whatbettyread

Read these books and give them a little more love!

Like it's bad when a "tattoo is undulating" (as opposed to... "drawn in a wave like pattern on the skin"?), or when hair is "wet wheat from a late Summer field" (as opposed to "sort of brownish light yellow that dries lighter, but is not actual wheat stalks growing on someone's head but kind of reminiscent of the color and texture"?), or when when ice cream tastes like midnight at the fair" (as opposed to "ice cream flavour bringing back memories of undefined ice cream flavours that are individually popular but always tied to a memory of late evening at the fair ground and probably smelling vaguely like popcorn and sugar"?).

Set a couple of decades before the events of Space Trash, Yes Chef follows turbo-divorced bipedal isopod Mikal Rime, a head chef tasked with putting together an unforgettable dinner party for a weapons magnate's very forgettable wife. His penchant for rare ingredients takes him places his sous chef Susan wouldn't go with a gun.

This story has been cooking in the queue for more than a year, and I am beyond excited to finally be sharing it. It's set in the Space Trash universe, but focuses on some of the aliens that don't get much screentime in Space Trash and, like many of my stories, does not end well for anyone. Cws for body horror, some gore and animal death.

Updated June 12th, 2026

"Anti-Psychotic" -- 4k words. A person living with schizophrenia reckons with the realization that their delusions may have more basis in reality than they thought. Originally appears in Diet Milk Magazine F/W II.

"Dream Home" -- 1k words. Not a house that is haunted, but a house that haunts you. Narrated version available through the Creepy podcast Patreon.

"The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" -- 5k words. A lonely, isolated alcoholic begins obsessively fantasizing about her two coworkers at their rural country music radio station. [Note: this story is Not Safe For Work] Appears in issue 4 of God's Cruel Joke.

"Watch Where You're Going" -- 3.5k words. Two trans people talk about life while one of them finishes her shift at the local video store. Appears in issue 6 of Olit Magazine.

"Maintenance Email Transcripts Sept-Oct 2022" -- 2k words. A person living in Boston seeks mold remediation for her apartment with increasing desperation. Appears as an online feature from God's Cruel Joke.

"From the Journals of Dr. Arthur Sweetly" -- 6k words. A Victorian surgeon with an interest in Spiritualism documents his dubious experiments as he seeks to prove the rumored distance communication method of sympathetic writing. Appears in issue 4 of Reader Beware.

"Newshawk's Crawl" -- 5k words. A turn-of-the-century newspaper writer goes to extreme lengths to get his story, but there are some places you just can't come back from. Appears in issue 1106 of Bewildering Stories.

"Butterfly Stitch" -- 4k words. Following a conviction for providing illegal abortions, a disgraced transsexual surgeon turns to backalley work offering gender affirming surgeries for those with nowhere else to go. Appears in Speculative Erotics, issue 5 of God's Cruel Joke.

My story "Nearest and Dearest" is now available to read as an online feature with God's Cruel Joke. Things haven't been the same for Emma since her fall, but at least she has her daughter Jane to take care of her now. There's nothing quite like the love a daughter has for her mother, the way Jane loves Emma. Nothing in the world.

3.3k, content warning for emotional incest and grotesque implications. Read the story for free right here:

It began with a basic hornypost, and a comment under said post:

So, the fatal BreadSlice was getting clowned on in the replies, until:

Two childhood friends resurrect Nora, the narrator's wife, after a brutal car accident, but balk when she comes back livelier than before. Content warnings for domestic abuse, animal death, explicit sexuality and gore.

When your asshole mentor knows your Dark Secret but literally could not care less... happened to my good friend Dinios Kol