooded lids.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
A mega thread highlighting some awesome things: First up, a new addition, and criminally cheap right now. Out of print hardbacks of The Wicked + The Divine vol 3 + 4 signed by @mckelvie.bsky.social + @kierongillen.bsky.social www.32auctions.com/organization... www.32auctions.com/organization...
Cover of the Wicked & The Divine Volume 3. A black book cover with an orangey-gold circle of icons representing the deities arranged around the  title, including a sun, a star, a panther, an owl, a skull, a mask, a ram's head, a tree. Creators names at the top, the number 3 below.  Screengrab from bit.ly/genrefortrans charity auction of the lots for Wicked + Divine vol 3 and vol 4, showing the hardcovers and the signed page.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Bid on excellent things here before 1am BST -> www.32auctions.com/genrefortrans. All proceeds go to trans rights organizations doing amazing work on the ground: GenderedIntelligence.co.uk 🇬🇧 and GenderDynamiX.org.za🇿🇦. This is the 2nd Genre for Trans Rights auction after the first raised £20k!
Website screengrab from GenderedIntelligence.co.uk. Text on curvy blue, yellow and orange background. Screengrab from GenderDynamix.org.za. Logo and trans flags with links to "wall of resilience", "wall of remembrance" and "donate" above a photograph of a diverse and gorgeous mix South African trans people standing on a beach with the ocean and distance mountains in the background, probably somewhere in Cape Town or surrounds.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 06/06/2025
Only 12 HOURS LEFT to bid on 122 amazing things at the Genre for Trans Rights charity 🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇧🇿🇦 auction! Bidding closes 1am BST 7 June. Books, art, comics, tuckerizations (character named for you) from brilliant authors, handmade things, live RPG tickets, a bespoke cocktail, stories, poetry, tarot & more!
Digital countdown clock with a pink and blue border reads 12:00
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 05/06/2025
I did! Well, a short, with art by the brilliant @mikemaihack.com! laurenbeukes.com/wonder-woman.... It's in Sensation 22, available here: www.amazon.co.uk/Sensation-Co...
Page from The Trouble with Cats, a Wonder Woman comic short written by Lauren Beukes, art by Mike Maihack. The top three panels show two sisters in contemporary Soweto, South Africa, playing superheroes. The bottom panel shows Wonder Woman going gleefully into battle with her arch-nemesis, The Cheetah. 
Cover of Sensation Comics 22 featuring Wonder Woman, illustration of Wonder Woman with The Cheetah, Medusa and Circe the sorceress entangled in the lasso of truth from Lauren Beukes and Mike Maihack's story, "The Trouble with Cats".
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 05/06/2025
It's my birthday! 🎂 To celebrate, can I invite you to check out the charity auction for trans rights that @ngjeannette.bsky.social and I are running with verrrry covetable donations by brilliant genre creators, ending 1am BST 7 June. bit.ly/genrefortrans
Wicked and the Divine vol 3 hardback with signed page 
Wonder Woman Historia cover Cover for The Imposition of Unneccessary Objects by Malka Older
Cover of King Sorrow by Joe Hill
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 03/06/2025
Hey Londoners, if you're around Shoreditch tonight I'm interviewing Neil DA Stewart about his dark jewel of a novel, Test Kitchen. Gorgeous, surreal literary fic with a foam dash of supernatural thriller, about the ill-fated last night of a Michelin star restaurant.
Cover of the test kitchen novel of an eyeball on a spoon with edible flowers against neon green background
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 02/06/2025
Last 5 days of the Genre for Trans Rights charity auction, featuring the likes of: a first ed. galley of Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, signed & decorated books, art, comics, a bespoke cocktail, handmade delights various, and the chance to get a character named for you bit.ly/genrefortrans!
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 22/05/2025
This is so cool! The BookDash kids' book I wrote with art by Anja Venter has been translated into 22 languages and made freely* available by Dubai high school kids and sisters, Aadya & Anjani Srivastava. (*Under a Creative Commons licence for exactly this reason) kidsforreading.com/And-also.html
Cover of BookDash.org kids book  And Also! by artist Anja Venter, designer Nkosingiphile Mazibuko and writer Lauren Beukes. The cover shows a young boy with a cool haircut looking up in wonder or scepticism or a mix of both, while his little sister with space buns and wearing a school uniform jumps joyfully against a purple background with stars.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 22/05/2025
My screengrab from the TLS German visa centre in the UK. Literally zero appointments available at any time. Not a glitch. We phoned and were advised to just keep refreshing the page every day and maybe an appointment would come up. Reader, it did not.
Screengrab from TLS Contact for German visa appointments. The part that would usually show a calendar where you could click on available days is entirely blank.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 22/05/2025
I wrote about the absurdity of borders and how visa applications are prejudiced against Africans in particular, and what that costs us in opportunities or advancing important work (like the Montreal HIV conference in 2022 where many African delegates didn't get visas) mailchi.mp/a68c1f6dab64...
A handsome marmalade cat with an Errol Flynn mustache on a botanical duvet extends one unimpressed paw over a raft of paperwork, blurred out because of sensitive data. A screengrab from Lauren Beukes's newsletter. Header reads: Brain Worms from Lauren Beukes, subtitle: a newsletter about writing life things. The headline is "Passport Privilege and the Stupidity of Borders." Body text: "I’m in the dreadest of dread admin right now: the Schengen visa application process. If you know then you also have a crap passport.  https://mailchi.mp/a68c1f6dab64/passport-privilege-and-the-stupidity-of-borders?e=11ba12a7e9



Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have passport privilege and have never had to submit an overwhelming amount of deeply personal paperwork and biometrics that stops just short of a DNA test and signing over the souls of your unborn children. Screengrab from Lauren Beukes's newsletter. Images mid-way down the page show on left, the head of a neon green snake, the very venomous Green Mamba, indigenous to South Africa, and on right, a green South African passport.  Caption reads "These things are the same."
  
Body text reads: "The South African passport is affectionately known as “the green mamba” both for its viridescent colour and the way it can bite you on the ass like a snake when it comes to applying for a visa to visit almost anywhere. 

Of course, I know I’m already incredibly privileged to be able to travel at all, to have an international career, to be able to afford plane fares and visa fees. I also know I (unjustly, unofficially) have an easier time of it as a white South African than my Black and Brown countryfolk or people from other African countries."
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 22/05/2025
I've just applied for a new Schengen, £65 worth of printing alone, plus visa application fee, plus extras like taking a photograph there, courier fee back. There was not a single visa appt available for Germany, Spain, Italy or France. Luckily I have business in Denmark, who DID have slots.
A blurred thumb paging through a thick riffle of paper, £65 worth of printing for a standard Schengen visa application including certified bank accounts, letters of invitation, hotel bookings, flights, travel insurance and a photocopy of every single page of my current passport and my previous passport.
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Lauren Beukes @laurenbeukes.com · 21/05/2025
Genre for Trans Rights 2 is currently on £7220, which is modest, but we're only half way through and I suspect bidding will heat up a lot in the last days (ends June 7th 1am BST) and still also include affordable amazing things.
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