Hello. I am Francis. I write some stuff. 🙂
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🎃🎃🎃 This page last updated: October 24, 2026 🎃🎃🎃
Writing
I’ve just published a new zine, Poison Pill! Poison Pill collects three pieces, of varying levels of fictionality, on machine writing. The title story is a fictional essay about a mid-21st century literary movement. When publishers begin indiscriminately feeding the works of contemporary writers to their machines, a group of writers fights back by publishing the most vile, offensive, unprintable books they can create.
You can order it online on etsy, or you can pick up a copy at Philly Zinefest in December, where I’ll be tabling once again! I’ll also be posting the contents online, free to read, eventually.
Reading
It’s that time of year, you know the drill! Read my previous spooktober posts here. This year, I’m reading:
- The Gold-Bug and other tales by Edgar Allan Poe 🎃🎃🎃🎃⚫️
Collection of some of Poe’s most infamous and celebrated stories. Some I’d read before and some new ones. All in all pretty good. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a banger, a perfect story. “The Pit and the Pendulum” has some great architectural terror. “Murders in the Rue Morgue” is dogshit, the only one I really disliked. - The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson 🎃🎃🎃⚫️⚫️
Excellent portrait of a sad, tenacious rural town with some spooky elements hovering on the edges. The ending is bogged down by the multiple viewpoints and overall felt slack and meandering rather than tense and gripping. Overall a worthwhile read, especially for the originality of horse girl horror as a premise - Rekt by Alex Gonzalez 🎃🎃🎃🎃⚫️
This book is about the horror of living in Tallahassee. I’m only half joking. - La Ruta del hielo y la sal de Jose Luis Zárate 👻
Etcetera
I have been a big fan of Xrafstar (formerly known as Porpentine) for a while, since I read With Those We Love Alive back in 2019. They recently put out a short visual novel game, Money for Girls: Amortized, and I’m obsessed. Here’s some fanart I did of one of my favorite moments.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to recommend this game. I think it is not nearly as repellent (complimentary) as some of Xrafstar’s works, but it’s still got piss and blood and sparkly guano and self-harm and so on,, I think really just watch the trailer and if it stirs some feelings in you you should check it out.
Good Websites
- Public Domain Review – Insightful essays, marvelous collections
- Rice-Boy.com – Home to Evan Dahm’s webcomics. The best webcomic website
- Xrafstar – Nice Cancer!
- 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
- Hypertext TV – Always something good on.
