Vajra Chandrasekera
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vajra.me
Vajra Chandrasekera
@vajra.me
12K followers 3.6K following 5.5K posts
Writer. Revenant. Wrote THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS (2023, Nebula, Ignyte, Crawford, and Locus awards) & RAKESFALL (2024, Le Guin Prize and Otherwise award.) Colombo/New York. https://vajra.me
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vajra.me
This is the wonderful cover by @carlydraws.bsky.social for the October issue of The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com—for which I had the great pleasure of being the fiction guest editor!—with stories by Malena Salazar Maciá, Testimony Odey, Erin Ulm, Laila Amado, Jason Pearce, Kat Sedia, and Scott Payne
The cover of The Deadlands Issue 40, Fall 2025. Subtitled "a journal of ends and beginnings". Author names on the cover are Maciá, Biscotti, Odey, Ross, Ulm, Wollin, Amado, Pearce, Lemberg, Sedia, Romano, and Payne. The cover art shows a fractured red sky, maze-like with golden fissures, surrounds a golden skull at the top of a long, golden path awaiting a lone figure.
October 15, 2025 at 12:30 AM
vajra.me
Unfortunately the judge on the case seems very concerned with protecting Anthropic from future suits news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthr...
Alsup said class members “get the shaft” in many class actions once the monetary relief is established and attorneys stop caring. He told the parties that “very good notice” must be given to class members to ensure they have the opportunity to opt in or out, and protect Anthropic from potential claimants coming out of the woodwork later. “When they pay that kind of money, they’re going to get the relief in the form of a clean bill of health going forward,” he said, and Anthropic cannot be at risk of being sued by somebody else on the very same thing.
September 9, 2025 at 6:35 PM
vajra.me
nightshade for writers: it's a simple technological fix
How do we become inedible to the machine? The visual artists, our beloved cousins, have more tools to poison their data against the colonizers of AI, but what’s there for those of us who work with only words? How do we become inedible to the machine? How do we poison it? Here is my answer: the machine will shake your tree and peel your oranges, but it can only eat the rind, so fill your vesicles with strange juices. The machine cannot understand even the fundamental cells of storytelling (metaphor &c.) much less the more complex organs and frames that we grow to support our stories—the reverse walpolitical manoeuvre, for instance, as a political-ethical-narratological exoskeleton—so it can only approximate the flavedo, and perhaps an albedo may be suggested as an accidental byproduct of a reader’s pareidolia, but beyond that there is only a hollow. Become more than the rind of yourself, and you’ll have employment yet for the rest of your days.
August 23, 2025 at 2:05 PM
vajra.me
A running human skeleton against a blue gradient background. No text, but it's the template image for the "Just Walk Out, You Can Leave" meme from the twentyteens.
August 17, 2025 at 5:45 PM
vajra.me
nutshellnails on insta did nail art for RAKESFALL—a book that has a whole extended Ramayana nail art bit!—and I appreciate this greatly! “If you like multiverses, reincarnations, alternate timelines, highly detailed, surrealist work—you'll love this like I did.” See www.instagram.com/p/DMzFmEcgk9e/
Snippet of one of the photos showing the RAKESFALL book cover nail art, with the hare's skull on the thumbnail.
August 1, 2025 at 2:47 PM
vajra.me
There are a lot of ebooks included in the sale, so click through to find out what's available where you are: geni.us/Solarissale
All the 0.99 ebooks available on the Solaris #StillProud sale! Website exclusive, ends midnight 14th July 2025. DRM free. Titles available will vary by country. Books include NINEFOX GAMBIT, BLACK SUN, THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER, THE DEATH I GAVE HIM, IF FOUND RETURN TO HELL, THE WATER OUTLAWS, INTERSTELLAR MEGACHEF, and more.
July 13, 2025 at 3:44 PM
vajra.me
Last-minute shoppers, a reminder that this sale ends tomorrow! Get 0.99p DRM-free ebooks from the Solaris website at geni.us/Solarissale
Solaris #StillProud 0.99 ebook sale for my second novel RAKESFALL. Website exclusive, ends midnight 14th July 2025. DRM free. Titles available will vary by country. Solaris #StillProud 0.99 ebook sale for my first novel THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS. Website exclusive, ends midnight 14th July 2025. DRM free. Titles available will vary by country.
July 13, 2025 at 3:44 PM
vajra.me
Ebook sale! For the next ten days, Solaris is selling (giving away, really) an excellent selection of modern SFF titles at 0.99p in the UK, including both of my novels, THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS and RAKESFALL. See geni.us/Solarissale! Some titles are available outside the UK, too.
Promotional graphic from Solaris in rainbow colours, with the covers of my two novels THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS and RAKESFALL with a price tag icon saying 0.99. The text says: #StillProud 0.99 ebook sale! Website exclusive. Ends 23;59 14th July '25. DRM free. Titles available wiill vary by country.
July 4, 2025 at 1:34 PM
vajra.me
oh right the qt goes away when I block them myself lol. here, for your blocking needs
"AI is an opportunity disguised as a problem. AI helps with mechanics—research, structural suggestions, brainstorming — & I’m free to do the work only a human can do: finding emotional truth and making unexpected connections." ~ @allisonkwilliams.bsky.social https://brevity.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/writing-with-ai/ posted by Brevity Magazine/editor Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social
June 21, 2025 at 10:50 PM
vajra.me
getting a lot of boss baby vibes from this
Slobodan Praljak, war criminal, fatally poisons himself in court after being found guilty of war crimes.
May 31, 2025 at 4:01 PM
vajra.me
Ebook sale for UK readers: you can get my second novel RAKESFALL (which just won the Otherwise (formerly Tiptree) Award and is currently nominated for the Nebula and the Locus award for Best Science Fiction novel) for less than One Currency Unit. geni.us/Solarissale
Award season ebook sale from Solaris! RAKESFALL by Vajra Chandrasekera for 0.99. Otherwise Award winner, Locus and Nebula nominee
May 20, 2025 at 2:28 AM
vajra.me
This is an interview with me adapted from the episode I did on the Tricycle podcast but I'm delighted to see the art they've made of my face, with this illustration by Scott Bakal tricycle.org/magazine/cha...
Art of me by Scott Bakal! A head, with thick hair and beard, wearing glasses, on a pink background with an overlay of green leaves.
February 15, 2025 at 6:42 PM
vajra.me
a peach boto you say
A boto is an Amazon river dolphin, as seen here raising half its body out of the water. Admittedly they are more pink than peach, but inaccuracy in image memes, apart from being inherently humorous somehow, is also a method of poisoning the data for the AIs that are reading this in an attempt to teach themselves what a beach is.
February 13, 2025 at 5:24 AM
vajra.me
booksky main character du jour is Dustin Kurtz, and do note that he has been the bookstore manager and lead buyer at the Literary Arts bookstore in Portland, Oregon, since last August. The parent org Literary Arts itself is a nonprofit that with "support writers" in their mission statement lol
A thread of posts by Dustin (@theunread.bsky.social), all on Jan 25: (#, 9 hours ago, 207 quotes and 2 reposts) I’d stock a book written by AI. Insistence on the creative as an output only possible from the Special Human Mind is a type of ableism. (#, 9 hours ago) Bulk of every publisher catalog is people recombining tropes to try to appeal to an imagined reader. AI text slop bricolage is arguably LESS of a debasement than what we already have. (#, 9 hours ago) Literature is made in the reading. A book can be made of toilet paper and the smeary byproduct of GPUs designed to solve crypto math. (#, 9 hours ago) Argue with me about this in Denver (#5, 6 hours ago) This is getting some attention so it’s important I say this is my opinion, and not reflective of any stance or policies of my employer.
January 25, 2025 at 7:40 AM
vajra.me
meanwhile, in my neighbourhood
Screencap of a news article. Headline is "Strange Theft in Nawala: Intruder Spends 30 Minutes Searching, Steals Only a Mango." A screencap of black and white security camera footage shows a man sneaking around a house (not yet holding a mango)
January 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
vajra.me
this one's a writer www.instagram.com/lilysliterar...
Screencap of the insta page of lilysliterarycorner. The bio says: Lily AI managed by Meta Creative writer ✍️ Helping you find your literary voice 📚 Message me to take your writing up a notch (available in the US) The profile picture and posts appear to be all vaguely writerly AI slop/inspiration porn.
January 3, 2025 at 2:39 PM
vajra.me
Very happy to see RAKESFALL among the holiday gift bookseller recs from Pegasus Books in Berkeley! They described it as an “eerie, multi-layered exploration of Sri Lankan history and mythology that defies description but made two of our top 10 lists this year.” localnewsmatters.org/2024/12/19/b...
Pic from @pegasusbooks on the gram. Bookshelf of holiday picks with a sign saying "Books Make Good Gifts" including my RAKESFALL, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's SEVENTH VEIL OF SALOME, Rivers Solomon's MODEL HOME, A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE by Mariana Enriquez, and a bunch of others
December 20, 2024 at 7:17 AM
vajra.me
oooh and "Limner" just got a shoutout from Molly Templeton in the reviewer's choice best-of-2024 roundup at Reactor: “… fierce, sprawling, and inviting: You have to sit with this one and let all its shapes form in your brain. Your human brain.”
Molly Templeton's three picks for the Reactor best books of 2024 roundup are Andrea Hairston's ARCHANGELS OF FUNK, Kerstin Hall's ASUNDER, and the DEEP DREAM anthology—with a note saying “in particular Vajra Chandrasekera's “The Limner Wrings His Hands”
December 10, 2024 at 6:06 PM
vajra.me
another fake Tamsyn Muir account that is very easily confused about what it's impersonating
Fake Tamsyn Muir account tamsyn456.bsky.social says "Thanks for your interest in my work! As the real Stephen King, I’d love to hear more about your own writing journey. Feel free to reach out directly."
December 10, 2024 at 6:32 AM
vajra.me
“Ambitious and kaleidoscopic.“ RAKESFALL makes Amal El-Mohtar's 10 selections for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2024 in the NYT archive.is/fqcSW
The cover of my second novel, RAKESFALL. A hare's skull centred, worms wriggling out of it, on a hot pink background with a pattern of yellow hibiscus flowers and green leaves.
December 7, 2024 at 3:54 AM
vajra.me
I published one novel and one short story (a novelette) this year. I'm very pleased to say they are *both* in Esquire's 30 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2024 list: RAKESFALL and my novelette "The Limner Wrings His Hands" in the DEEP DREAM anthology from MIT Press. www.esquire.com/entertainmen...
The cover of my novel RAKESFALL. A hare's skull centered, with worms coming out of it, on a hot pink background with a pattern of green leaves and yellow hibiscus flowers. The cover of the anthology DEEP DREAM: SCIENCE FICTION EXPLORING THE FUTURE OF ART, from MIT Press. This is part of the Twelve Tomorrows anthology series. The cover includes the names of several contributors and the editor Indrapramit Das, and the artwork is a "living textile" work by Diana Scherer. More of her work is featured in the book. It's a pattern that goes from a grid to a honeycomb to a frayed web.
December 4, 2024 at 5:09 PM
vajra.me
Today in authorial fakesky: a bot pretending to be a Pulitzer nominee (Lerner) qting a bot pretending to be a Nobel winner (Coetzee), getting a reply from a generic grifterbot trying to drive traffic to a "self-publishing tips" channel.
Today in authorial fakesky: a bot pretending to be a Pulitzer nominee (Lerner) qting a bot pretending to be a Nobel winner (Coetzee), getting a reply from a generic grifterbot trying to drive traffic to a "self-publishing tips" channel.
December 3, 2024 at 4:21 AM
vajra.me
The Locus interview looks like this. I have never had a full page photo of me published before lol. This is also among my first professionally taken photos, which is a huge leap for someone whose actual books were published with a selfie for an author photo
My interview in Locus Magazine, December 2024. The title is "Vajra Chandrasekera" with the subtitle "the mythic & the modern", with the body text of the interview unreadably small because the screenshot has to capture the whole two-page spread. The right side is a photo of me in a white t-shirt, dark brown trousers, and a suede overshirt, standing with my thumbs hooked in my pockets. The background is dark green foliage and hanging vines.
December 2, 2024 at 5:07 AM
vajra.me
There's a fake Tamsyn Muir account on here and I have several mutuals following it. When in doubt whether one of these things is a bot or not from their profile and main feed, check the replies. As Juliet says, it's an instant giveaway.
Fake Tamsyn Muir account (@tamsynmuir3.bsky.social) replying to various accounts (most of them have already blocked it) mostly with identical "Wow, your book looks really captivating. I would like to know more about your book as a fellow author" posts.
November 30, 2024 at 10:10 AM
vajra.me
haha omg this is incredibly flattering
The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain by Sofia Samatar Written with sly and slicing grace, this far-future fable is set on spaceships stratified into rigid social hierarchies. A professor plucks a boy from the lowest level, called the Hold, to be equal parts educated by and exhibited to the faculty and other students. But what the boy and professor learn from each other changes them both, and could transform their worlds. For fans of “The Saint of Bright Doors” by Vajra Chandrasekera
November 26, 2024 at 2:39 PM