Postmodern Pentathalon
Hey folks, So I got curious about the Modern Pentathlon, for my sins, entirely because of those photos that are going around. You know the ones. In the...
July Book Club Post
Hey folks! There’s a bunch of reading this month that I won’t be discussing too much, because it was for an award jury, but I also just took a bunch of time...
The responsibility to be kind
Good for Simone Biles. Good for Naomi Osaka. Good for every single person who has recently stood up and said, “This situation is not good for me and I will...
The horrid glory of personal responsibility
So this screencap is going around the internets and I have no idea who the person is who posted it but it made me laugh like a drain. Just because this is so...
Cat politics
Of our four cats, Duncan is the boss cat, but he is a (mostly) benevolent dictator. Fafhrd is a horrible bully, but he's smaller than the other two boys and...
Horse stories 10
This guy saved both of us from a scary situation today, and I'm super proud of him. The morning started amusingly as I showed up at the barn first thing to...
Paperback Bookday!
Oh look, it's the US Paperback of MACHINE!
Social Media is a nightmare hellscape from which we are trying to awaken. Also, take a day off; you deserve it.
Hey, folks, So I took a long weekend off ("off" in this case just means I am not looking at The Folded Sky right now or until tomorrow, dammit, although I...
How To Survive A Literary Life
Hey folks, Here's a link to a zoom talk I gave on dealing with the pressures of being an artist in public in the current era. I hope you enjoy and please...
June Book Club
Well, I actually seem to have read a lot of things this month, even if several of them are my own work that I'm reviewing! In addition to that, however, I...
Horse Stories 9
Ormr had a busy last weekend! And hasn’t done much this week, because it’s much too hot to make him work right now. The stall toys appear to be keeping him...
NEW STORY DAY
Hey folks! Catch up on the latest adventure of Auga Hacksilver, long-suffering bisexual Viking sorcerer, and his history of poor relationship choices, here....
Horse Stories 8
Well, it's been an interesting week, whereby interesting I mean challenging, but we're all still here and our heads are above water. I am not sure I'll be...
Horse Stories 7
Summer is here with a vengeance, quite suddenly. It was 40 degrees last weekend. Today, it is over 90. The horse is in his barn, and my exercise for today...
What we've been doing around here...
Dinner is cooking. It's chicken and rice with root vegetables and a Greekish dill yogurt sauce. I have spent most of the day working on White Space #3, The...
Horse Stories 6
Last Thursday, when we had our riding lesson, we did a very ridiculous thing, which involved trotting around poles, moving traffic cones from one pole to...
May Book Club
I finished The Stand. Honestly, I kind of feel like that’s enough for one month. But! I also reread (re-listened?) Stephen Brusatte’s podcast-ish The Rise...
Horse Stories 5
I'm writing this on Thursday, May 20th and will send it out next week. Ormr is on a diet, and he's not too pleased about it. You will notice that there are...
THE RED MOTHER cover
Art by Greg Manchess. Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Coming next month from Tor.com.
The Red Mother cover reveal tomorrow
If you like: -Sarcastic queer disaster Vikings -dubious ponies -riddles -kinship duty -poor life choices This one's for you. Cover reveal tomorrow! Story...
Protagonist syndrome: what it means to you.
Hey, folks, So we’re still working our way through Breaking Bad and also Life. (Scott has watched Breaking Bad before and liked it; I watched Life before and...
Lilac Syrup (and) short fiction print publication news.
Hey, folks, I made a duck for my Mom’s birthday, so the cats got braised duck innards for lunch, and they think this is a very fine thing and should possibly...
Machine Paperbacks (and) Horse Stories 4
Hey folks, Just wanted to let you know that the UK paperback of Machine will be out on Thursday, May 27th. I just got my author copies this week and it looks...
Horse Stories 3
Hey folks, So yesterday, I rode Ormr, which was actually the first time I've ridden him since LAST Thursday, though I was over at the barn Saturday, Sunday,...
Adventures with cats
Molly: I am on the armoire! Pet me, pet me, pet me! Me: **Pets, dutifully.** Molly: **Purrs and wiggles and purrs until she accidentally steps off into thin...
un/conscious in/competence
What if you don't even know what you need to learn in order to improve?
Horse Stories 2
I'm writing this on April 29; I'm going to send it out Monday May 3, but when I say "today" and "yesterday," I mean Thursday and Wednesday, respectively....
What to expect when you're coping with the unexpected
Congratulations, everybody. We’ve gotten to a point where we can maybe see the first tickle of the end of the crisis. Or maybe, to be more precise, the...
Horse Stories 1
So my friend Sarah Monette, who is also Katherine Addison, posts dressage stuff and horse stories over on her Patreon, and I figured, you know what, Ormr and...
Gatekeepers.
Hey folks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “gatekeepers” and traditional publishing in the sense of agents and editors and publishers, and the...
Does what it says on the tin!
Hey, on Tuesday I'm giving a free talk at ARU's Creative Showcase on how to survive the creative life with your emotional health mostly intact!...
April Book Club Post
Hey folks, Spring is busting out all over the place, and I spent about twenty-five woman-hours mulching the yard in the past two weeks. I'm drowning in...
I'll be at Virtual Eastercon this weekend!
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Cheap books!
Hey folks! ANCESTRAL NIGHT is an April Kindle Deal in the US, and the US ebook edition is available from fine retailers for $1.99 UK ebook edition still 99p...
March Book Club Post
I’m getting an inordinate amount of joy this week from watching it snow on a volcano in Iceland. You can see tiny people sometimes, and a number of...
A post office box in Schenectady.
As some of you know, paying subscribers get the privilege of asking me questions. Recently, I got one that was not the dreaded, “Where do you get your...
On the kerfuffles of capitalism
So, a bunch of my colleagues are pondering whether to remain on Substack, given the fact that they have started paying what amount to advances against...
On Copyrights
So there’s a been a lot of bad hot takes lately about copyright and the public domain, and in the spirit of education and fun, I wanted to share this Planet...
Bread
so muchdependsupon a red standmixerdusted with breadflourbeside a stove with onedead burner (This pandemic is just a forest of dead major appliances for...
The beginning of the end.
CW: pandemic stuff So the Biden administration thinks they can vaccinate everybody who wants one by the end of May, and Christopher Wray is being allowed to...
Institutionalized?
So I got my first dose of Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, through CVS, which has a much more manageable website than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I became...
February book club post
So, do you pronounce the R in February? (I do.) It’s snowing again in southern New England, and I am trying to catch up on my reading after a slow couple of...
I finished the book.
You might have seen on twitter or instagram, but here’s the news: the very overdue THE ORIGIN OF STORMS is finished and sent to my editor. Now I get a couple...
So, Texas, huh?
I can’t offer a hot take on this mess. The scale of the devastation is too enormous, from human lives to permaculture plantations to (I can only hope) Ted...
Movie rights deal for "Dolly"
I guess I’m allowed to talk about this now. :D If you want to read the original short story, it's reprinted here. It's also available in the January 2011...
How Twitter is like wolf research, and other stories.
An author who has been a casual friend for years DMed me the other day because their first book is coming out soon, and they wanted to know how to deal with...
Self-care and stuff
Desire to yoga: so low. Desire to experience the effects of yoga: High. Sigh, here we go… I mentioned this briefly on twitter, but avoidance is my new...
January Book Club!
What is reading anyway? Since last we spoke, I feel like I’ve only finished like, two books. Actually, looking at Goodreads, I see that it’s more than that....
PTSD and current events.
Hey, folks, Well, I dunno about you, but at least for me everything going on in Our Nation’s Capitol (or Their Nation’s Capitol, if you happen to be from...
Answering your Writing Questions!
Hey, folks— Thanks again for another year of your support (or the first year of your support, as the case may be.) A monthly income means a lot to a writer...