Hello. I am Francis. I write some stuff. 🙂
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~~ This page last updated: July 7, 2026 ~~
Writing
I have just published a new zine of my short story “Map of the Lost City of Uatdan Wuchke”! It’s an interactive fantasy story in which you, the reader, must draw the map. The zine includes a fold-out drawing surface for readers to use while they read. You can order it online on etsy.
Reading
I’ve put my utopia/dystopia reading list on indefinite hiatus as I’ve been reading and writing a lot of short fiction over the past several months. In fact, I’m trying to read every issue of Clarkesworld this year. Like most magazines each issue is a mixed bag, with most stories being mediocre, an occasional total dud, and an occasional really great piece. I’ll list some of the stand-out great stories here as I come across them.
“Down We Go Gently” by M.L. Clark. The son of a space trader is taken down to the merchant streets of Peludo, his first time on a planet. Great immersive, grounded worldbuilding. Simultaneously delivers on sense of wonder and authenticity.
“Three Fortunes on Alcestis as Told by the Fraud Baeliss Shudal” by Louis Ingliss Hall. A (fraudulent) fortune teller is asked to foretell the future by reading the entrails of a destroyed planet. Other types of divination, both common and exotic, are discussed and enacted. It’s really all just aesthetics/thematics, none of the divination is instrumental to the plot because of course the character really is a fraud, but it’s very well executed aesthetics/thematics, and pretty inventive.
“You Are Invited to Our SPRING CELEBRATION” by Thoraiya Dyer. Story narrated by an alien who is made of rocks and precious stones. Really delightful, imagistically compelling aliens with a pretty well-thought-out culture and narrative voice.
Etcetera
Here’s a video compiling little clips of bike rides in and around Philadelphia from the past couple years, set to Silvio Rodriguez’s “Como esperando abril”.
Good Websites
- Public Domain Review – Insightful essays, marvelous collections
- Rice-Boy.com – Home to Evan Dahm’s webcomics. The best webcomic website
- Porpentine – Your queen and mine
- Let’s Go Back to a Website!
- The Cable Car Home Page – 25-year-old website still going strong. Yes!
- The Anarchist Library – Simple interface. Downloads in any format you could desire. Bookbuilder. Wow
- Center for the Study of the Public Domain – Website looks old enough to be in the public domain itself. That’s how you know its good
- LOW←TECH MAGAZINE – Solar-powered website. Link might not work if it’s too cloudy in Barcelona
Francis Bass 