Back in 2024, I started a newsletter, then sent out approximately two issues before never doing anything else with it. I'd like to say the problem was with the concept of newslettering and not with me, but I was overwhelmed, what can I say? Not long after I started that publication I was accepted into the Clarion West Novel Writing Workshop's inaugural year, which took over... well, the rest of 2025. (In a good way, promise.)

Now, I'm coming back to the idea of writing longform updates on my writing and reading life, but on different terms. First of all, no weird newsletter branding or funky theme: I'd rather keep it simple. Plus, theoretically speaking, people who'll want to read updates from me will want me, not the theme, so why give it any other name than my own? Second of all, I'm not promising a consistent structure or schedule. Those might help in the longer run, but I think posting at all is more worth attempting than imposing a structure right out of the gate. Structure adds more overwhelm, and I'm at the stage of getting-back-to-the-gym where what matters most is that I show up.

So this is me showing up :)

That means that for the time being, by coming here you're getting whatever the hell I feel like writing here in 20 minutes or less. (EDIT: I exaggerated. This took me like an hour.) 100% human-food-fed words, guaranteed. And maybe some updates from time to time, too! Wild, I know!

Straith updates!

I've been working on my next project, a contemporary Gothic with supernatural elements and (of course) a transmasculine lead; nothing really to say here until that's been written. I plan to start drafting on June 1st (tomorrow!!) with a goal of getting that first draft in the can by August 31st. Meanwhile I shall not be putting the details of The Work on display, but here's the front cover of the pitch deck I made for Heliotrope to give you a hint:

HELIOTROPE, by D.A. Straith. These words are printed in the centre of a detail of a painting of a largely empty greenhouse in which a pale figure in dark clothes sits looking at the viewer. The painting is "Old Woman in Greenhouse" (1936) by Walter Kurt Wiemken.

While you wait for that, you can pre-order Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure from Neon Hemlock if you'd like some Straithy fiction sooner!! My story "The Spider-God's Boon" is about a transmasculine spider-cult initiate named Tadhg going up against a Very Bad Landlord. You will not BELIEVE the incredible illustration that Matthew Spencer drew to go along with it; you gotta get the book to see it :) :)

My story "One Day I Will Fight the Stars, For One Day They Will Take Her Too" has been accepted for publication somewhere, more news on that later, as has a reprint of my story "The Fishwife Who Killed Death", this one in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume 4. PRETTY COOL.

A recent read

The cover of Kay Chronister's THE BOG WIFE, which is a collage featuring a white woman lying on her back with her hands curled to her chest. Dirt is strewn across the right side of her neck while pitcher plants and mosses crowd her left.

I'm late to The Bog Wife, but I really enjoyed it (as part of my dive into Gothic literature - necessarily incomplete, there's just too much to read, but I'm having a great time). The reading experience was really atmospheric, and I was really pleased with Chronister's choice to tackle this using multiple points of view. The problems of land "ownership" under colonialism are deeply embedded here, as is resource extraction. My main complaint is that it could have been gayer/more trans, which will always be my thing when the straights are on display. Alas!

Also I am not a book reviewer please don't ask me to say anything more detailed than "this was nice! I liked it well enough go read it if you like!" lmao.

A recent watch

The poster for MĀRAMA (2025), a 2025 New Zealand Gothic horror film directed by Taratoa Stappard and starring Ariāna Osborne. The poster features multiple images of the main character, Mary Stevens/Mārama, layered over one another. In one image she wear a dark lace-collared dress; in another she wears a luscious red gown with enormous sleeves. In the dark background there is a laddered woven pattern.

MĀRAMA (2025) is a film that knows 100% what it is about. It assumes from jump that you know the Gothic genre and doesn't belabour explaining what you already know about its tropes and figures. It starts out working in choppy scenes that I imagine are intended to convey the main character's fragmentary sense of self; those scenes then get longer, more considered, their gaze more intense the more Mary/Mārama gets to know herself. It is absolutely a tough watch - again, it does not shy away from the tropes that make the Gothic genre, nor does it shy away from what those tropes imply for colonized peoples. The strength of this movie really is that it represents said tropes in full honesty, in a way that edges into full-on horror, and it doesn't pull punches, which really pays off in the climax and denouement despite the choppy first act. See it for yourself, don't take my word for it.

A recent pic

A close-up of Straith's red maranta plant, which has green oval-shaped leaves with darker green spots between red veins. The plant is blooming: a thin brown stalk stretches toward the unseen light source, and on that stalk is a tiny pink flower with three large petals. At the end of the stalk is another flower waiting to open.

My maranta is flowering. I'm given to understand that this means it's happy. Yee!

This has been Straith's Leaflet thing. If you'd like to see more shitposts and micro-updates from this person, check out their Bluesky. If you'd rather less talk and more plants, follow them on Instagram. Or, if you'd like to read some fiction, check out this story of theirs published in Flash Fiction Online.