Hey all. Piper Drake, a friend and a fellow romance author, needs some help funding her cancer treatment. It's been a long, tough road, but she's got one more story in her and we'd like to buy her a little more time to get it out. www.gofundme.com/f/help-autho...

I’m really enjoying learning the organ. It’s also a full body workout when pedal work is included. 😆

Bland. Generic. Absent of spice and specificity. At first glance, it looks pretty. But when you look closer, you realize it’s word salad. I can tell when someone has opted out of writing their own text and given the work to chatgpt. Please stop. It’s not helping at all.

Sharing this podcast where my friend, Brigitte van der Sande talks about her work and the dream for a Cultuurhuis. (Also she talks about sociocracy.) werkplant.substack.com/p/s03e17-bri...

Musical Adventures: In search of sound (If you prefer, you can listen to the audio recording of this post. It's a 6 minute listen.) I'll be having my third organ lesson soon, and I realise that it won't be long before I need an instrument with at least twenty-seven foot pedals to practice on when…

Friday’s event for Queer History Month On Friday, I attended IHLIA's programme for the sixth edition of Queer History Month. The first part was taken up by a keynote speech (in Dutch), and a panel (in Dutch) which included the keynote speaker and the curator overseeing an exposition for World…

It’s always lovely to find out someone wants to include my work in their project. 😊

Reading @bogiperson.bsky.social Song of Spores. Really good. I am already loving it and I just started. #reading #songofspores

Oh hey Fran has a patreon you can check out!

The ongoing journey I'm still basking in the IFFR glow of watching our young filmmakers from Moving Love having that epiphany of: I am a filmmaker. They finished the course, they made these films, and so they are deserving of that title: filmmaker. I'm looking forward to the premiere when all of…

THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR limited ed N. American hardcover is officially out of print, & no longer available. My BFA-winning book about a family of interreal refugees in 90s/00s Calcutta is still available as an ebook, & a paperback in S. Asia. Shares appreciated, reads even more so:

Boosting @laviecestmoi.bsky.social’s fundraiser once again. gogetfunding.com/medical-and-...

Thanks for the signal-boosts. ❤️

Re-posting this as I quite forgot to check if the link to Vida’s fundraiser worked. It works now. Extra highlight added. 😅 Thanks for boosting. rcloenenruiz.com/2026/02/07/s...

Saturday morning signal-boost I thought I'd share a recorded excerpt from Vida Cruz-Borja's story, "Have your #Hugot harvested at this Diwata-owned Cafe". This is a story that's available online at Strange Horizons and if you click on the title line, it will take you there. For some reason the…

We'll have a table at this event tomorrow. Queer-authored & queer-themed books and zines only 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈

Democratizing the arts looks like universal income, low-barrier grants for both emerging and working artists, well-funded municipal arts & recreation programs, vibrant third spaces, and a well-funded public school system with progressive curriculum. Not a free pass for corporate-owned slop engines.

It’s tonight! Heading off to support my peeps. iffr.com/en/iffr/2026...

We're still stuck at 1 percent of Hailey's goal. Can we get it to 10 percent today? 🏳️‍⚧️💖

Can we help @popelizbet.bsky.social’s friend Sonia make rent? Getting out of a violent marriage often takes everything (money, guts, even supposedly solid social connections) a person has.

What I am doing and where I will be It's turning out to be quite a busy week on the blog. Sometimes, it's like that. In conversation with a group of new writers, we talked about this case of intermittent journalling. There are periods when you have lots to write about and periods when you don't…

I did some memoir writing on the blog and recorded a narration for those who prefer a narration. rcloenenruiz.com/2026/02/03/m...

furthermore, fuck Neil Gaiman

For those in the Rotterdam area, Five moving portraits made by participants of Moving Love will be shown during the International Film Festival Rotterdam. iffr.com/nl/iffr/2026...

So…I have just signed up for organ lessons. Not for the modern pop organ but for your church-sized organ. I was so excited, I blurted out that I am in my Bach era. This statement amused my organ teacher. #musicgiveslife

Folks, @rsagarcia.bsky.social needs our help to continue to deal with the expenses related to cancer treatment -- if you're in a position to d0n8, pls consider doing so, as well as boosting the signal 👇👇👇

I feel no guilt about lounging in my pyjamas on a Sunday afternoon. 😊

What I have been up to In November and December, we had the workshops for Moving Love which is a film project for LGBTQ+ asylumseekers in the Netherlands where participants who are interested in film-making are given the basic knowledge and training needed to help them on the journey towards…

One thing that is true in this age of "AI" is that authenticity is going to be prized more than ever before. A single hand-scrawled sign is going have more impact than the smoothest "AI" image because the people seeing it knows it comes from someone's brain, not a tuned algorithm.

hi friends, i've put together a short collection of SFF stories and set it free—i hope it can give you some encouragement, a smile, or even just a pause in the doomscrolling. art is resistance. <3 🐺 📚 ko-fi.com/s/f0da603a0d <— support/PWYW (free!) tiny.cc/2q7y001 <— direct download

Just a periodical reminder that defeatism is a form of surrender to tyranny.

As with all its applications, AI takes away the process, leaving you only with results. Even if people think the results are good (they seldom really are), the process is valuable. Learning, development, experimentation, innovation & change come about through process, not by skipping to results.

I think we have been conditioned and socialized to see English as the accepted norm, but who says we need to know everything word for word? There is so much beauty in discovering meaning. Like hidden treasure that opens to those who take time to understand it.

I wrestle with generative AI because when used to translate, it becomes this bland polished thing (you can always tell). I often tell participants: write in your own language then tell me what it means. Often, that’s more impactful and moving.

Tried chair yoga for the first time. And I am like: oooff. That’s not as easy as it looks. Maybe it gets better with repetition.

Woke up really early because the manuscript kept haunting me. Consumed a pot of tea and now I’m sleepy again. #storyofmylife

Vida Cruz-Borja @laviecestmoi.bsky.social could use a little more help at this time. Do check out her fundraiser gogetfunding.com/medical-and-...

Have made a simple powerpoint for tomorrow’s workshop on memoir writing. A project from Queer Work for LGBTQ+ asylumseekers and statusholders in The Netherlands. #yourvoicematters

"It’s that my eyes have seen something through a lens the author does not have." Honestly, I see this in modern fiction a lot. Research will only get you so far. That's why, when featuring diversity, you also should take care about which elements you're best placed to tell.

I really enjoyed the storytelling approach in this fantasy novel The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2026/1/...

The youngest one is 19 today. 😊 #thankfulhearts

Er sorry I should have been clearer: order any of the books in the series and get an EXCLUSIVE ebook with bonus shenanigans involving our Fallen angel cast, a birthday party and a decidedly over-friendly magical fungus.

BEHOLD, the preorder campaign for the US edition of Dominion of the Fallen is live!!!! www.aliettedebodard.com/2026/01/23/d...

It's really something seeing the AI CEOs literally begging for people to use their shitty product. Lads; if it were any good - even with the planet-destroying aspect - you wouldn't have to sell it like this. Look at cars! They're like the worst thing ever environmentally and we love them!

Looking forward to seeing one of my dear ones perform as part of the Amsterdam Gay Men’s Chorus. Get your tickets while you still can. Repertoire looks fantastic. amsgmc.weticket.io/never-a-clou...

Katherine Kerr is in danger of losing her home after fighting the us healthcare system Please help if you can? (Sorry fb link, I have no other source) www.facebook.com/share/p/1Kbi...

Estée Lauder’s got their makeup and beauty brand portfolio up on their site so that’ll be super helpful to figure out what brands to avoid: www.elcompanies.com/en/our-brands

Happy that the youngest finally feels confident enough in Mama’s health that he’s invited friends over for dinner. I said I’d make adobo and the friends were like: we are so excited because it looks yummy in pictures and we’ve never had it before. #food

Not feeling all too wonderful atm. 🤧 At least, I was able to record a promo video for an upcoming workshop before I got sick.

Organizing the downstairs bookshelf and discovering all the books I haven’t read yet. I’m like: Okay. Clearly, I have a lot if catching up to do. Also…how did all these books fit into this bookshelf in the first place. 😭