In the woods

Oh the social media idiocy is already ramping up for the winter Olympics? 🤣🤣🤣 For reference,the two skaters are ice dancers, and while this is a new team, both are extremely high-level, and one a former OGM. It's highly likely that they will podium at the Olympics.

#ArtAdventCalendar Day 18! A nifty trout lily I sketched in the woods behind my Mom’s place! Very cool little wildflowers, I like their shape (watercolor again)

Raven || 10,5x15cm || Linocut print [Photo references were used] ___ #art #raven #linocut #traditional

I'm aiming for 30 sign ups to my kickstarter campaign over the holidays. Fan of dark fantasy, Scottish folklore, audiobooks? Give it a "Notify me" click and share with others you know! www.kickstarter.com/projects/tri...

Started the Great Big Clean Up for Hogmanay... Holy shit where does all this kak come from? Send me some cleaning power please!

YES IT IS ONLY 3:15PM AND THE SUN IS IN FACT SETTING BUT HAVE YOU HEARD IT'S THE SOLSTICE TOMORROW THE PAIN IS ON ITS WAY OUT FELLAS

I always enjoy Womble's end of year lists, so it's extra delightful to see THE SALT ORACLE in such good company 🖤

Can confirm. I attended Randee's seminar on how to be interviewed at WFC26 and now I feel much more prepared for speaking with journalists about HOME SICK.

Back in Edinburgh and not dead!

This is also why you get so many chowderheads online who declare things "bad writing" when what they really mean is "plot points/characters that I don't like". Or, quite frequently, "main character is a woman and I can't handle that".

"they don't know how to express the idea" here's rian johnson's storyboard for knives out pick up a pencil and a napkin

I am.. slightly stoned and mildly inebriated in my super xtian teetotaler in-laws' houses. Ask me anything, it would be less weird than this

Last day, so I went to my childhood summers by the beach

2025 fantasy reads took me to expansive worlds with epic stories, political intrigue, magical bargains, and brilliant characters! Looking forward to 2026 sequels! ✨Ft @annabelcwrites.bsky.social, @edcrockerbooks.bsky.social, @premeemohamed.com, @heatherpalmer.bsky.social & @clhellisen.bsky.social!

Wondering how much I could manipulate boomers at work by adopting Chat GPT complimentary language in everything. What a great insight, Stuart. Have you also noticed that xxxx Instead of, Sorry Stuart, that’s not quite right, we actually need xxxx

If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...

Related: did you know Christian fiction authors have branched out into "dark romance fantasy" novels?

If you'd like to read my World Fantasy Award shortlisted story Godskin, then amble on over to @strangehorizons.bsky.social ... strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...

It's odd posting about awards eligibility & asking please consider me when my book's barely out so not many of you have read it. But I have one sole eligible thing this year, and I'm proud of it in all its briny strangeness. So hey, please consider THE SALT ORACLE if you're nominating? 🖤🖤🖤

Hello to the recent batch of new followers! Welcome to you, but I'm afraid if you followed me because of pictures of food and beaches, I gotta tell you I'm on holiday. My normal mode is talking books/writing, grumbling about publishing and raging about the stupidity of AI and its zealots. ;)

Graham Linehan has such little self-awareness he *really* doesn’t understand how totally unhinged he seems in his ‘woe is me’ batshit crazy ranting! 😬 He’s the ‘cautionary tale’ of what obsessive ‘gender critical’ transphobia leads to: no friends, no life, and spaghetti carbonara for one!

What’s going? No, really, what’s going on?

Sorry not sorry this account is just sea photos now... Loved the misted air over the beach, the softness of the colours, as we walked down bloubergstrand, the last of the evening sunlight muted by the clouds

Looking to hit your end of year reading targets? Might I suggest my short read Have You Decided on Your Question from @shortwavebooks.bsky.social, described as Black Mirror meets Sliding Doors, a dark near-future tale set in Edinburgh...👀❓️✨️ linktr.ee/lyndseycroal

In fabulous news, I just found out that The Shape of Monsters made an audible best of SFF list! If you're looking for LGBTQIA+ dark fantasy with non binary rep, where almost everyone is a queer disaster, then look no further www.audible.co.uk/public-colle...

Skating in Cape Town has been really pleasant. Ok, look, the ice is kinda a horror show, and I have to go through a casino to get there, 🤣, but the adult skaters we've met have been lovely, friendly folk.

Anyone with an entrepreneurial bone in their body would have opened a Glasgow Wonkaland Experience Experience this year, and made it an annual ironic hipster tradition.

Here are some helpful tips for random strangers commenting on posts. - don't assume everyone is American - look at some of the other comments first to see if you're not being repetitive - alt text on photos exists, read it if you need more context - refrain from being a shitgibbon

The sunset is incredible tonight - my sad little camera phone pic from the flat window does it zero justice

Voting eligibility post for 2025! If any of these tickled you in strange places, consider adding them to an award list near you ;) @thepinkhydra.com @giganotosaurus.bsky.social

2025 books I've enjoyed! The Salt Oracle by @rainewilson.bsky.social - a stunning follow up in the same world as We Are All Ghosts, bringing even more intrigue to this strange dystopia, but with new characters and moral quandaries galore! A beautifully eerie locked-room tale like no other! ✨️🌊💙

Seems presumptuous that you would post on a random stranger's skeet to scold them 😁

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 2876: Don't write "a woman character", or "a gay character", or "a disabled character." Write a complete human being, with agency, and feelings, and flaws. No-one in fiction should be wholly defined by the groups they belong to.

To my Canadian pals, just had my first nanaimo bar and it was delicious

Made some friends today at Two Oceans.... Good friends, nice friends.

Excellent trip out to Stellenbosch to the University Botanical Gardens, loved all the displays, especially the bonsai

Voting eligibility post for 2025! If any of these tickled you in strange places, consider adding them to an award list near you ;) @thepinkhydra.com @giganotosaurus.bsky.social

My goal for today is to visit the best aquarium in the world.

'Two Sirens' Ink on Moleskine sketchbook paper, 128 × 206 mm, from 2020. #ArtAdventCalendar

Time to cleanse my timeline 🤣 Summer sunset walk with a view of Table Mountain, SOUTH AFRICA.

For the terminally confused trolls, and because people seem to be under the impression I don't know what I bought - Malva melk tert slice and cookie dough brownie from a bakery IN SOUTH AFRICA. This is a shot of the interior. This is not Canada.

Omg you are a fucking doos It was actually a malva melk tert slice and a cookie dough fudge brownie, both of which I bought at a bakery in Stellenbosch SOUTH AFRICA I'm also South African, so you can take your attitude and shove it up your arse

Fair warning, next person to tell me that my cookie dough brownie is, in fact, a nanaimo bar, when it really isn't, is getting airlocked.

On the recommendation of @nerinedorman.bsky.social, I headed out to Thelema Mountain Vineyard to try their The Mint Cabernet Sauvignon (among many) and ohhhhh myyy gawwwd. Place is gorgeous, the wine just as much.

In fabulous news, I just found out that The Shape of Monsters made an audible best of SFF list! If you're looking for LGBTQIA+ dark fantasy with non binary rep, where almost everyone is a queer disaster, then look no further www.audible.co.uk/public-colle...

Stopped for a roadside coffees and snacks at Potbelly Bakery near Stellies. Decided on sharing a malva pudding and a cookie dough brownie mmmmm. Also what is possibly the strongest dirty chai known to god and man. I am AWAKE

I second this, and I would add: borrow them from the library! If the book is unavailable when someone else requests it, it signals to the library that maybe it needs more copies! There are also royalties to authors for public lending rights, and that's not nothin'.

Thank you all, the update than we can barely believe we get to make. To everyone who supported us through this last month, we couldn’t have even come close to this outcome without you all. Have a peaceful festive period, we’ll see you in the bookshop soon 🧡