“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
Greetings on this, the vernal equinox. Our hiatus is lasting a bit longer than intended. I started writing the blog post below back in early February, intending it to be a quick proof-of-life indicator that we hadn’t vanished or quit, that work on Liminal Flares continues behind the scenes while important life things transpire at their own pace.
And then, on the last day of February, I lost a member of my family. Suddenly. Traumatically. It’s devastating, and I’ve been alternately reeling with disbelief or just…mentally and emotionally adrift. I feel like a light within me has been extinguished.
While I’m trying to take care of myself inside this jagged, gaping grief, the state of the world only adds to it. I can’t look at any sort of news feed without encountering yet another announcement about trans rights being stripped away at breakneck speed, about our very existence being openly threatened, those threats met with cheers in some places. It’s terrifying.
It’s astonishing how many ways a heart can be broken at the same time.
And yet, all the rampant transphobia and heteronormative fascist rhetoric remind me why, though this is just a nascent little podcast, it’s so very important to keep our liminal flare burning. Seeing LGBTQIA+ people of all ages living their lives, creating wonderful things, supporting each other – these things give me hope. And I want to help provide hope for others in turn. It’s one of the primary reasons I started this podcast in the first place.
I don’t know if anyone will read this, and I currently have zero bandwidth for social media (and am, in fact, seriously tempted to torch my accounts), but I want to put it out there, somewhere – right here – in case anyone is wondering:
Liminal Flares isn’t going anywhere. My own liminal flare feels very dim right now, yes, but I’m tending to it as best I can. And we will return. Very soon. I promise.
xx
-M.
“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
—Steven Wright
While Liminal Flares is currently on a brief hiatus, research, reading, editing, and recording for the show continues. I recently received these gorgeous anthologies by Flame Tree Publishing from their extensive Gothic Fantasy series.
In addition to being thoroughly beautiful books, inside and out, I appreciate that these collections of classic literature are peppered with brand new stories by contemporary authors. I’ve begun reading the Weird Horror and Haunted House collections, both of which begin with (different) stories by English author E. F. Benson, who quickly became a personal favorite back when I first started researching pieces for Liminal Flares.
I recently finished reading this massive tome, Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural.
831 pages of classic horror stories, beginning with “La Grande Bretèche” by Honoré de Balzac (1831) and concluding with “The Dunwich Horror” by H. P. Lovecraft (1928).
All of this reading for the podcast, which is also very much reading for pleasure in itself, doesn’t stop me from adding to my TBR stacks. I tend to be reading a number of books at any given time, so here are my most recent additions:
Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Sensor, Lovesickness, and The Liminal Zone by Junji Ito
Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders
Vita Nostra by Sergey Dyachenko & Marina Dyachenko
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A Novel by Olga Tokarczuk
Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc
The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
Carmilla: The First Vampire written by Amy Chu, illustrated by Soo Lee
What are you reading these days? What have you added to your own TBR stacks? Want to make a request for a future episode of Liminal Flares? Please don’t hesitate to reach out.
