Jacob Siefring
LightNews LightNews
banner
jsief.bsky.social
Jacob Siefring
@jsief.bsky.social
1.7K followers 770 following 2.2K posts
public library worker. editor @ the empyrean series. translator of some books (FR->EN). ottawa, ontario. | jsief.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
dansturn.bsky.social
We all live in the desire
of a far-off magic
January 15, 2026 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
sibaerisch.bsky.social
"Find another title. 'Sentimental education' is terrible." (Turgenev in a letter to Flaubert)
January 13, 2026 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
meganlcook.bsky.social
Feels very "someday you'll meet a nice LLM and settle down. You just haven't found the right one yet!"
January 12, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
emilybloodwolf.bsky.social
It’s unfair that our galaxy has a special name (The Milky Way) but our solar system is plain old Solar System
January 12, 2026 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
caitluce.bsky.social
Sunday afternoon.
A rainy, foggy evening giving spooky vibes
January 12, 2026 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
regretteruane.bsky.social
Another apposite Jill McDonald Puffin Post illustration
A black ink drawing printed on pale blue paper of one cartoon puffin drumming on a coconut shell with chicken bones saying oh where are going as another storms off with wings over their ears replying out of my mind
January 10, 2026 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
kingsbookstore.bsky.social
everywhere i go, there they are
a book left out on the side of the road by a crosswalk
January 9, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
geoliminal.bsky.social
begin to prepare to send us your bad science sf/h flash fiction!
frombeyondpress.bsky.social From Beyond Press @frombeyondpress.bsky.social · 5d
Agita is a new triannual online magazine for flash horror and sci-fi. Each issue will contain three flash stories around a theme. The first issue, coming in May and co-edited by Eric Williams (@geoliminal.bsky.social), is "Bad Science." Subs open March 1. Details at agitamag.com
A black circle with "Agita 1" and "agitamag.com" around the outside. Inside the circle, "Bad Science, May 1, 2026, Guest editor: Eric Williams."
January 9, 2026 at 6:33 PM
jsief.bsky.social
unbidden, seemingly from nowhere, fond memories of Schlitz beer return to me, its many slogans, its delicious silica gel

"When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer"
"There's just one word for beer, and you know it"
"No One Does It Like the Bull"
"When it's right, you know it"
January 9, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
fliglman.bsky.social
came across the word "camcorder" there. Remembering when that sounded like a normal word
January 8, 2026 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
aristofontes.bsky.social
Small fowls fly screaming over the yet yawning gulf, things of that nature
January 7, 2026 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
alexwild.bsky.social
Tired: Everything evolves to be a crab.

Wired: Everything evolves to eat ants.
Mammals have evolved into ant eaters 12 times since the dinosaur age, study finds
Mammals have developed some unusual eating habits over the past 100 million years, but a new study has uncovered the surprising lengths to which some have gone to satisfy one of the more peculiar—a ta...
phys.org
January 7, 2026 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
dansturn.bsky.social
The universe is a trip a minute
January 7, 2026 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
wrongsreversed.bsky.social
I put the final couple of essays I wrote about translating The End of August up on my website. Happy new year!
January 6, 2026 at 2:26 PM
jsief.bsky.social
makes you think
strategictaper.bsky.social Strategic Tape Reserve @strategictaper.bsky.social · 12d
Everyone enjoys listening to the music they like. Being a music fan means you also enjoy listening to the music you don’t like.
January 6, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
birdhistory.bsky.social
Today is supposedly #NationalBirdDay but I'm calling BS. The first Bird Day was actually celebrated on May 4, 1894 in Oil City, PA and led to a decades-long movement of celebrating birds in schools. The Jan 5 version is less than a shadow of what they did 100 years ago🧵
January 6, 2026 at 3:51 AM
jsief.bsky.social
When and only when one has learned how to cope in the appropriate manner with certain events in human life, one is already halfway to being consoled for their occurrence. Many people find as much comfort in the ceremonies of dejection as others do in the intoxication obtainable from wine.

L. Tieck
January 5, 2026 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
geoliminal.bsky.social
The Empyrean Series has been, bare none, one of the best things to happen to lit and for readers in the past five years! Buy these books, each one is an incredible treasure!
jsief.bsky.social Jacob Siefring @jsief.bsky.social · 9d
At my blog, a brief statement on the past & the future of the Empyrean Series, which will turn 5 years old this April
jsief.com/2026/01/05/s...
This is an announcement regarding the future of The Empyrean Series of Sublunary Editions, for which I have served as series editor since its inception in 2021. The forty-ninth and the fiftieth titles, which I am currently editing and designing, are slated to be the last in the series. The forty-ninth title, as previously announced, will be Peter Lebrecht: A Tale Devoid of Adventures (by Ludwig Tieck, 1795, newly translated by Douglas Robertson). Editorial work on the series will be brought to completion with the publication of our fiftieth title, An Account of Marvels and of Beasts (by the Tang dynasty writer Niu Sengru, newly translated by Maxwell Massa), on or around May 15. Coincidentally, this date will mark roughly five years since the publication of the first title in the series, Three Dreams (Jean Paul and Laurence Sterne), in the spring of 2021. It has been an amazing five years of publications. I know that my co-editor Joshua Rothes and I are both proud of all that we have achieved. By resurrecting sundry voices from centuries past, we have altered and added to the fields of American modernism, Iberian literature, Romanticisms English and German, early modern English literature, and several other fields. In the words of Julie Melby (writing in American Book Review), the series catalog ”serves as a wake-up call to scholars and general readers alike”. It is tempting to single out some of the names that made the series what it was: Jean Paul, Kathleen Tankersley Young, James Thomson, Antonio de Guevara, Thomas De Quincey, Boris Pilnyak, and so on. Such a list feels absurdly incomplete alongside a full listing of the many authors whose work we have championed. This post concludes with a list of the series titles in sequence, if only because it is good to preserve and remember them in one place. It has been rewarding to work with the many brilliant editors and translators whose work made our volumes possible. I am grateful to the series’s subscribers and its devoted readers and enthusiasts, and to the many librarians, booksellers, and scholars who helped readers to discover books in the series. We could not have done it without you. The series will continue to operate as an equal partnership between Joshua Rothes and myself, and to sell its stock of titles remaining in print. These are available for purchase through Asterism Books, our Seattle distributor. I would encourage you to explore the catalogue, if you are not familiar with it already, and also to share your enthusiasm for the books with your friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. —Jacob Siefring
January 5, 2026 at 5:27 PM
jsief.bsky.social
At my blog, a brief statement on the past & the future of the Empyrean Series, which will turn 5 years old this April
jsief.com/2026/01/05/s...
This is an announcement regarding the future of The Empyrean Series of Sublunary Editions, for which I have served as series editor since its inception in 2021. The forty-ninth and the fiftieth titles, which I am currently editing and designing, are slated to be the last in the series. The forty-ninth title, as previously announced, will be Peter Lebrecht: A Tale Devoid of Adventures (by Ludwig Tieck, 1795, newly translated by Douglas Robertson). Editorial work on the series will be brought to completion with the publication of our fiftieth title, An Account of Marvels and of Beasts (by the Tang dynasty writer Niu Sengru, newly translated by Maxwell Massa), on or around May 15. Coincidentally, this date will mark roughly five years since the publication of the first title in the series, Three Dreams (Jean Paul and Laurence Sterne), in the spring of 2021. It has been an amazing five years of publications. I know that my co-editor Joshua Rothes and I are both proud of all that we have achieved. By resurrecting sundry voices from centuries past, we have altered and added to the fields of American modernism, Iberian literature, Romanticisms English and German, early modern English literature, and several other fields. In the words of Julie Melby (writing in American Book Review), the series catalog ”serves as a wake-up call to scholars and general readers alike”. It is tempting to single out some of the names that made the series what it was: Jean Paul, Kathleen Tankersley Young, James Thomson, Antonio de Guevara, Thomas De Quincey, Boris Pilnyak, and so on. Such a list feels absurdly incomplete alongside a full listing of the many authors whose work we have championed. This post concludes with a list of the series titles in sequence, if only because it is good to preserve and remember them in one place. It has been rewarding to work with the many brilliant editors and translators whose work made our volumes possible. I am grateful to the series’s subscribers and its devoted readers and enthusiasts, and to the many librarians, booksellers, and scholars who helped readers to discover books in the series. We could not have done it without you. The series will continue to operate as an equal partnership between Joshua Rothes and myself, and to sell its stock of titles remaining in print. These are available for purchase through Asterism Books, our Seattle distributor. I would encourage you to explore the catalogue, if you are not familiar with it already, and also to share your enthusiasm for the books with your friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. —Jacob Siefring
January 5, 2026 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
chutson99.bsky.social
Lines of scrimmage, MIA somewhere in japan
January 16, 2024 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
chutson99.bsky.social
really old woodcut
January 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
simon-warner.bsky.social
James Grauerholz, the overseer of the William Burroughs estate, is dead. Oliver Harris, one of the leading scholars of the novelist's world, pays tribute to the man and his achievement for Rock and the Beat Generation…
simonwarner.substack.com/p/obituary-8...
Obituary #8: James Grauerholz
'To him I owed my career'
simonwarner.substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 6:36 PM
jsief.bsky.social
we’ll drink a cup of gladness yet? we will
January 2, 2026 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
nameofauthor.bsky.social
2026, spending more time with friends

(Tr. @unpaginated.bsky.social &
Daniel Elkind)
January 2, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Jacob Siefring
zzsylvester.bsky.social
One of the best things that happened to me in 2025 was that we got a permit to visit The Wave in Arizona. Here are some photos from last Friday; needless to say, photos do not do justice to this place
One of the classic views of The Wave, an erosional feature carved into the Navajo Sandstone, largely into one foreset of cross bedding that shows seasonal cycles A less common view of The Wave. It is easy to spend hours in a relatively small area Right above The Wave, there is a homogeneous sandstone unit that shows beautiful polygonal weathering The Wave is part of a strictly protected area called Coyote Buttes North that has a ton of incredible Navajo Sandstone features. Cyclic bedding like the one shown here is common; the darker layers are grain flows and represent the time of the year when the dominant wind was blowing.
January 2, 2026 at 4:27 AM