Ideally I would now have arrived in Birmingham, ready to appear as the guest speaker at the Brum SF Group's monthly meeting. However, having contracted flu earlier this week, I am curled up on my sofa with the cat. The best laid plans, as they say... the plan is to reschedule; watch this space.

Note to self: do not give Toffee her catnip just before the Zoom yoga class. It's hard to achieve complete relaxation with a cat tap-dancing on your solar plexus.

I succeeded in my mission to find some spring flowers on this morning's walk, even if the photos are not the greatest. Happy Imbolc, to those who celebrate it.

FEBRUARY EVENT: We are very excited to welcome our first guest of 2026, award-winning SFF author @jainefenn.bsky.social on 13th Feb. Come and join us at The Warehouse, Birmingham Friends of the Earth, or online via Zoom. Tickets available on the door or via Eventbrite (link to be provided soon).

Storm Ingrid also did for some of the local beach huts:

Exciting times in our little seaside town this weekend, courtesy of Storm Ingrid. The new seawall held up, but the pier in Teignmouth, 3 miles away along the coast, got trashed, and bits of it ended up on top of our seawall.

Some helpful advice and quiet wisdom for this dark Friday: www.cavletter.com/its-not-for-...

Polestars is a set of single-author collections which I was honoured to be part of, and you can now pick up a sampler showcasing authors who are part of that collection of collections, from Newcon Press: www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.as...

New year, new plans. These include not neglecting my blog, ancient and simple thing though it is. It can be found here: www.jainefenn.com

Stormy seas used as cover for invasion by Alien Foam Monster:

Got #Whammed in the local carvery last night. It was inevitable.

It's an odd time of year, and not always in a good way. This helpful and perceptive blog post by the most excellent @cavan.bsky.social really hit the spot for me, hope it does for you: www.cavletter.com/stop-beating...

I have book news!! Where We Stand, Where We Fall is now available to preorder from Herne Books:

My Bristolcon schedule: www.jainefenn.com/2025/10/bris...

Taken this evening at the allotment: the family with the plot next to mine are lovely, and I suspect they genuinely think their scarecrow is cute, but for me that cyclops mop head is pure nightmare fodder.

I now live in a country where broadcasting the truth can get you arrested for 'malicious communication'. George Orwell was so right.

Building work at the safari mini-golf leads to some odd juxtapositions

Some days I just want to be my cat.

For anyone in the US reading this: I hope you enjoy your national day today as much as you can given... well, you know.

I spent the Solstice in a sunny pub garden, listening to live music. Perfect.

A short slice of cute duckling action to brighten your day.

I'm finding myself weirdly invested in the #Eurovision results, possibly due to my friends persuading me to play the Eurovision drinking game during the actual performances. Or I may just go and have a lie down now.

Currently in The Village, my favourite place in the whole wide world

Toffee’s got the right idea. #Caturday #CatsofBluesky

Story beginnings can be tricksy, so it's good when they write themselves. Though Guardians of Paradise was the third Hidden Empire novel I knew where and how it should start halfway through the first book in the series... www.patreon.com/posts/guardi...

Western diplomacy pre-2025: Working towards a mutually acceptable solution Western diplomacy now: Appeasing an over-powered lunatic

Today’s duckling pile. Enjoy.

First duckling-pile of the year. Enjoy the cute. More will follow.

Happy Groundhog Day. Today I will to ignore my chores and avoid the news. Instead I will walk down to the sea, take my man out for a nice lunch, catch up on some reading-for-pleasure and maybe go down the pub. Just in case.

Just as long as it doesn't mean the LLMs are unionising www.independent.co.uk/tech/chatgpt...

A brief summary of my writing year: www.jainefenn.com/2025/01/chec...

Welcome to 2025 everyone. I find it hard to be optimistic about this year, but would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Happy Solstice! Here's a free audio story, short and dark, for the shortest and darkest day of the year: www.patreon.com/posts/season...

Our weekend plans have been cancelled after Storm Darragh made travel through the West Country unwise. We've got off relatively lightly so far as we're on the south Devon coast, sheltered by Dartmoor. If you're also in south or western Britain I hope you're staying safe.

Went to the local pub's Charity Christmas Quiz They had a music round Betcha can't guess what the final song was #Whamageddon And it's only December 1st.

Birthday highlight so far: banana cake decorated with a chocolate flake which had been fixed in chocolate buttercream using melted chocolate

This afternoon, for some reason, my bluesky feed is full of embroidery. And you know what? I'm good with that.

I adore my cat but I'm under no illusions: sleeping on me at night isn't a sign of love, it's a sign of the weather getting cold. Also: if I died in my sleep she'd eat my face off.

Heads up, ebook fans: starting tomorrow, my British Science Fiction Association Award-winning novel EMBERS OF WAR will be on sale for only $3.99 as part of Amazon's General Best. Deal Kindle Offer.

Some bright autumn colour, before we head into darker times:

Toffee, hard at work* Note the variegated toe-beans. *her actual job description is 'be cute and furry'

If you're part of the writing community, could you please holla and RT so we can find each other? I want to build up what we once had on Twitter (but better) #writers #writing

Woke up. Heard the news. Want to go back to bed again now. Or possibly just to scream and weep.

As the US Election looms, I am fighting the urge to hide under the duvet mainlining hot chocolate and watching Kitten Academy.

Convention news, or rather news on my attendance (or not): www.jainefenn.com/2024/10/conv...

This time next week I really, really, really hope to be at Bristolcon (Currently got covid; the line on this morning's test was fainter than midweek's but still visible, so any good wishes you can send my way would be appreciated)

Autumn is the season of (amongst other things) wearing socks after a summer without them. Perplexingly, while I wasn't looking, all my socks seem to have turned into Christmas socks.

I have coined a new word: adorannoying. It's a combination of adorable and annoying and I use it exclusively in relation to my cat, because she is.

The Best of British SF, which I was pleased to be part of, had its book birthday this week. Check out the virtual launch party (with added cats): www.youtube.com/live/IvTmiWJ...

Blog post with Patreon crossover, possible spoilers and bonus transcription errors. Happy Monday everyone. www.jainefenn.com/2024/07/hype...