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Matthew Cheney

@melikhovo.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.1K following 1.9K posts

Writer, teacher, person in New Hampshire Books from Black Lawrence, Bloomsbury Academic, punctum, Third Man, Lethe. Horror fiction, modernism, pedagogy, Open Access, general weirdness... matthewcheney.net

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🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈 @haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 8h
Oh neat, so the U.S. copyright office is feeding submitted books to the slop machine to test their authenticity, and as always it decides "yes, this is my slop" even when it isn't, because the slop machine is an incestuous ouroboros with itself. Glad it was resolved in this case but fuckin yikes
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Michael Cisco @michaelcisco.bsky.social · 9h
a skeleton farming a pumpkin patch at night
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 10h
The approved 2026 Chicago Public Library (CPL) total budget request is $169,257,813, which includes an operating budget of $103,966,346. [Just thought I would leave this here]
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 9h
It's Clive Barker's birthday! Here's something I wrote this summer about his early stories (and those of the great Joel Lane): reactormag.com/poetry-from-...
reactormag.com
Poetry From the Plague Pit: The Early Stories of Clive Barker and Joel Lane - Reactor
At the height of Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis, two queer British horror writers began carving out their unique visions...
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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 14h
And while we’re on the literary tip, here’s the great Paul Kincaid on the Goldsmiths-nominated Dooneen by Keith Ridgway: “This is a novel that undermines expectations. But what are those expectations that are being demolished and reconstructed as we go along?” Splendid piece from Paul, as ever.
strangehorizons.com
Dooneen by Keith Ridgway
You can never go home again.
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Nicola Griffith SHE IS HERE out now! @nicolaz.bsky.social · 15h
👀 AMMONITE on sale for $1.99, all platforms!
Cover of a novel, AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith, with white labels displaying black text: “SALE!” and “$1.99!”Graphic showing Cover of a novel, AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith, with white labels displaying black text: “SALE!” and “$1.99!” And a quote from Esquire “Rich in layers of feminist and queer thought, Ammonite gleefully throws a stick of dynamite into the sci-fi firmament."Graphic showing Cover of a novel, AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith, with white labels displaying black text: “SALE!” and “$1.99!” And a quote from WaPo Book World “"Uncompromisingly packed with nondogmatic feminist and queer ideologies."
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Gavin Miller @worriedaboutsatan.bsky.social · 17h
Japanese director Seijun Suzuki making art house classics just to spite his dickhead bosses:
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 17h
This Halloween season, treat your trick to truly unexpected (even under-the-radar) horrors with my 2023 story collection The Last Vanishing Man (@thirdmanbooks.bsky.social) or 2024 novella Changes in the Land (@lethepress.bsky.social). Queer and loathing for all!
Cover of The Last Vanishing Man and Other Stories, with an image by photographer Julie Hamel. Entirely black and white. A naked man hangs by one arm from a wooden ladder in a hayloft. The title of the book is interwoven in the hay and gently covering most of the man's butt because our distributor thought that would be best.Cover of Changes in the Land, designed by Jeremy John Parker. Big ominous red eye above the title. A man stands with his back to us on a kind of pond of blood. Eerie branches and such circle the image. Dominant colors are red, yellow, dark brown, black.
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Paul Witcover @paulwitcover.bsky.social · 17h
Little known fact: William Golding was a hobbit.
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Chica Marx @mckenziewark.bsky.social · 19h
Anglophone literary commentariat continually rehashes a narrow, commercial notion of autofiction which mostly reveals their narrow interests and bourgeois tastes.
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"A national election, that of Brazil, which will affect the 8.3 billion people who inhabit this world. The Amazon, according to scientific evidence, is close to reaching a point of no return. Returning to the deforestation levels of 2022 (Bolsonaro) would be the final blow" x.com/ActisAndres/...
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Blake Leyh @earlofedgecombe.bsky.social · 20h
I wrote about the new Jon Hassell record "Music Is Invisible" for The Tonearm, which is gradually becoming an essential site for contemporary music writing. No advertising, no algorithms, just in-depth coverage of music. They are building something good at The Tonearm. Have a look.
thetonearm.com
Life and Death in Jon Hassell’s Fourth World
A longtime devotee goes back through more than four decades of Hassell’s music and talks with co-producer Jeff Rona about the ‘City’ sessions, the self-sampling, and the posthumous ‘Music Is Invisible...
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Happy October! Back in 2023, I made this playlist of 13 horror movies for @thirdmanrecords.bsky.social. Still more or less the list I would make today... thirdmanrecords.com/pages/13-hor...
thirdmanrecords.com
13 Horror Movies: A Playlist for Halloween
by Matthew Cheney     October is my favorite month: it is the month I was born, it is LGBTQ+ History Month, and it is the month of Halloween, which means lots of people will be thinking about ghosts, ...
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Happy October! Back in 2023, I made this playlist of 13 horror movies for @thirdmanrecords.bsky.social. Still more or less the list I would make today... thirdmanrecords.com/pages/13-hor...
thirdmanrecords.com
13 Horror Movies: A Playlist for Halloween
by Matthew Cheney     October is my favorite month: it is the month I was born, it is LGBTQ+ History Month, and it is the month of Halloween, which means lots of people will be thinking about ghosts, ...
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Catherynne M. Valente @catvalente.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The easiest, least risky path to friendship is “oh you liked that, so did I!” Make that impossible, and few will be able to form enough non-familial connections to rise up against so much as our own ennui, let alone The Regime.
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Kier-La Janisse @kierlajanisse.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Today on my radio show PHONOGRAPHY, the 1st in a 2-part special devoted to NZ record label Flying Nun feat. an interview w/ Matthew Goody author of NEEDLES & PLASTIC: FLYING NUN RECORDS, 1981-1988. Tune into penderradio.ca from 3-4pm pacific. Replays Tuesday same time! Sponsored by Timpson Films!
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Whoever left this on my front door has definitely never met me. Socialism is just the beginning of a good time in this house!
Door hanger propaganda with pictures of AOC, Mamdani, and NH senate candidate Chris Pappas. Text says”Socialism is coming for New Hampshire and they are counting on you to stay home. Liberal Chris Pappas only wins if you don’t vote.”Door hanger propaganda with picture of smiling John Sununu and Kelly Ayotte saying they “will defeat socialism and protect New Hampshire “
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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The people talking about the dignity of being, say, a welder, have never welded anything. And as far as “the pay is actually good” arguments go, the starting pay is good. The pay a few years in is good. But there’s a ceiling and it hits at about the same time the physical toll of the job does
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Paul Bowles @paulbowles.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Paul Bowles wrote music that encompassed a broad variety of genres, including scores for theater, opera, ballet, and chamber music; soundtracks for art films; piano compositions and experimental sound recordings. Find a broad selection of his works on paulbowles.org
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Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 03/10/2026
My latest Crime & Mystery column reviews new books by Emiko Jean, Alan Parks, and Vikki Van Sickle, as well as a posthumous novel by the great James Sallis, who died earlier this year.
nytimes.com
New Mystery Books for Fall (Gift Article)
Our columnist on James Sallis’s “Backwater” and three other new novels.
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This essay is overwhelmingly moving. I hope a publisher is working to bring Loren Rex Cameron's art and story back into print. We need it.
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The Séance @theseanceradio.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Starts off great. Ends up magisterial.
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This was wild to see. My first time writing for the screen. My thanks to Zoe Kazan for inviting me on this journey back in 2023, and my agent Jason Richman and everyone at @unitedtalentagency.bsky.social for their work on my behalf.
“Written for Television by ZOE KAZAN & ALEXANDER CHEE” in white letters against the black tv screen.A tv still of Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott and Florence Pugh. White text in a San serif font reads “This East of Eden, adapted primarily by Zoe Kazan-Alexander Chee co-wrote a key midseason episode-with Garth Davis directing, is rich, morally complex and packed with memorable performances."
Daniel Fienberg
The Hollywood Reporter
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jess m. ☕🍂 @jametc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Something AI is responsible for that doesn't get enough talk: How, when it scrapes a website to illegally steal everything on it, it uses up a ton of its bandwidth allotment, crashing it or racking up massive fees for site owners.
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Prof Frank McDonough @fxmc1957.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
4 October 1936. Battle of Cable Street took place in Cable Street, Whitechapel, London. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, protecting a march by the British Union of Fascists (BUF) led by Sir Oswald Mosley and various anti-fascist and Jewish demonstrators.
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ICE must be destroyed 🏳️‍⚧️🏴 @miawong.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
cw rape I think it really gives the game away that rapists are the only people there's ever any real talk about rehabilitative justice for and I say this as someone who genuinely does believe in rehabilitative justice it's fucking frustrating as hell that it's Moreover, ICE must be destroyed
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Prism @prismreports.org · 03/10/2026
Eclectic, human-created radio programming is made possible not just because of student devotion, but also because many campus stations house irreplaceable collections of physical media. @brittashoot.com details the free speech fight playing out on campuses where student radio is disappearing.
prismreports.org
College radio stations are disappearing
Cleveland State University's recent transfer of its radio station's broadcast license to a conglomerate is the latest blow to independent student media
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This article is by Annie Lowry, who attended Harvard and is married to Ezra Klein, whose father was a professor of math at UC Irvine, and he himself attended UC Santa Cruz & UCLA (but said he wasn't much of a student. Should've gone to trade school, become a bricklayer, made something of himself).
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祖思薪 Eugenia Zuroski @zugenia.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
We lifelong book hoarders are now vindicated: we inhabit precious stores of non-AI-infested work
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Good cover image for any book about higher ed these days.
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Dorothy Berry @dorothyjberry.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I'll never understand how "a lot of mostly/potentially/probably incorrect metadata is better for digital discovery than accurate but sparse metadata" became a popular idea than "we will put things online more slowly, but we will do it with accuracy"
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For I am a salt-hag. I know gull gossip. I know the calling and quelling of storms. My hair is wind-braided. My lips wear rough salt kisses. I stand on the cliffs and read omens pulled by the tide. Be well and avoid my anger. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #FolkWitchFriday #WitchSky
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"We'll all go together when we go... All suffused with an incandescent glow..."
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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers
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Mike X. Nichols @mikexnichols.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It’s October 1st
David Lynch. Next to him is a graphic with a Halloween jack-o-lantern and the text, “Devil’s Night.”
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
John Roberts' friend and defender is quoted in the piece, saying they shouldn't be shaming Roberts for the wreckage and ruin he's brought to this country because of "civility." The bullies always cry "civility" when the victims push back in the slightest.
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Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 01/10/2026
This article is so well written.
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Lisa Song @lisalsong.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is very wonky and utterly infuriating. Logging companies (w/help from IKEA!) say *literally cutting down trees* should count as carbon negative and be credited as good for the planet. And they might get away with it. newrepublic.com/article/2157...
newrepublic.com
Did the Forestry Industry Just Get to Write Its Own Emissions Rules?
Accusations of industry capture, allegedly secret working groups, and the resignations of two researchers—a scandal is rocking the world of carbon emissions accounting.
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𝙰𝚗𝚍𝚢 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚔 💀☕📚🍂🎨🐈‍⬛ @andy-paciorek.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
~ G. Gulyaev (2003)
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Chica Marx @mckenziewark.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Translation: the United States lost yet another war which killed millions and cost billions.
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is so brilliant. Uncommon.
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Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The same type of process that decides potatoes and water coolers are the optimal package deal for consumers also decides whose job application gets considered and whose does not, or whose mortgage gets approved and at what interest rate.
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"'From Life' stands as a testament to Berger’s faith in the storyteller’s role in sustaining our companionship with those who are no longer alive." Zach Gibson reviews Tom Overton’s biography of John Berger: lareviewofbooks.org/article/john-be…
the cover of From Life
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Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
“Three people dying in one day is an amplification of what we’ve already seen,” said Andrew Free, a former immigration attorney and investigative journalist who has for years extensively worked on ICE-related death cases.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Three deaths, three states, 24 hours: one day in ICE’s quiet but ‘gruesome’ surge
These men in Maine, Georgia and Florida shared no ties – until they became casualties in Trump’s anti-immigration campaign
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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A very rich issue of the #OpenAccess journal James Baldwin Review — including interviews with David Leeming and David Moses, numerous book reviews (2 of Nicholas Boggs's blockbuster bio), the text of a lecture by Hortense Spillers, and plenty more. Great stuff!
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Indrapramit Das @indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's Caravaggio's birthday again, good excuse to get people to watch Derek Jarman's extravagantly marvellous CARAVAGGIO (1986) (and look at some Caravaggio paintings).
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Who says they “don’t make enough money”? Compared to what? You don’t need to grant the far right authoritarian party’s premise. You can write that they’re using arbitrary numbers based on no standards that should not be taken seriously, & you can just say that plainly instead of stenographizing
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 28/09/2026
The entire motto of this administration towards LGBTQ youth is "fuck them kids." thehill.com/homenews/edu...
thehill.com
Education Department formally rescinds Title IX protections for LGBTQ students
The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientati…
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NosferaPru @prufrockluvsong.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Please stop calling me on my phone that's not what it's for
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