About: me.

Hi. I’m Phoenix. My pronoun is they/them.

What am I doing in Vienna?
My Twitter bio says “ex-academic”. Until 2018 I taught English Literature & Culture and Intermediality at the University of Graz, but then I had an unexpected run-in with a super-bad slipped disc and decided to desert to the private sector for my health, where I’m currently once more working as Office Bene Gesserit (all new and reformed: “sister” is a title and can refer to people of all genders). In my spare time I’m investigating the Weird side of various cities.

I moved to Graz in 2010, almost emigrated to the UK in 2016 (but then didn’t because Brexit), and was joined here by my partner (now spouse) Zali (iotar) in 2017. We moved to Vienna in early 2023 and are currently busy building a multimedia utopia.

What happened to this blog? Why is it not about any one thing?
Well, it started out as a food blog (something some friends talked me into starting), but at some point the Weird started to seep in, and I never bothered to fix the leak. See, I’m infected myself. I love all sorts of monsters (except for sparkly vampires and the like).

What’s the point of all this?
That depends. Have a look around. Some come for the recipes, then stay for the monsters. There’s also some stuff I have written and some of my recordings of horror stories (first other people’s, then increasingly my own). If you’re not really into any of that, you can always investigate my city’s hidden sights or find a new favourite brand of tea.
What I’d really like to do is to provide people with new perspectives. There’s more ways than one to do this, and I’m currently working on several. Let’s see what the future will bring. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my blog.