Typing 'king in yellow' into the LinkedIn job search to see what's out there for aspiring eldritch horrors

Sick day today, spent most of it nauseated and/or writing like my life depended on it. It's not a mode of writing I normally do but it's tied to a hell of an opportunity and I could really use a win.

These days, bedtime for certain kids typically just involves sitting with them and humming familiar songs until they crash. Every once in a while I catch myself humming something else entirely. Tonight apparently it's 'Satanized'

Currently writing for higher practical stakes than I've written for in years. I got this. I got this... Also, sold a poem this morning!

Cool cover!

Just finished Finity's End by Cherryh. Scribbling notes on its really interesting structure while out rambling on paths with the kids. Emphasis on scribbling but may be of interest.

Alberta's had massive youth unemployment this summer. Some colleagues and I went looking for decent local data on hourly wages and couldn't find much, so I ran a survey. For the three of you who might be interested, here's 1200 students' summer wages.

I tried my best to be filler but it just didn't come together. Check this out @matthewjohnauthor.bsky.social, we even get a starscape!

It's out! The veil of silence is rent in twain. I'm in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction vol. 3 alongside LUMINARIES like @tiffmorris.bsky.social and @arielmarkenjack.bsky.social file770.com/table-of-con...

It's been a hell of a summer so if I knew about this I'd completely forgotten. A nice surprise: Paula Guran at Locus liked 'White in the Eye,' one of my Five Deserts stories. locusmag.com/review/the-d...

Sharing this with the kids to great communal excitement. Six thousand exoplanets! www.space.com/astronomy/ex...

This is a desperate call for earworms. I need your favorite and catchiest songs. I've had Cowboy Take Me Away stuck in my head for the better part of a week. Great song. Please help.

Read Mythago Wood while taking the kids to the park over the weekend. Solid 4/5 for me. Moody Englishmen go walking in the local patch of woods for 300 pages to an almost merciless heavy metal soundtrack. And in fact here's the perfect song: youtu.be/2pScWD7ay1I?...

This summer in every possible way:

Here's to Munsch, author of my very first memories of reading for enjoyment. (Thomas' Snowsuit, to be precise.) www.ctvnews.ca/canada/artic...

and if some god shall wreck me yet again on the wine-dark berry compote

Learned something great today. Fellow past, present, and/or future users of the @diabolicalplots.com Submission Grinder: If you go on your phone's browser, the 'add to home screen' menu item MAKES A WEB PAGE SHOW UP LIKE AN APP. One click. DONE.

In BCS #440: "The Good Life and the Gaze of Staivash" @jonolfert.bsky.social. "She'd just tucked three of the slips into the hem of her robe when two tall, smiling, sunburned men ducked inside. They wore cuirasses engraved with five-petaled rosettes." www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-...

Had an extremely consequential meeting today. Got pumped by sitting down with RStudio and figuring out chart types I hadn't done before, as one does. Can't share the chart but please imagine a really cool one with lots of political ramifications and fiddly bits.

One of the kids came grocery shopping, asked to hit up Value Village to look at toys. I walked out with: Finity's End (Cherryh) 2x John Le Carre Silver on the Tree (Cooper) - trying to finish my Dark Is Rising set Mythago Wood (Holdstock) Player of Games (Banks) I have shelves now so...

We need your support in the next 3 days, before the fall of eternal night. Help us breathe new stories that keep us alive, each word and phrase building the monster’s body, the one who rends and tears and protects us from darkness. kck.st/4mIkEm1

Translunar Travelers Lounge is looking for First Readers for the upcoming submission period. If you'd like to find out more about how the magazine is put together, or just want to help out, let us know! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

📣In our latest article, we explore the contours of public opinion in Alberta over the past 5 years. #abpoli #ableg www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Good morning to me especially because my new Churchlands/Five Deserts story, 'The Good Life and the Gaze of Staivash,' is out in BCS. It's a direct sequel to 'White in the Eye' in New Edge Sword & Sorcery last year. www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-...

Like many connoisseurs, I maintain that the greatest era of Star Wars was most likely the Shoulderpads Era. Dash Rendar, Naga Sadow, Exar Kun and friends, Bar-Kooda, some Platt Okeefe, the multifarious capelets and shoulder accoutrements of Dark Empire, honorable mention to early Kyle Katarn...

Rooting for T. Ocellus, unfairly maligned underdog protagonist of Alien Earth.

$980 of $4,500 27 backers 30 days left Thank you to our early backers. Still plenty of time left to pledge, but why wait? www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

Eugen Bacon has joined us for a new story next year! Brian Evenson has added some limited edition rewards! We need your help for 2026: kck.st/4mIkEm1

And this takes me, somehow, to 16 stories paid at professional rate.

Issue 5 Drops and Submission Open in: 1 day/ 32 hours/ 1938 minutes magazine.trollbreath.com

Surfacing from an all-consuming summer to take stock: Jan: Analog March: A Book of Blades 3 May: Lightspeed June: On Spec July: Rhysling Anthology Aug/Sep: "The Good Life and the Gaze of Staivash," BCS Oct: "The Knotted Hand," BFS Horizons Nov: "Flag Lamp," Analog TBD: Lightspeed, BCS (novelette)

Today we are halfway done with the campaign, but only one-quarter of the way to our goal. It’s all or nothing. Please share, and any amount you can help is very appreciated. Horror and weird fiction are good for us. kck.st/4mIkEm1

New @bcsmagazine.bsky.social issue is here, featuring stories by @jonolfert.bsky.social and Julie Reeser: weightlessbooks.com/beneath-ceas...

BCS #440 ebook is out early today at @weightlessbooks.bsky.social & Kindle Store and for subscribers, featuring stories by Jonathan @jonolfert.bsky.social and Julie Reeser @abetterjulie.bsky.social, cover art by Jereme Peabody. weightlessbooks.com/fiction/bene... www.amazon.com/Beneath-Ceas...

(Buying BCS ebooks or an ebook subscription @weightlessbooks.bsky.social gets you BCS stories a week early on your e-reader and helps us pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers an honorarium worthy of writing all replies personalized. Thank you!)

Have a little hope for humanity tonight

Just wrote my first story since February. Sci-fi weird horror that doesn't so much skip the boring parts as apply an angle grinder with really unwise enthusiasm. (I'm very pleased with myself.)

Saros #5 is open for submissions! Send us your 500-2,500 word fiction themed around sound(s), silence(s), and the spectrum in between: Music, speech, singing, unbearable (enticing?) noise(s), and/or auditory nothingness.

Snagged a bunch of James White's Sector General novels at a used book store. They've been keeping me company on some long vigils. What's a radically-species-inclusive way to say 'humanist'?

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 19 at 8 PM ET, I'm chatting with the phenomenal agent @katemckean.bsky.social about her new book, Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life. Then, we'll open it up to audience Q&A. Register for free here: starforgers.com/kate

This man is operating on a whole other level than the rest of us. Nothing but admiration.

/(chances are it will, dem is facts) process the feedback, if any, decide if it fits your vision for the piece, incorporate it as you see fit--and get right back out there. Next market up. It's hard and no it doesn't get easier. The angst when you see that email. The heart skip when you open it.

Digging in for the focus to knock out the last of a big project. I'm from Alberta and today spiritual fulfilment means running a very loud loop of some absolute dirtbag country.

looking forward to the similarly-themed announcements from the Department of Health and Human Services

A bright spot: this team figured out how to make a functional replica Gutenberg press. www.ucalgary.ca/news/no-how-...

It's a rough day, have a great spaceship.

NINE cents! Wave of the future.

Hi! With Diabolical Plots opening in mere hours we would like to point out that we have updated the AI Policy section in our guideline to add commitments that Diabolical Plots will not use generative AI for anything including selection, editing, correspondence, artwork, etc.

Here's that next link. Raised some hackles but it's worth a careful read. It's a varying ecosystem of use cases within the growing fraction of students who use AI - how they're making those choices and what they're worried about. A bundle of anecdotes but lines up with what I hear from students.

Let's assume the top number keeps going for a while, a larger minority of middle and high schoolers using AI 'for schoolwork' (a massive envelope, see next link). There's a lot of money going into that goal but still clearly ground that can be held re: AI in writing. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...