Susan Maxwell @ Bibliothèque des Refusés
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Susan Maxwell @ Bibliothèque des Refusés
@bibliorefuses.bsky.social
850 followers 590 following 640 posts
linktr.ee/dr.susan.maxwell
Bibliothèque des Refusés is the imprint of independent author & scholar Susan Maxwell.
Fiction: Literary — Fantasy — Mystery (as R.S. Maxwell).
Non-fiction: academic themes related to archives & fiction. Reviews.
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bibliorefuses.bsky.social
"An exceptional work, immersive, thought-provoking, and impossible to forget." This in a lovely email from Madison Clarke, a professional book marketeer who contacted me out of the blue. I'll go with that, Mads😁, just maybe not with the rest of it🙄
Find the exceptional work here books2read.com/FID/
Book cover flanked on either side by brief notes on content, each with an arrow graphic (in various styles) pointing to the cover image. The features listed are as follows: Consecutive page numbers Multiple syllables, often in the same word Printed on paper* Paragraphs of varying length Brief biographical note on author Words (individual and arranged in sentences) Figures of speech Short stories, each with its own title Punctuation marks *except for the ebook, which isn’t
November 5, 2025 at 10:13 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
It's Hallowe'en — time to mention my new book, Death at Hallowtide, written under an impenetrable pseudonym. Combining mystery & low fantasy, it is set in a (sadly, fictional) part of Ireland where the boundaries with the otherworld(s) are more porous than usual. 1/4
books2read.com/b/dah
Front cover of Death at Hallowtide by Susan Maxwell, writing as R. S. Maxwell. Line art. Top: pumpkin Jack-o'-Lantern. Bottom: white dog with red ears, walking from left to right. Centre: signpost pointing to Corrbofinn both left and right, to 'mysterious' and everyday aspects respectively. Left: small green bottle with skull-and-crossbones label, moon obscured by clouds, stone tower, crime-scene outline of body. Right: twig with leaves attached, cottage, pub sign, Mini Cooper car.
October 31, 2025 at 7:44 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Greetings! I am an independent author & scholar who writes literary/slipstream, fantasy, & mystery fiction, and non-fiction related to archives & literature. Latest book is (the appropriately seasonal) Death at Hallowtide, a cosy mystery/fantasy set in Ireland.
Links linktr.ee/dr.susan.max...
Cover of Death at Hallowtide. Book description on back cover: Corrbofinn. A place where things are… different. Where Jessica Quill has inherited a house and land. And where she has just become the number one suspect in the murder of local wide boy Tony Millar. Jessica's life has entered uncharted waters. A job she hates, a cheating partner, her unexpected inheritance, and the final straw: tripping over a corpse in the rain when she comes to rural Ireland to arrange the sale of her property. But Herne's Acre is no ordinary place. It’s a key crossing-point on the borderlands between the mortal world and the otherworlds of the sidhe. And now it is to be sold by a stranger unfamiliar with the true nature of Corrbofinn, a source of considerable anxiety for Thornapple, that very civil servant of the Borderlands Commission. Bewildered, grumpy, and armed only with knowledge of toxic plants and classic detective stories, Jessica pursues her own inquiries to clear her name. Corrbofinn yields some of its mysteries along with new friends—human, canine, and… Well. You know. Increasingly conflicted, Jessica’s sensible self squares off against her dreams of a different life. But she makes enemies, too, leading to a deadly showdown on Hallowe'en, when the borders between worlds are at their most fluid and uncanny.
October 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
"Age yourself with a movie you saw in theatres as a kid"

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ci...
The poster advertising the Lumière brothers cinematographe, showing a famous comedy (L'Arroseur Arrosé, 1895). Shows members of a typical theatre show audience of the era delightedly watching a film screen flanked by pulled-back curtains.
September 30, 2025 at 7:58 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
The Goats in the Machine...
Mere coincidence, or do @blaft.bsky.social and @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social know something I don't?
I for one am prepared to welcome our new caprine overlords, should this be a harbinger of things to come.
Screenshot of consecutive posts on Bluesky timeline, the first from Blaft Publications publicizing a fundraiser for their forthcoming book 'Bandigoat: A Collection of Strange & Horrible Tales', the second featuring photos of a white mountain goat by Jeff VanderMeer with text 'the epic derangement of the mountain goat'.
September 7, 2025 at 7:03 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
This particular panel has somehow induced a sense of simultaneous eager anticipation and creeping dread...
#MRJames #Gothic #GothicStudies #OnlineConference #Archives #ArchivalFiction
Screenshot showing details of conference panel discussion on Saturday 23rd of August: 3.15 – 5.05 – Panel 2 – Archives and Archaeology (Panel chair: Rebecca Stone Gordon) Amy Leblanc – Think about what you don’t get to see: Ghosts, Archives, and Images in Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook: Ghost Stories Susan Maxwell – A Catalogue of Terrors: Archives, Fiction, and Archival Fiction Mark P. Williams – Excavating the ()ole Complex: Re-reading M. R. James via Reza Negarestani; Or Chthonic Modernism of ‘Count Magnus’, ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ and ‘Mister Humphreys and His inheritance’ Tracy Hayes – Codicology releases Demons – The Antiquarian Gothic
May 25, 2025 at 7:57 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Cometh the hour, cometh the man...
Happy May-day, one and all!
#MayDay #WickerMan
Still from The Wicker Man, showing Edward Woodward as police sergeant Neil Howie.
May 1, 2025 at 7:22 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
You’ve been murdered, who do you want on the case?
Cover illustration from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Cartoon illustration of police sergeant on a bicycle.
February 15, 2025 at 8:49 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
"All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard."
#AvantGarde #Modernism #Archives #UbuWeb
www.ubuweb.com
UbuWeb Founded 1996 February 1, 2025 A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elsewhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It's now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.
February 14, 2025 at 8:55 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
About to do some cooking; as a great admirer of the work of Flann O'Brien, perhaps I'll be moved to try out this splendid recipe, collected in The Best of Myles...
RECIPE Stuff the breast of the chicken with some of the sausage meat. Place the sugar thermometer in the syrup while it is boiling. Withdraw the pan from the burner as soon as the correct temperature has been reached. Wash the sago. Mix the cornflour into a paste with some of the cold milk. Fill with repared paste, using either a hot knife or a forcing pipe. Transfer to a tin lined with greased paper and bake for 1 hr. 45 minutes with the Regulo at Mark 4. Mix and turn out on a floured board, shape into cutlets, coat with the egg and bread crumbs and fry in hot fat for the rest of your natural.
January 26, 2025 at 2:09 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Sitting up with cup of tea as #StormEowyn picks up outside. It is already pretty ferocious, and hasn't even reached Status Red in our part of the country yet. Might as well contribute to the doomscroll while we still have electricity!
Screenshot of map of Ireland from the Irish meteorological office website, showing the entire country as Status Red for Storm Eowyn.
January 24, 2025 at 5:19 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
R.I.P. David Lynch. That news is a punch in the gut - a huge loss.
Red curtains
January 16, 2025 at 7:14 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
I was looking up a reference and came upon this picture, and it struck me as somehow a bit off. Then I twigged: when was the last time you saw a colour photo of Beckett? He is so indelibly & iconically linked with monochrome imagery that this photo looks false, colourised.
Head-and-torso colour photo of Samuel Beckett with bookshelves in background.
January 9, 2025 at 10:44 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
I find myself on the satanic horns of a dilemma on my Mastodon account.
mastodon.ie/deck/@Biblio...
Screen clip showing '666 posts'.
January 4, 2025 at 7:41 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Went shopping the other day, the only organic milk left was one whopping great carton that wouldn't fit in the fridge. But we found two decanters that almost perfectly matched the usual 1-litre carton dimensions. I kind of like the tone this sets for the coming year - 2025, here I come!
Photo of breakfast table, close-up of Bombay Sapphire gin bottle containing milk.
January 3, 2025 at 12:13 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
...or they come up with something you never knew existed (Tove Jansson did illustrations for Alice in Wnderland?😲), or something you never thought of for yourself but looks very promising (the A.L. Kennedy). If reading broadens the mind, reading books chosen by others broadens it yet further. 2/2 📚🎁
Cover of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by Tove Jansson. Cover of A.L. Kennedy's Serious Sweet.
December 25, 2024 at 3:31 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
It's great to get book presents from people who know you well. They seem to have psychic access to our household's TBR wishlist—in this category fall the @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social, Mervyn Wall (doubling up as the practically obligatory @swanriverpress.bsky.social edition), & Hanuki Murakami... 1/2
Cover of Hanuki Murakami's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Cover of Jeff VanderMeer's Absolution. Cover of Mervyn Wall's Leaves for the Burning.
December 25, 2024 at 3:31 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
In town today for Christmas shopping. We only went into Books Upstairs to have tea & cake in the cafe, and into the Georges Street arcade to look for presents for other people, yet somehow - it's utterly inexplicable - these managed to make their way into the shopping bags...📚
Cover of The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones). Cover of Image, Music, Text by Roland Barthes (trans. Stephen Heath).
December 13, 2024 at 7:51 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
😧Has the algorithm been hitting the absinthe, that it comes up with 👇 from a perusal of my intermittent ramblings on books and writing? Are the two recommendations connected in some labyrinthine way?
Screenshot of 'suggested accounts', one of which is rather, er, unseemly. So apologies for lack of actual alt text, but I don't want to encourage the algorithm!
December 7, 2024 at 9:57 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
I hope you feel better soon: look after yourself. Coming late to the party since I too was a bit poorly yesterday, but here in the Bibliothèque we are reading two outstanding works of contemporary fantastika, @vajra.me's The Saint of Bright Doors (me) & @alexpheby.bsky.social's Mordew (the BdR elf).
Cover of The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera. Cover of Mordew by Alex Pheby.
December 3, 2024 at 10:07 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Good morning, and I hope Monday finds you well! I have a couple of things on the go for reviewing purposes, but my current self-selected read is The Saint of Bright Doors by @vajra.me. I am only a short way in, but so far, so very good.
Front cover of The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
November 18, 2024 at 11:53 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Brilliant! 👏🤣🤠🎩👒

Oh, and proof of hat attached.*

*Actually, it's no proof at all - only one person in the photo is wearing a hat, and who's to say which is the author?
Close-up photo of author (wearing a beanie hat) beside exuberant skeleton sculpture in botanic gardens, as though engaged in conversation.
November 16, 2024 at 3:31 PM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last tv show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?
Watched an episode last night on DVD, but as we were rolling our eyes at how chaotic & amateurish their behaviour & procedures were, I don't have any great hopes of rescue.
Poster of characters from series 3 of Primeval, against a background collage of fearsome prehistoric and dustopian future creatures.
November 12, 2024 at 10:47 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
Cocktail Time!🍸
-Base of irreal/speculative literary fiction
-Good dash of bureaucratic gothic
-Splash of ecocriticism (optional)
-Garnish with sprig of intertextuality
-Shake well & pour.
(For younger imbibers, replace items 1 & 2 with low fantasy & Irish mythology)
linktr.ee/dr.susan.maxwell
Susan Maxwell is an independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream fiction for adults, fantasy literature suitable for younger readers. The novel Good Red Herring was published by Little Island Books; subsequent novels and a short story collection have been published under the Bibliothèque des Refusés imprint. Maxwell holds a PhD for research on archives and the margins, and writes non-fiction related to archives and literature.
November 7, 2024 at 10:08 AM
bibliorefuses.bsky.social
What do you mean, you didn't know I have a short story collection - has my marketing team been asleep on the job (come to think of it, have they ever actually woken up)?
books2read.com/fid
#SpecFic #ShortStories #SFFH #Fantastika
Book cover flanked on either side by brief notes on content, each with an arrow graphic (in various styles) pointing to the cover image. The features listed are as follows: Consecutive page numbers Multiple syllables, often in the same word Printed on paper* Paragraphs of varying length Brief biographical note on author Words (individual and arranged in sentences) Figures of speech Short stories, each with its own title Punctuation marks *except for the ebook, which isn’t
October 31, 2024 at 10:48 AM