I've attended a couple of Skiffy and Fanty livewatch events of Torture Cinema movies -- for "The Ghosts of Mars" and for "Lady Battle Cop" -- but I had conflict dates with the podcast recordings for both, so I haven't been on any of their episodes lately.
I've been fairly busy with an impending move, but I've been on four SFFAudio podcasts released in the last few months, recorded months in advance:
Aug. 9: "The SFFaudio Podcast #642 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: 'The Sowers Of The Thunder' by Robert E. Howard" with Jesse Willis, Will Emmons, and Alex and Connor Kaye.
https://www.sffaudio.com/the-sffaudio-podcast-642-audiobook-readalong-the-sowers-of-the-thunder-by-robert-e-howard/
Aug. 16: "The SFFaudio Podcast #643 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: 'The Hound' by H.P. Lovecraft" with Jesse Willis, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons and Connor Kaye.
Sept. 13: "The SFFaudio Podcast #647 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: 'The Picture In The House' by H.P. Lovecraft" with Jesse Willis and Connor Kaye.
Oct. 18: "The SFFaudio Podcast #652 – READALONG: 'Farmer In The Sky' by Robert A. Heinlein" with Jesse Willis, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada and Evan Lampe.
Yes, these are all old stories, but I and several others in each discussion try to bring a critical 21st-century eye to them, while recognizing some merits in each (except The Hound, which I remember with no fondness at all). However, this month we discussed a major story by James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon), which will come out in another six months or so.
Twitch:
Several of the channels I follow have been on hiatus for the last few months, due to hate raids, marriages and other reasons. ArvanEleron has continued to be an active streamer, and I've played Grace of the Refreshing Breeze, a tabaxi bard, live onstream for Community D&D: The Dragon of Icespire Peak, several more times. Episodes are here:
Finally, I wrote a poem for a 30-minute creative writing challenge (extended to 36 minutes) during an Infernal Salon fundraising stream for the 2022 Strange Horizons kickstarter on Oct. 24, hosted by C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez on Arvan Eleron's Twitch stream. More than 20 people connected in some way with Strange Horizons came and did a panel, giving brief self-intros and then writing to prompts from the lovely and disconcerting Negocios Infernales card game.
Three non-panelist people who were watching the fundraiser also submitted poems or stories they wrote during the stream, and I was one of them.
These are the three writing prompts; I used them all for inspiration:
"If it unlocks, it's a lockpick"
"How perfect the poem before it is written"
"Live long enough for better stars"
Arvan Eleron kindly read my poem onstream, starting at about 3:39:33:
Here's the poem. I submitted the three stanzas that night and added the title the next day.
Keys to Better Stars
To find the key, first find your awareness:
What are you trying to open? What do you seek to unfold?
There is no understanding without a fair test.
Not all keys look like keys; the keyhole can be the whole.
The keyhole and key are partners in a dance.
Imagine what you want, feed it with your zeal.
Plan it out first or ride/write the winds of chance
Let it live in your mind and then make it real.
Let your desires build, for better or for worse.
Feed your seeds in secret, let them grow, then go through
into the wide and wondrous universe.
May the best of your dreams outlive you.
