Esther Alter

@esther-alter

Trans Jewish byte array Open source software developer Sturgeon-nominated spec fic writer: Deadlands, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, Baffling, elsewhere מיר װעלן זײ איבערלעבן

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Esther Alter@esther-alter· 22d

I had to dig through the cable box to find an adapter and now I’m putting everything back in, including this utterly perfect 2006 thinkpad that still works

Esther Alter@esther-alter· 23d

Park!

Esther Alter@esther-alter· 28d

It’s time to compliment my haircut

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jul 9

Spending time with my girlfriend (the sea)

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jul 8

Look who is going to be in this anthology (if it is funded)!!!!!!

Text from the kickstarter page:

Explore worlds of fireflies and eco-activism, with sapphic knights and dreamlike kingdoms, where digital people live with us as equals, poltergeist hauntings are tied to radioactive soil, trans women transform into powerful beings righting injustices, and writers survive in a world without freedom of speech… all of this and so much more in the inaugural Locus Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year!
Let's make this book come to life – with award-winning stories from the 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List, including Thomas Ha’s Locus Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated short story “In My Country” and Somto Ihezue’s Nebula and Locus Award-winning novelette “We Begin Where Infinity Ends”, plus standout stories by Isabel J. Kim, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Sarah Pinsker, B Pladek, Esther Alter, and many, many more.

I highlighted the summary of my story (“trans women transform…”) and my name.

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 30

today on "esther's entire writing process runs on a pile of shellscripts" - I've already got a script that writes backups to a drafts/ directory - I now have a script that can diff the current version of a manuscript against the most text Linux is so good #amwriting #linux

#!/bin/bash

# First arg. Probably ok.
STORY=$1

# Get the most recent draft
DRAFT=$(ls -Art drafts/$STORY/ | tail -n 1)

# Pandoc docx to markdown baybeeeee
pandoc -s alter_$STORY.docx -t markdown -o current.md
pandoc -s drafts/$STORY/$DRAFT -t markdown -o old.md

# Diff the markdown files
diff old.md current.md | colordiff

# Remove the markdown files
rm current.md
rm old.md

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 22

Monday

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 21

Beach babe alert

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 16

any idea what "anonymous code" is? at a glance, I can see that they're maybe embedding flash into the website??

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 11

Experimenting with wearing a necklace of crystals and bullet cases to signal the opposite of what a collar would signal. Does it work?

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 7

@kallidorarho.bsky.social After I described what happens to rebel pilots in warhound, the audience seemed to relax, because clearly we were done with the stuff I’d provided content warnings for? And then I got to this slide and there was an audible collective breath

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 7

Me explaining mechsploitation. The slide reads:

- Fiction microgenre
- Mecha erotic horror
- Nearly always self-published
- For and by trans femme dykes*
- Usually derived from WARHOUND

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 7

splitting this into multiple posts because the tab keeps crashing...

Me explaining mechsploitation. The slide reads:

- What a mecha is
- Why kink can be hot

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Jun 7

Last month, I gave a presentation about mechsploitation. I think I did a good job - Explaining it - Critiquing it - Looking hot

Me explaining mechsploitation. The slide reads:

The Handler

- Hot
- Evil
- Boot
- Lady

Esther Alter@esther-alter· May 28

I see that I am in good magical girl company!

A screenshot of three of the 80 notable stories for 2026.

Magical Girl Antifa War Machine (Esther Alter)
Juracán (Gabino Iglesias)
Magical Girls Child Crusader Squad (Hailey Piper)

Esther Alter@esther-alter· May 17

Unseasonably hot girl

Esther Alter@esther-alter· May 10

Girl at a lake

Esther Alter@esther-alter· May 5

Sun, grass, water, boots, Bund

I’m at the park. Pictured is my water bottle, my boots, and Molly Crabapple’s book about the Bund, which I will read as soon as I’m done typing this alt text.

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Apr 21

It’s that time again, it’s time to compliment my haircut

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Apr 14

spring

Esther Alter@esther-alter· Apr 9

I'm leaning heavily on this sort of grammar to convey the feeling of fast concurrent motion. It sounds (purposely) really weird because the entire story, including these sentences, is in the past tense. I don't know what to call this. Gerund (implicit past tense)? Darmok and Jalad Tense?