Tune in tomorrow at Noon Central when we are joined live by Bookshop.org CEO Andy Hunter and Draft2Digital CEO Kris Austin to talk about our exciting new partnership! #authorsky www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxTv...

"We are obscuring ourselves from our own gaze by using AI."

February is the time for working in the vineyard: pruning the vines; and tying the vines to poles. #MedievalCalendar Morgan Library MS M.399; Da Costa hours, illuminated by Simon Bening; ca. 1515 CE; Belgium; f.3v

I had no idea cement included coal product

Did you know that you can listen to the complete Uncertain Sanctuary trilogy narrated by the brilliant @tessirondale.com on Audible? a.co/d/0hFAkOEd #booksky #cozyfantasy

Well, that was unexpected and lovely. A new book by Juliann Whicker out today - Reapers Don't Ride #booksky #romancelandia

Drinking coffee and organising the very many scribbled notes that have accumulated while I work on this book #HappyAuthor

I'm also keen to dive into "Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World" by John Blair - but I'm calling reading it "research". Gosh, I love being a fantasy author! #booksky

Waiting for tomorrow when Jamie Bennett has a new book out, Play Action, and next week when Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood releases as an ebook, www.amazon.com/dp/B0FX4HB83G/ #romancelandia #booksky

who the hell called them "podcast hosts with whom I've developed an unhealthy parasocial relationship" and not . . . earbuds.

An apocalypse with griffins! "Stray Magic" introduces Amy Carlton, the college girl survivor who does NOT want to be a griffin magician's human familiar. Stray Magic is in Prime till the end of February & a Kindle Monthly Deal (in the US & Canada). #booksky #cozyfantasy #apocalypse

We're thrilled to announce the panel of authors who will select the recipient of the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction: Nicola Griffith Mat Johnson Fonda Lee Darcie Little Badger Peter Rock Anyone can nominate work for this $25,000 prize; nominations will be open March 1st through 31st.

I never imagined the Tower of Babel as dominating a port landscape. I'm really stuck on this point, the revelation of unconscious world views. Boats were key transport. Makes sense.

#WorldOstrichDay : #Ostrich in the #Byzantine Diakonikon-Baptistery Mosaic, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 530 CE. Look how it has the right # of toes - only living bird species w/only 2! 🆔There was an ostrich subspecies native to the Levant & Arabian Peninsula that persisted into mid-20th c.: S. c. syriacus.

This is a really neat find! Writing about the Carrington Event (1859) for my next story. It was one of the biggest solar storm events ever and caused magnificent auroras at equatorial latitudes such as in Queensland and Colombia. Gave electric shocks and caused telegraph poles to spark.

Space has a smell. When astronauts return from a spacewalk, they often report a distinct smell that lingers in their airlock from exposure to the vacuum of space. It's something like the aroma of a seared steak. (1/3) #Astronomy ⚛️🧪

Are you an ecologist or environmental practitioner in #Australia? Then contribute your skills to the Habitat Condition Assessment Tool (HCAT) by #CSIRO & ALA. You can score ecosystem condition at sites you know & help build a national condition dataset 🌏🧪 Get involved: biocollect.ala.org.au/hcat

Hey folks! Due to a series of unforeseen expenses, I need to raise some cash before royalty season rolls around at the beginning of April. Because of that, I am going to do something I don't usually do and offer paid mentoring sessions for aspiring writers.

If you're a scifi and fantasy reader, have you discovered the Speculative Fiction Wiki? I'm currently one of their featured indie authors (in great company), but they also have news and recommendations. speculativefiction.fandom.com/wiki/Specula... #booksky

Meanwhile...

So last night's minimum (just achieved) of around 26C (79f) is my preferred maximum. Summer! Behave yourself!

a book light, italy, 15th century

'Rajah quilt' ,1841 by English female convicts as they were transported to Australia, typically for petty crimes due to poverty, sailing from Woolwich to Hobart, Tasmania. The quilt was named after the ship in which they sailed #womensart

Tucked away in a remote desert town, a hidden vault safeguards Chile's most precious natural treasures. From long-forgotten flowers to endangered crops. n.pr/3OifYXW

Civil litigator here with years of experience of business people’s emails to each other in disclosed evidence for disputes. As a general rule: the senior the business person, the less effort they put into emails, and the more effort expected from those reading them. Effectively a mark of rank.

Surfing skeletons in a Paul Hardy illustration of 1896 for 'The Story Hunter' by E R Suffling. OK, they're coffins not surf boards but I don't think that would make riding the waves any easier. #PhantomsFriday

A study in Nature Neuroscience maps spontaneous and choice activity across mouse prefrontal cortex. The activity maps aligned with intrinsic connectivity rather than anatomical subregions, suggesting that connectivity, not cytoarchitecture, organizes prefrontal function. #Neuroskyence 🧪

Prepare for your mind to be blown. The oak trees that make up the Undercroft were felled in 1358. Their size and scale would suggest that they were at least 250 years old. Which means they were saplings only 40 years after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Mind. Blown. 🤯

Wonderful Ice Age art! Some 40,000 years ago, this tiny head of a cave lion was skilfully sculpted from mammoth ivory. It is one of the oldest known works of figurative art! 📷 by me #Archaeology

In Williams Arizona, they have a museum dedicated to dinosaur poop 💩 the Poozeum. Maybe the only poop museum in the world? Sounds like a future visit. And definitely, a T-shirt. @nancypope.bsky.social @brianbrachiopod.bsky.social @flojohorman.bsky.social @drstevenhobbs.bsky.social

A different sort of back up! Monthly computer back up to flash drive (because I'm paranoid).

Had the chance to stop by City Center Market in Rockford this week. As a part of our Illinois Grocery Store Initiative, stores like this are helping us eliminate food deserts throughout our state.

Monkfish - 13th century, Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 533, f. 26r

The House of Worth was never afraid of a bold motif in the late c19th. Exuberant florals became their signature, here woven into pear green damask but a blousy, leafy rose climbing the cloth @mfaboston.bsky.social #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

It might rain diamonds on Uranus and Neptune. It's hypothetically possible for diamonds to form thousands of miles deep in the atmospheres of the planets, causing them to rain down on the lower layers. #Astronomy #PlanetaryScience ⚛️🧪

Scientists recovered a 5,500-year-old genome of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium behind syphilis and related diseases, from human remains in Colombia. The findings, published in Science, expand what we know about this pathogen's history in human populations. 🧪🌎 www.smu.edu/news/researc...

A clergyman was once bothered in his chamber by the #ghost of one of his host's ancestors - who had been a notorious miser. He presents the ghost with a list of subscribers to a local charity, pointing out that as a long-term resident, he ought to pay up too. This frightens it off! #PhantomsFriday

Thinking about brands as meaning/ being relevant to different people in different ways #marketing #listening

The cover's not even up, but someone shared the hot tip that Augustine's novella from Ilona Andrews is live and I've one-clicked :) #booksky www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKJ2ZQFD

Ya know, as tedious as formatting docs for paperback editions is, it's better than doomscrolling!

Tor launches Wildthorn Books "...will publish the very best genre, genre-blending, and genre-bending stories with crossover appeal and/or a light speculative edge, serving the growing readership for speculative fiction and a SFF market that is maturing and becoming increasingly mainstream."

Who on Earth sends an email with pale grey print on a paler yet gray background? Unsubscribed!

New planet just dropped and it 1) is almost exactly Earth-sized 2) has a year that's almost exactly 1 Earth year. 3) orbits a star that is not a 💢temperamental little shit M-dwarf 💢but is instead a 🧡 good orange boi 🧡 Me for @science.org based on results presented at #RockyWorlds4: 🔭🧪

I have three recommended reads this January, all from some of my favourite authors in urban fantasy & scifi. #booksky

Hilariously, a coyote walked behind a San Francisco reporter as she was doing a segment on the mountain lion. 🤣

I was just thinking of one of my favourite 21st century slang terms, "spill the tea". and no, sorry, I don't have any juicy gossip to share ;)

Just watched an Amazon delivery person drop their clipboard thingie and GALLOP down the sidewalk to join a snowball fight with the kids across the street 🥹

Congratulations 🎊 #booksky

'Vanuatu communities move to protect taro, an ancestral climate-resilient crop… A key reason… to reinvigorate taro cultivation is because it’s more resilient to climate shocks: In recent years, severe storms have led to the tiny nation’s islands being cut off' news.mongabay.com/2026/01/vanu...