Deep in Pendle Witch country for research. Days are long and beautiful. Pages and pages of notes, hundreds of photos. Pestering everyone in Lancashire for information. I can hardly believe I get to do this.

REMEMBER: All the "Don't use em-dashes" "don't use rule of three" advice because it makes your writing "look like AI" is because they stole actual writers work, and their "predict the next thing" stuff just simulates what WE FUCKING DO. Keep writing well. Use every style and trick you have. Fuck AI.

Oh no, the novel I'm writing got scary and now I can't sleep. What a normal, sensible career I have.

Spent the day buried in the archives at the wonderful Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall. So incredibly blessed to be able to do this sort of research.

Yesterday I had to make the difficult decision to let my boy Captain cross the bar. He was my first cat - a menace who feared neither God nor man - and I loved him very much. He slipped away very peacefully, and did not suffer.

i'd rather ask ursula from the little mermaid for a favour and life advice than ask chatgpt anything

Me: Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? My Editor: Please I’m just asking for a few small changes.

Instead of using AI, I wrote a book simply by imagining things through the power of my entirely organic brain and writing them down, so now I guess I have to go edit it.

It's like UQP somehow knew I'd be caught in a downpour today, because look what was waiting for me when I got home! So excited to be working with this wonderful team to bring Flash into the world next year.

Alright, it's not his best work but Stephen King's newest, "Never Flinch," ends with a list of people who have been murdered for defending reproductive justice and I will never, ever quit this man. Constant reader, to the very last.

kind of obsessed with 2025 pride merch...I'm calling it cowardcore.

These feckers have already made off with my last almost-five-decades' worth of creative output to try to "teach" their hopped-up answering machine how to fake writing. If anyone ever *breathed* the suggestion to me that I should willingly use that soi-disant "tool"...it would not go well for them.

Migraine be dammed, I now have a full itinerary for my research trip in June/July. Highlights include talks at a school in the UK, visiting a museum of witchcraft, ghost-hunting on a very haunted hill, and visiting the national archives to see arrest records for my witches.

Yesterday I did a workshop for teenagers, and a participant asked me about my stance on using AI in creative writing. Here are my main points:

The Cover is Here! What the Sea Brings is swimming to bookshops, August 12th, 2025 from @snowywingspublishing.com Artwork by @scarvenartist.bsky.social and Typography by Miblart Available for Pre-orders NOW! books2read.com/whattheseabrings

It is (finally finally finally) official!

I cannot tell you how hard I smashed the preorder button. My computer may never recover.

My stack so far this year. I'm a little behind but I'll catch up!

It's gunslinging and asexual and nonbinary and crimes and Western Australia and everything 17 year old me thought they'd never see in a book. Get ready! www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/202...

This made me cheer. It gets directly at a problem I’ve often noticed: people don’t fundamentally understand what a historian *does*.

"if we can't train AI on copyrighted works, then it'll never get to the point where we can make tons of money off of it" ok? how is that anyone else's problem? If I can't rob a bank, then I won't have $20 million tomorrow. Should I be allowed to rob a bank then?

I think most of who have worked in writing or entertainment know that piracy is a fact of life, and has been for a long time now. But there’s a difference between a broke student downloading a PDF of your book, and a multibillion dollar company stealing your work for its own bullshit purposes.

Finally found it. The average book thief makes between 60k and 99K USD. The average author makes around 10k. Most pirates are stealing from people worse off than themselves. But they cosplay as poor or use poor people as a shield to justify their class warfare. torrentfreak.com/wealthy-olde...

If artists aren’t workers or laborers, then it’s easy to yell at them that it’s YOUR right to steal what they create.

This fight over “should authors get paid for their work” debate boils down to this: many, MANY people do not see art as labor. If art isn’t labor, then you don’t have to change your political views to justify piracy. Easy peasy!

It's been a long road, but I just signed a contract with UQP for the publication of my YA historical fiction, A Flash in the Dust!

I wrote about the one thing I miss from Twitter: Joyce Carol Oates. On @australia.theguardian.com today www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

If you're a publisher, don't do this: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Last year was an agony of waiting on various things, kind of a holding year? And so 2025 has been a flurry of chickens and so much news. A long-winded way to say, something exciting hit my inbox today and I can't wait to share it!

Forgot to post this! The Daylight Gate is one of my least favourite books forever. Negative stars. Why was William Shakespeare in it.

Yesterday afternoon I learned from my wonderful supervisor that my PhD has passed with minor revisions. That means I have a list of small textual/structural changes to make in the next 3 months before submitting it back to the thesis chair for final approval.

Yesterday my 2.5 year old started saying "Stick it to the man" and today he started saying "Thank you, sweetheart". Don't talk to me about Terrible Twos, this is bliss.

Today is a great day to donate to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, to read First Nations books, and to amplify Indigenous voices. We could do better than we have. We could be better than we are. #changethedate

My MC lived in the 1600s and no one is 100% sure *where* she lived - but there is a farm built over one of the possible sites, and I have just booked a room there for a week in July. All the rooms are named after her family members. Guys I'm gonna get so haunted.

I was reminded of the dedication I wrote for The Necromancer’s Apprentice today. “For those who hold onto hope in the midst of unbearable darkness. May you always remain gentle and kind.”

Spent the morning shoveling snow with my kid. We talked about how--because the world is increasingly stupid, unkind, and selfish--we need to work hard at being curious, kind, and helpful to others. Even if we're just starting with shoveling the walk for our community.

To my nonbinary, agender, genderqueer, and otherwise off the binary friends & siblings: You are loved, you are valued, you are important to our community, you've been here longer than the tyrants, and you will still be here when their bones are dust and the names of their false gods are forgotten.

Do not Do not Do NOT Announce or even hint on your social media that you’re doing illegal or potentially illegal things. Even if for excellent reasons. You will be a target and make the people you aid targets.

The stack grows! Next is The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

For the last four years almost every read has been building towards the PhD: Australian, historical, YA, or some combo of the three. But now? Now! I can read whatever I want. Three so far this year (the Schwab is a repeat). Let's see how the pile grows.

Dear readers, let me take you gently by the hand and say: Not everything in fantasy needs a deep explanation. It’s good to enjoy those things! But a huge part of the genre is the cultivation of wonder and imagination. To promote further pondering and leave a thread of escape when you need it.

Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather

Christmas has come early, with the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries in the starring role as Santa! They have awarded me a grant so I can travel next year to research my next book, a witchy historical fantasy. Can't wait to get thoroughly Haunted in the name of research.

"Our business only works with theft" boohoo then shut down you flogs

What is the charge?! Eating a meal???? A succulent McDonald’s meal?!?!

After a week of being up at 5am, my kid slept until 6.45 this morning. I'm a new person. I can see colours again. There is birdsong.

YES I love this thread

I have had too many emotions today. Maybe all of them? I need to sleep but what I want to do is drive out to the ocean and fling myself into it a couple of times to clear my head.

This afternoon I got home from work, blasted LOTR, screwed my courage to the sticking place, and submitted my PhD. I hardly know what I'll do with myself now. (Yes I do, it's write another book - and another - and another)