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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall)

@taylorwdriggers.bsky.social
1.5K followers 395 following 377 posts

Author, QUEERING FAITH IN FANTASY LITERATURE (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). Editor & nonfiction writer: fantasy, queerness, theology. 2024 Le Guin Fellow. Secretary of Govanhill Voices. Creative nonfiction at buttondown.com/taylordriggers-mcdow…

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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Been reading up on neuroqueer theory for a chapter in my current WIP & I have complicated thoughts! This is a bit critical theory, a bit autobiography. Mostly, it's about the strangeness of engaging with a school of thought that claims to speak to & for you. taylor-driggers.com/2026/09/23/n...
taylor-driggers.com
Neuroqueer and Its Limits; or, Are These Not Just Excuses to Not Connect?
One of my early childhood memories is of a child psychologist’s office. I believe I was about three or four. I don’t remember the size or shape of the room, the psychologist’s face or voice, or any…
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Trying to write some less formal thoughts on things I read! This time I wrote about Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword, queer Arthuriana, & the discontents of a genre culture where white cis men get to be individuals & everyone else is "representation". taylor-driggers.com/2026/09/10/q...
taylor-driggers.com
Queer Arthuriana at a Crossroads: Thoughts on Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword (2024)
On very rare occasions a friend will describe a particular facet of a book they’re reading that awakens not just interest but a deep need in me. This was the case when my friend Marita Arvani…
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Trying to write some less formal thoughts on things I read! This time I wrote about Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword, queer Arthuriana, & the discontents of a genre culture where white cis men get to be individuals & everyone else is "representation". taylor-driggers.com/2026/09/10/q...
taylor-driggers.com
Queer Arthuriana at a Crossroads: Thoughts on Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword (2024)
On very rare occasions a friend will describe a particular facet of a book they’re reading that awakens not just interest but a deep need in me. This was the case when my friend Marita Arvani…
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Another factor here is that across the 2010s there was a real turn in genre cultures toward a liberal politics of representation in which the job of fiction was to endlessly affirm identity (and often, pointedly, not to do much more than that).
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I recently completed a draft chapter in my current project that made me wonder: why doesn't queer criticism of fantasy literature/media engage more w/ queer cultures at large? W/ a few exceptions (you know who you are!), if fantasy criticism does engage w/ queer culture it's usually online fandom.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
The latest issue of @sffoundation.bsky.social contains a special section called "Whose Futures?" co-edited by me & Alice Langley. Immensely grateful to Paul March-Russell for approaching us w/ this opportunity, & to all contributors for their insightful essays. www.sf-foundation.org/sf-foundatio...
sf-foundation.org
SF Foundation Latest Issue | SF Foundation Org
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Can't believe this needs to be said but: when queer scholars describe queer people as "other" to or "deviant" from straight society, we are not engaging in "othering" - we are stating a systemic reality that's the fundamental starting point for our analysis.
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Tristan Grayford @tristangrayford.scot · 07/05/2026
Warn your parents and friends about the fascists of the IGV. They exist only to dupe green voters who aren't very engaged in politics.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Fantasy studies seems stuck in a deadlock where ppl either claim that b/c there was homophobia in the '80s-'90s publishing industry there were no gay books, *or* that b/c there were gay books there was no homophobia. Both assume gay ppl need the permission of the dominant culture to live our lives.
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🎃 Trip Ghouley 🎃 @trip.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
The time is NOW. Valenziaga will fall. Category is: Science-Fantasy EXTRAVAGANZA! Think Drag Race meets a gay Game of Thrones meets Chronicles of Amber. High drama and high CAMP! Spread the word! RT, tell your friends, shout it from the rooftops! BACK THE BOOK TODAY! #booksky bit.ly/3OIVfNs
bit.ly
The Fall of the House of Valenziaga: A Special Edition Novel
It’s Drag Race meets a gay Game of Thrones meets The Chronicles of Amber in this queer post-apocalyptic science-fantasy extravaganza!
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Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Labour is trying to create a permanent underclass who can be treated like dirt and live in permanent bureaucratic limbo. As Tony Benn said. The way they treat people like this is the way they would treat all of us if they could get away with it.
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M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Surprise! The transphobic obsession of the ruling and media classes aren’t held by voters
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
My review of QUEER APPROACHES TO TOLKIEN (ed. Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, & Stephen Yandell) is out in the open-access Journal of Tolkien Research. I had a lot of thoughts on this book, mostly very positive! Thankful to Douglas A. Anderson for commissioning this. tinyurl.com/ezbhcxn7
scholar.valpo.edu
Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (2025), edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell
Book review, by Taylor Driggers, of Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (2025), edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
My review of QUEER APPROACHES TO TOLKIEN (ed. Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, & Stephen Yandell) is out in the open-access Journal of Tolkien Research. I had a lot of thoughts on this book, mostly very positive! Thankful to Douglas A. Anderson for commissioning this. tinyurl.com/ezbhcxn7
scholar.valpo.edu
Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (2025), edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell
Book review, by Taylor Driggers, of Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth (2025), edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell
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Cherae @clclarkwrites.com · 21/02/2026
Excitingly, it’s worth noting that The Unbroken ebook is on sale for $2.99 in the US! Maybe in other places, too. And while yes, that means it is on sale at Amazon, it is also on sale at bookshop.org! So if you haven’t started the trilogy that includes straps, threesomes, and crumbling empires…well!
bookshop.org
The Unbroken
Check out The Unbroken - <b>On the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire, two women--a princess and a soldier--will haggle over the price of a nation in this richly imagined, breath-taking sapph...
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Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 21/12/2025
As a multiple language speaker it's also frustrating to see people using AI for translation because the English speaking world tends to treat translators like workers for hire instead of co authors of text and this feels like more of it. Translation at the literary level is creative work. (2/?)
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Sonia Sulaiman @soniasulaiman.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
In fact, let’s do this. Comment with what you’re looking for and I’ll try to recommend a read from a Palestinian author for you from my reading list. I’ll do my best to find you a match.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
B/c I'm reading THE DANCERS OF ARUN at the moment, it occurs to me that one way to narrate a history of queerness in fantasy could be one in which earlier works that use fantasy to probe at sexual stigmas & taboos on a broad societal scale give way to a modern emphasis on individual validation.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Owen Pallett (2024) Dead Can Dance (2022) Björk (2019) Perfume Genius & Julianna Barwick (2017) Julianna Barwick (2011)
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Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
In this week’s @strangehorizons.bsky.social, one of my favourite pieces I’ve edited this year — on orientalism from Star Trek to Game of Thrones. Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed — strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
strangehorizons.com
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence
Dragon fire on white bodies is sad. Dragon fire on not-Muslim bodies is cheered on the screen. We ache when the scimitar prows of not-Muslim ships cleave through a white human captain’s ship. But b…
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Gailey 🍉 @sarahgailey.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Today's Love Letter is a stunning meditation on birdwatching and the loss of a friendship, from the one and only @amalelmohtar.com stone-soup.ghost.io/love-letter-...
stone-soup.ghost.io
Why I Need the Birds
A Love Letters Feature by Amal El-Mohtar - November 2025
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AAAAHH-lex Plante 🐀👑 @aplante.com · 27/11/2025
took this stance real early on, have been paying close attention, and i have yet to see a single thing that manages to challenge that opinion even a little bit, rather than solidifying it into diamond-hard conviction
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M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
The UK prefers racism over prosperity as Brexit proved
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Christopher Caldwell @seraph76.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Call and Response Fun Fact Countdown! 10! We open with “Femme and Sundance,” queer hustlers turned bank robbers with magical complications. Fun Fact: the diner in the opening, mean patrons, nasty bathroom, and all resembles a real one in Nebraska. Song pairing: m.youtube.com/watch?v=q3es...
m.youtube.com
Orville Peck - Dead of Night [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
YouTube video by Sub Pop
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
All of the stories in this collection are, well, fantastic but my personal favourites were "The Beekeeper's Garden", "The Calcified Heart of St Ignace Battiste", & "Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan".
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
19. CALL AND RESPONSE (Christopher Caldwell, 2025) I found myself lingering over each sentence of these stories, organised as paired dyads in a nested structure. With gorgeous prose, Chris's stories probe at the complex ways Black people & queer people respond to impermanence in a hostile world.
Cover of Christopher Caldwell's CALL AND RESPONSE: the title appears in ornate black letters against a swirling light blue, orange, and red background.
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Gwrach Gymraeg @cherylmorgan.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
FYI, folks. There is a link to the signing page at the top of the linked letter.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Should this rant I have about an ideological elephant in the room of fantasy studies be a footnote, or should I just make it a full-blown tangent in the main body of this chapter? #amwriting
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Both my husband and I have worked jobs where we've *had* to use VPNs to comply with data security regulations. The name of the game for this Labour government seems to be gross violations of privacy that also completely obstruct the basic functioning of society. It's their only move.
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Gretchen Felker-Martin PRE ORDER CHIMERA 2.16.27 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
My dear friend Sama'a has worked herself to the point of exhaustion to bring her family back to Gaza City, and now she needs our help to feed and clothe them as winter approaches. Please give what you can. gofund.me/db56c7ce3
gofund.me
Donate to Help Baha and his family rebuild their home and meet their d, organized by Peter Freville
Lying on my back feeling helpless and powerless, I decided to… Peter Freville needs your support for Help Baha and his family rebuild their home and meet their d
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
It’s particularly important to note that legislation to limit what kids can do and see online also limits what *everyone* can do and see online, censors broad swaths of the internet, further disempowers marginalized tech users, and allows the fascist government to control what is on the internet
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
It’s disturbing and discomforting to examine but there are several anti-phone and anti-social media initiatives weaponizing murders and suicides of teens, leveraging grieving parents, and exaggerating or inventing causation to try and limit speech online and restrict tech freedoms
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Matthew Sangster @mjrsangster.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
A reminder that we're hosting the first European Conference on the Fantastic, Fantasy's Present Pasts, in Glasgow next summer (23rd-25th June 2026). The Call for Papers and Sessions can be found here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20.... Closes 12th December. Please do consider submitting!
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk
Fantasy’s Present Pasts – Call for Papers and Sessions – Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Very excited for this. Sofia Samatar is one of my favourite living writers so I will be attending!
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Clarkesworld @clarkesworldmagazine.com · 07/11/2025
Good literary translation requires understanding (language, culture, genre--on both sides of the translation) and an ability to write well. "AI" can't do that. There are no shortcuts. Treat your work and foreign language readers with the respect they deserve. You won't fool anyone with this.
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talia jane @taliajane.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
someone got indicted on the basis of “transporting antifa materials” for allegedly transporting a box of ZINES THEY’RE PROSECUTING PEOPLE FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM OVER ZINES
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Sara Gibbs @sararoseg.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
The racism was bad enough, the subsequent lies, gaslighting and bullying campaign against the people who pointed it out was beyond disgusting
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Cherae @clclarkwrites.com · 05/11/2025
but i wouldn’t!!! 😅😅😅😅😅 (unless he became a zombie)
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Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Taking a wee break from final year panic to catch @clclark.bsky.social at Waterstones Argle ST (Taylor Driggers-McDowall and D hosting). @waterstonesargyle.bsky.social
In front of a green wall with plates and flower paintings hung on it is CL Clark, a black femme-presenting person, sat at a table across from Taylor Driggers McDowall, a white masc-presenting person with brown hair and glasses. Standing is D, a person with long dark hair and glasses.
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
This conversation was an absolute joy! Here's a pic of me being very absorbed in @clclark.bsky.social's wisdom.
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Cherae @clclarkwrites.com · 05/11/2025
This was such a great event! Stop 2 on The Great North Tour did not disappoint!
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
18. FATE'S BANE (C. L. Clark, 2025) If you're based in Glasgow, you can hear me discuss this book with the author tomorrow (Wednesday 5th November) at Waterstones Argyle Street at 7 p.m. Get your tickets here: www.waterstones.com/events/an-ev...
Cover of C. L. Clark's FATE'S BANE: two women swirl around each other in murky marsh water. One of them has brown skin and braided hair, and the other is pale with red curls.
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Cherae @clclarkwrites.com · 02/11/2025
After a whirlwind time in Brighton at World Fantasy Con, here’s a quick reminder of the last few UK tour stops! Edinburgh, Nov 4 w/ Hannah Kaner Glasgow, Nov 5 w/ @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social Leeds, Nov 6 w/ @tashasuri.bsky.social @toribovalino.bsky.social Tickets below!
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Angry Robot Books @angryrobotbooks.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
“Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. And their guides, the writers of fantasy, should take their responsibilities seriously." From Elfland to Poughkeepsie, Ursula K Le Guin
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Taylor Driggers(-McDowall) @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
17. THE SOVEREIGN (C. L. Clark, 2025) If you live in or near Glasgow, you can hear me discuss this book with C. L. Clark next Wednesday 5th November at Waterstones Argyle Street! Find more info & get tickets here: www.waterstones.com/events/an-ev...
Cover for C. L. Clark's THE SOVEREIGN: a red-tinged illustration of a black woman with short hair crouching in front of a massive oak tree. She is cradling a pale woman in tattered clothing in her arms. A cane lays on the ground in front of them, with a knife thrust into the earth to the side.
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Mostafa Haque @mostafamhawke.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
'The "uncle" who Frodo said got rich by adventuring with Dwarves is actually a distant cousin, he clarified on Monday.' - Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, The Shire Post
A photo of Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
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merr-itt came from outer space @merrittk.com · 28/10/2025
Zohran caught in LIES: Mamdani claims to have "loved Final Fantasy III" when he was growing up. yet research indicates that the game he played was in fact the SIXTH Final Fantasy game
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Phil Crockett Thomas @philcrockettthomas.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Excited to be participating in this Glasgow Ursula Le Guin love fest on 4/11 with @suchmayer.bsky.social, @taylorwdriggers.bsky.social, @mjrsangster.bsky.social We're celebrating @silver-press.bsky.social gorgeous new book The Word for World which centres on Le Guin's imaginative maps. Come!
waterstones.com
A Celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin | Events at Waterstones Bookshops | Waterstones
Events at Waterstones get you closer to the books and authors you admire most. Find information and tickets about A Celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin today.
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Juan Martinez @fulmerford.com · 26/10/2025
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast yes YES the plums are gone
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