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UK Play Review: Black Superhero

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Black Superhero Play

Danny Lee Wynter and Dyllón Burnside (Pose) star in Black Superhero, an ambitious, sexy play about a queer life in crisis. David (Wynter, who also writes Black Superhero) is a queer, Black actor whose chances for greatness are fading as he nears 40. His distinct lack of fame and fortune is made all the more stark by the world-conquering success of his friend King (Dyllón Burnside, Pose’s Ricky). Known to the public as the Marvel-eqsue superhero, Craw, King is every inch the heartthrob – and it’s clear from the off that David’s feelings for his friend are complicated. When King … Read more

POLL: Is it “OK” for Santa to Be Gay?

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gay santa - deposit photos

Fewer than half of the respondents in a new poll said that they thought it was “acceptable” for Santa Claus to be depicted as gay. A YouGov poll asked 1714 adults in the U.K. whether they thought it would be acceptable or unacceptable for Santa to be depicted as being of a certain identity, like Black, Middle Eastern, female, or gay. 23% of people said that it’s “unacceptable” to portray St. Nick as Black, 22% said the same about a Middle Eastern Santa, and 41% said that it’s unacceptable to portray Santa as gay. The most unacceptable identity for Santa, … Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: Inheritance of Shadows audio – A.L. Lester

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Inheritance of Shadows audio - A.L. Lester

QSFer A.L. Lester has a new time travel romance out in audio: “Inheritance of Shadows.” It’s 1919. Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it’s connected to the mysterious books his brother left strewn around the house. Rob knows something other than just Arthur’s death is bothering Matty. He’s know him for years and been in love with him just as long. And when he finds something that looks like a gate, a glowing, terrifying doorway to … Read more

Witch-Repellant Graffiti is Totally a Thing

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Witch Graffiti - Live Science

Learning no lessons from horror films of yore, Britain has plans for a high-speed rail project that will lay tracks over the ruins of a medieval church. And, apparently, the project has run into some trouble with witches and dark spirits. According to archaeologists working at Stoke Mandeville, a village that lies in the path of the proposed railway, an early excavation of the site’s 700-year-old church revealed stone beams etched with strange circular patterns known as “witch marks.” These markings, which look like the spokes of a wheel with a hole drilled into the center, were created to “ward … Read more

UK to release Its Own “X-Files”

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UFO - Deposit Photos

From the early 1950s until 2009, a department in the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) documented and investigated reports of UFOs. Now, more than a decade after the program ended, many of those formerly classified files about UFO sightings will be made available to the public for the first time. Previously, some MoD files about UFOs had been published online at the U.K. National Archives website, The Telegraph reported. However, all of the agency’s UFO reports will be released this year on “a dedicated gov.uk web page,” a spokesperson for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) told The Telegraph. … Read more

“Witch Marks” in Hidden UK Cave Can Now Be Seen – in 3D

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Creswell Crags - Image: © Creswell Crags Museum and Heritage Centre

Mysterious “witch marks” that were carved into a cavern’s walls centuries ago to ward off evil are getting a public viewing, thanks to 3D modeling and animation. The marks were discovered earlier this year in Creswell Crags, an enclosed limestone gorge in the United Kingdom that houses a cave used by humans during the Ice Age, Creswell Crags Museum & Heritage Centre representatives said in a statement. But humans were also using the cave during the medieval period, covering its walls and ceilings with so-called witch marks as a form of protection against evil spirits and witches. During a tour … Read more

TV: A Discovery of Witches Starts Today in the UK

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A Discovery of Witches

People are getting hyped for a new TV show that features Doctor Who star Alex Kingston as a lesbian witch. It’s been 16 years, 4 months and 7 days since Buffy the Vampire Slayer dramatically parted iconic lesbian witch duo Willow and Tara, and there’s finally a new game in town.  TV drama A Discovery of Witches, which debuts in the UK this evening, introduces a new lesbian witch couple we just can’t wait to meet. What is it about? Based on the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches follows witch and historian Diana Bishop … Read more

QUEER HISTORY: Polari, the World’s First Gay Language

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Polari

“Bona to vada your dolly old eek!” That may seem like a string of nonsense words from Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat or Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange but it’s a real-life greeting gay men in the UK would say to each other in the 1950s and 60s. It means “Good to see your nice face.” Until 1967, gay sex was illegal in England and Wales. To avoid imprisonment, gay men used Polari, a language that the Oxford English Dictionary says is “made up of Italianate phrases, rhyming slang and cant terms.” It had sprung up in the … Read more

Announcement: Caledonia, by Amy Hoff

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Caledonia

QSFer Amy Hoff has a new Fantasy book out: D.I. Leah Bishop accepts a transfer to a Glasgow branch of Interpol. She soon discovers her fellow officers are monsters from folklore, and they have recruited her to help them solve what they have always considered a human crime – the first serial killing of faeries. Leah and her Victorian selkie partner, Dorian Grey, investigate supernatural crime in Scotland’s city of culture. Excerpt Yesterday, Leah Bishop didn’t believe in faeries. *** “What the hell,” she croaked, because awake was definitely not what she wanted to be. She looked at the empty … Read more