Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐

@darkerthanvanta

Purveyor of bleak climate fantasy and, apparently, cookbooks. Newsletter at to find me all over the internet. Order my newest book, Blight, here:

1,700 Following2,045 Followers1,819 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and darkerthanvanta.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 2d

Tonight! Watch the CSFFA Aurora Awards livestream on YouTube, starting at 5 pm Eastern time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMO5...

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 4d

Toronto folks!

Save the date!

A September to Remember

Author Event at High Park Library

Join us for an evening of readings hosted by local author Bernadette Gabay Dyer. Readers will include Heather Birrell, Priya Ramsingh, Rachel Rosen, & Su Sokol.
Following the reading, works will be available to purchase.

All are very welcome! Drop-in, no registration required.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
6:30-8:00 pm.

If you identify as a person with a disability and require an accessibility accommodation to participate in this program, please contact Accessibility Services by email, accessibleservices@tpl.ca, or voicemail, 416-393-7099, to make a request. Please contact us at least three weeks in advance.
High Park Branch, 228 Roncesvalles Ave, 416-393-7671

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 7d

Happy "There Will Come Soft Rains" Day to all those who celebrate.

A screenshot of the Wikipedia page for "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury.

Plot summary
A nuclear catastrophe leaves the city of Allendale, California, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues – automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls.

The AI system of the house chimes the date by saying, "Today is August 4, 2026".

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 11d

I grew a long bean. Cat for scale.

A black cat sitting on a kitchen floor while I dangle a bean next to her that is much longer than she is.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 18d

Juliette Binoche in Blue.

Juliette Binoche in her youth, a white woman with short black hair and dark eyes. Everything in the photo is blue except her face. God she's pretty.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· 23d

Procreate doodling.

A design with bright fluorescent tentacles on a blue background with some kind of orange spongey thing in the middle.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jul 10

Ace for Classic Who; for Nu Who, there can only be one answer:

Bill from Doctor Who. She's a light skinned Black woman with a ribbon in her Afro, wearing one of those cool silk jackets with embroidery on it and a striped shirt. There's a TARDIS in the background.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jun 14

Something BIG is happening, and I’m involved! Check out the virtual #BookFair featuring #Canadian authors from all across the country at FictionFest.ca! 🍁🦫📚 I'll be reading...something??? on July 4th at noon.

A black square image with contrasting red text and an image of a open book, taken end-on, with the pages splayed open so it looks as though someone is flipping through them. Red maple leaf images are arranged to look like they are spilling out of the book. Text in the top left corner reads: “Something BIG is happening! FictionFest.ca”

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· May 2

If you are going to TriCon in Halifax, here is where you can find me: tricon-halifax.com @tricon-hfx.bsky.social

Tricon Halifax Schedule. Rachel A. Rosen, with a picture of my face. Author of Cascade and Blight, co-author of the Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don't Die, co-host of the Wizards and Spaceships podcast. Sat. May 16 9:30 am: A Marxist Analysis of the Writing Industry, the Maritime Room, the Westin, Sunday May 17 11 am De-Industrialization of the Frontier: Proletariat Themes in Science Fiction, 11 am in room 204, NSCAD Marginal Road Campus. Tricon's socials are at the bottom.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Apr 9

Come out to hear Su J Sokol and I discuss the role of art — and speculative fiction in particular — as a tool of community organizing and social justice imagining, and fighting fascism.

Author panel, reading, & Q&A: Speculative Fiction and the Right Against Fascism. Thursday, April 23 - 7 pm, St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church, 103 Bellevue Ave. Su J Sokol (author of Invisible Line and Five Points on an Invisible Line) and Rachel A. Rosen (author of Cascade and Blight), moderated by Megan Kinch. Canada Council and The Writers' Union of Canada information is at the bottom. The aesthetic is trippy retro with a bike and tentacles.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Mar 25

If you have an adult in your life who likes wizard books, give them these instead of the ones by the TERF. Links here: rachelarosen.carrd.co P.S. HBO instead of remaking crap by a garbage person, give me a call. I would love a castle.

Cascade and Blight by Rachel A. Rosen on a shelf along with a vulture skull, a postcard from Fort McMurray, a Patrice Abel election pin, and a Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion badge that says "fascism shall be destroyed." Everything is in teal, blue, and orange/red tones. Very aesthetic.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Mar 24

The deadline for Hugo nominations is Saturday, March 28, and the deadline for Aurora nominations is Saturday, April 4 if you want to make my day!

Rachel A. Rosen 2025 Award Eligibility. Blight (The Sleep of Reason Book 2), novel, What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire's Yacht (Antifa Lit Journal Vol 1), short story, Wizards & Spaceships, podcast/fancast. The entire thing is a scrapbook aesthetic with bats and moths.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jan 15

This will always and forever be the only video game I love (Below the Root).

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Dec 12

Attention local nerds! I'm going to this on Saturday, anyone wanna come?

Changelog, collected fiction. Toronto book launch! Saturday, December 13 1-3 PM @ Little Ghosts. Shows two robots against a post apocalyptic background.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Nov 25

Here's what I published in 2025, should you be the sort of person who nominates obscure Canadian weirdo authors for awards of any sort.

2025 Rachel A Rosen Award Eligiblity. Blight (The Sleep of Reason Book 2), Novel, What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionare's Yacht?, Antifa Lit Journal Vol. 1, Short story. There is a cute black cat looking beseechingly at you with an arrow posted towards her that says "gratuitous cat for visibility." A stack of books are in the background of an obvious canva template.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Oct 8

I made this thing.

a close up of a white woman in a black shirt with a red octopus necklace.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Sep 24

If you're going to Can*Con, come say hi (and buy my books).

Can*Con Oct. 17-19 2025. Ottawa's Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Literature Convention. Rachel A Rosen. Sat., Oct. 18 2:30 pm: Book Signing: Newbridge Room. Sat., Oct. 19 5:30 pm: Blight launch: Founders Room. Sun., Oct. 19, 11:30 pm: One Ring to Bind Them: Writing Metaphor Network (Presentations). All weekend: Alternate Reality News Service Table Vendors room. Little author photo and images of the Blight cover.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Sep 20

Can*Con is in a month! Here is where to find me: Sat., Oct. 18, 2:30-3pm: Book signing in the Vendors' Room (Newbridge). Sat., Oct. 18, 5:30-6:20pm: Blight Launch in the Founders Room. Sun., Oct. 19, 11:30am-12:20pm: One Ring To Bind Them: Writing Metaphors in Networks. Come find me and say hi!

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Sep 4

Check out my panel and reading at Rainbow Space Magic! It's free: www.rainbowspacemagic.org

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Aug 20

Super proud of my pin for being a first-time Aurora Award finalist!

Aurora Award first time nominee pin, which is silver and has a maple leaf cut out.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Aug 20

Laugh at my compulsion to collect badge ribbons all you like, but each one represents a nice interaction with a nerdy human, and I think that’s beautiful.

A collection of badge ribbons from Worldcon. There are too many to list but highlights include I like miss, rude litter box, and I petted a sugar glider.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Aug 16

Some photos from Day 2 at Worldcon: Sci-Fi and the Alt-Right, with Sam Asher, @naomikritzer.bsky.social, @jordanscarroll.bsky.social and Joseph Malik. Also a pic of my preferred method of getting from one panel to another.

A panel with 5 people, all of whom are amazing.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Aug 15

Worldcon folks! Come out to this in an hour.

CSFFA x wizards & spaceships room party thursday august 14 at 8 pm in room 3211 at the Sheraton Grande.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Aug 14

If you’re at WorldCon, you can pick up autographed copies of my book at the Book Nook. They’re even cheap thanks to the Canadian dollar.

A rack of books with mine (Cascade and Blight) at the bottom.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jul 30

Writing has been utter clown shoes lately so here's Maya in Braid, having A Moment. Buy the first two books! Cascade: mybook.to/cascade or bppress.ca/shop/ Blight: books2read.com/u/mYVl9P or bppress.ca/shop/

Maya, a young Tamil woman with long black hair and dark glasses, wearing a green hoodie, baggy pants, and oversized boots. She's sitting on a bench in a dead mall. There's graffiti behind her that technically reads Mac Paps 4 Ever but it's obscured by her head. There's a rubber duck in front of her hand, from which vague strandes of glowing green magic are eminating.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jul 20

Advertise your book with cover and content warnings only. Violence, gore, body horror, multiple child deaths, torture, imprisonment, state repression, climate anxiety, substance abuse, racism, genocide, infidelity, toxic relationships, unparliamentary language.

Blight by Rachel A. Rosen featuring giant bone tentacles coming out of the ocean to surround a tiny sub with a glowing light. It's the Sleep of Reason Book 2. There's a blurb from Robert J. Sawyer that says "Rachel A. Rosen is a superb prose stylist and an incisive social commentator...Look for this one on the award ballots."

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jul 4

Here I am at last night's book launch for Blight at Glad Day Bookshop. Photo courtesy of Alana Boltwood.

me speaking at Glad Day Bookshop. I am a short white woman with teal hair in a battle jacket. You can see some of the audience behind me.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jun 28

Criminally underrated series.

The Green Sky trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder: Below the Root, And All Between, and Until the Celebration. The most 70s fantasy covers you've ever seen. The first shows two light-haired, white children flying among birds. The second shows a hooded child with slightly darker skin (she should be Black but like I said, 70s fantasy conventions) holding a rabbit in front of a dense city with a root system above it. The third shows the darker skinned child talking with a lighter skinned child among a bunch of giant mushrooms.

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jun 18

Not an academic paper but I do wrong genre covers for fun.

Robert's Rules of Order but it's a pulp cover with all kinds of crazy hypermasculinity going on. The caption reads "The house WILL rise. Order is what separates men from beasts...and he's here to bring it!"

Rachel A. Rosen 📚💙🪐@darkerthanvanta· Jun 15

Blight is OUT! You should be able to buy it and order it for your local bookstores and libraries in both paperback and ebook. Amazon: mybook.to/blight Other online retailers: books2read.com/u/mYVl9P Direct from the publisher: bppress.ca/shop/ 🧵