I always love @readercon.org but this is the loveliest one I’ve had. Such amazing conversations, such delightful panels, such a sense of warmth and support and mutual geekery. Thank you to everyone who made this experience so wonderful!

My favorite convention of the year is @readercon.org, and this year they're letting me talk about tea!! Also horror and Megan Whalen Turner and a group reading with the wondrous @andreahairston.bsky.social and @benjaminrosenbaum.com, but: tea!!!

I had a very fun #Readercon panel with @bethanypowell.bsky.social @marissalingen.bsky.social @swingingstorm.bsky.social @victoriajanssen.bsky.social about Lois McMaster Bujold, Megan Whalen Turner, and Tamora Pierce, and what they might have in common! notes: kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1107659.html

earworm

Someone I spoke to one time just invited me to be on a panel at a thing and I was very delighted, so this is your reminder that I love being invited to talk on things! Panels, podcasts, random pop-up classes, I have So Many Opinions you guys.

Personally I feel like ceasefires end when you keep killing and bombing people not when you say so but what do I know

This thing where Israel keeps committing massive human rights violations *against their allies* (most recently withholding water from Jordan) is genuinely fascinating like how are they expecting to maintain this

My favorite convention of the year is @readercon.org, and this year they're letting me talk about tea!! Also horror and Megan Whalen Turner and a group reading with the wondrous @andreahairston.bsky.social and @benjaminrosenbaum.com, but: tea!!!

I love that humanity invented fireworks before bombs. I love knowing we start with art, not war.

I love that humanity invented fireworks before bombs. I love knowing we start with art, not war.

I realize Mamdani is already familiar with the outrage machine but I do wonder how it feels watching thousands of people die from heatwaves in his mom’s country and simultaneously watching a nation-wide hissy fit for sharing the incredibly standard long-researched suggestion of “keep your AC at 78°”

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

Fucking godawful seeing these videos start to flow out of Bengal like blood from a wound, inevitable once the BJP colonised it. We've seen this happen to so many other states, this endless wounding as the country is savaged by Hindu supremacy. Ethnostates are nazi states.

As I once more voluntarily go outside in 101°, I would like to thank my ancestors for the heat tolerance. Also this shawl that I soaked in water and stuck in a freezer.

Y’all, I worked for the NYC Office of Sustainability. Our electric grid cannot sustain the amount of energy we use during heat waves. People — not the Bluesky crowd but elderly Black & Latino folk in the outer boroughs — die. We can yell that this shouldn’t be true but it is, nevertheless, true.

Does it suck that the burden of energy saving falls on individuals instead of corporations? Of course. But we have to operate within the world we live in right now, not the one we hope will exist once the Rapture—err, Revolution comes.

The point isn’t “don’t use AC.” It is gonna be 100°, if you have the privilege of AC you should use it. But simple things like “make it 80° not 60°” and “unplug electronics” and “if there are multiple people in the apartment, gather in one room“ makes more difference than you wish it did.

Also? If you feel deeply outraged and affronted at the idea that you should experience discomfort (not danger, discomfort) so someone more marginalized doesn’t LITERALLY DIE, that is something for you to unpack for yourself, not something for you to make sweeping moral statements justifying.

Y’all, I worked for the NYC Office of Sustainability. Our electric grid cannot sustain the amount of energy we use during heat waves. People — not the Bluesky crowd but elderly Black & Latino folk in the outer boroughs — die. We can yell that this shouldn’t be true but it is, nevertheless, true.

*mumbling to self as I walk down the street* You sit in saunas on purpose, you sit in saunas on purpose, you sit in saunas on purpose—

*mumbling to self as I walk down the street* You sit in saunas on purpose, you sit in saunas on purpose, you sit in saunas on purpose—

Um HELLO I have three WILDLY amazing blurbs from three even more incredible authors! This is what @pdjeliclark.bsky.social, @scumbelievable.bsky.social, and @indrapramitdas.bsky.social have to say about my book - a horror about a Palestinian haunted house 😭🩷 Preorders here :) linktr.ee/deenahelm

Author friends! I keep wanting to create a Substack, except for all my ethical frustrations with Substack. The internet is presenting a paralyzing stream of options and meanwhile my favorite creators are... mostly on Substack. Do you have alternatives that you use and love?

Reminder that Minneapolis’s astonishing response to the ICE siege was rooted in the response to George Floyd’s murder which was rooted in the response to police killing indigenous people. Our history of coming together to fight oppression is as old as our history of oppression

Reminder that Minneapolis’s astonishing response to the ICE siege was rooted in the response to George Floyd’s murder which was rooted in the response to police killing indigenous people. Our history of coming together to fight oppression is as old as our history of oppression

Doctors should be able to prescribe putting someone in the clockwork orange machine and ludovico-techniquing them about the distinction between “individual” and “systemic”

Omg the nice Punjabi man at airport security let me keep my forbidden hummus because I looked sad is this what being white is like

If you’re tired of people asking you for money imagine how tired they must be of living through a literal genocide

I am returning to New York! Not for super long because I have to go to India for some medical stuff, but long enough to hopefully see folk! Message me if you are one of the folk I should see!

Something you may not know about me: I'm a somatic therapist, and I offer creative embodiment workshops! They're a super fun but deeply healing experience where you can work with burnout and anxiety, and recover a sense of joy and play. I'd love to see you there 💜 tinyurl.com/ignite-works...

Lots of scholarship interest! So I made a scholarship form. :) tinyurl.com/ignite-works...

Something you may not know about me: I'm a somatic therapist, and I offer creative embodiment workshops! They're a super fun but deeply healing experience where you can work with burnout and anxiety, and recover a sense of joy and play. I'd love to see you there 💜 tinyurl.com/ignite-works...

!!!???

Hot take: a genuinely hot black pepper burns more than genuinely hot red chili powder

Idk man, maybe if you don't like paying to repair the destruction from all the bombings you do, you should do fewer bombings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idk man, maybe if you don't like paying to repair the destruction from all the bombings you do, you should do fewer bombings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Israel has of course announced that they will not withdraw from the land they stole in Lebanon. Which is, y'know, a fundamental pillar of the peace deal.

This is the best I-have-zero-time-but-I-still-want-to-do-yoga yoga routine I have ever encountered (English-only speakers: do not let the sound of Hindi scare you, there is enough English that you will be able to follow it, I believe in you.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQoh...

Israel has of course announced that they will not withdraw from the land they stole in Lebanon. Which is, y'know, a fundamental pillar of the peace deal.

My feelings are large and complex and at some point I really need to just start a blog/newsletter or get back into journalism because I cannot usefully talk about this on BlueSky, but here's an attempt:

My feelings are large and complex and at some point I really need to just start a blog/newsletter or get back into journalism because I cannot usefully talk about this on BlueSky, but here's an attempt:

The US and Israel have destroyed Iran's largest water dams and backup water tanks, including EVERY backup water tank in ALL of Southern Iran. The people who die of thirst and hunger (Iran's agriculture relies on water tanks) as a result of these war crimes will never be mentioned in the death toll.