CfP now open! Come join us at the University of Sheffield on the 29th and 30th October for the Sheffield Gothic conference, 'Dark Enchantments: Gothic Folklore and the Monstrous Fairy-Tale'. Pls send your abstract and bio to darkenchantmentsconference@gmail.com Deadline for submissions 31st July!

I had so much fun talking about Japanese b-horror, evil '80s salesmen and the terrifying concept of a public phone box at Horror Studies Now 2026. Very grateful to @horrorstudies.bsky.social for organising and to the many brilliant speakers redefining the ways we think and speak about horror.

“books from the book pond ¥110 each”

The icon herself Bree Van de Kamp was in slot 5

Ok work, apparently I’m redhead coded?

Bluesky saw it first!

without downloading new pics, where are you at mentally?

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (trans. Polly Barton) is my first 5 Star read this year. I inhaled it this morning with a cup of coffee. So subversive and still so deeply human, it almost reminded me of a 21stC Kono Taeko in places. The kind of story that makes me want to write about it right away.

Update: I’m going back for more

Enjoyed a lot of my time with relatable diva Yori, though

Obligatory photo of baby Matthew at Powell's in 2018. It remains one of my favourite bookshops in the world and I still cherish the books I picked up there. The Read Rise Resist sticker survived on my laptop for many years after. The sentiment remains.

Edinburgh saw me coming.

I will not have ‘Matthew doesn’t have dark circles’ slander on the TL, it’s basically half my aesthetic at this point

Bonus points for this awkward little screen grab of Ari Aster talking about why he likes Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes so much, with the full YouTube URL printed underneath

Did I just pay 21 whole Gr*at Br*tish Pounds for the December issue of Popeye just because it has a whole page feature on Brat and the 360 music video (and a tiny little two-sentence panel on I Saw the TV Glow)? Yes, yes I did.

The 2 hour train into London for some pre-Christmas family visits was perfect for tearing through this. I enjoyed the main novella a lot - it's exactly my favourite flavour of subtly unsettling. One of the included short stories, "Minute Fears", was kind of a surprise stand-out for me, though.

Absolutely inhaled this, from Smudge. The manga itself was fun, but Kawakatsu Tokushige’s essay at the back about Kawashima, Skylark Publishing and horror tankōbon in the late-Shōwa was a 10/10. I very much recommend, even if (like me) you’re not generally a manga person.

I’ve run out of episodes of ボーイフレンド to watch on Netflix and now I’m not sure what to do with myself

Sorry to say that we’ve already reached the ‘reading under a heated blanket’ stage of winter in the North of England