You've got to make a choice but the harder bit is usually freeing yourself from that unwillingness to fail, which, especially if you're writing fiction, & trying out something new, is entirely irrational. You will never write the kind of book you want to unless you open yourself right up to failure.

My publishers occasionally send me books now other than my own and sometimes I think about how much my exes would have hated that

A great time was had at @tricon-hfx.bsky.social! Don’t miss it next year, put next Victoria Day weekend in your calendar and remember to pack comfortable shoes (I did not expect Halifax to be so hilly 🥵 )

At last, the day has come. Today is VILLAIN release day! It barely seems real, and I'm thrilled and relieved and so happy this weird, difficult, joyous rejection of a redemption arc exists in the world. US: www.harpercollins.com/products/vil... Canada: www.harpercollins.ca/978006334136...

Landed in Pearson and with the UP express down I think it’s going to take me longer to get out of this airport than the actual flight from Halifax 😖

On a plane for the first time in 10 years and squished in like an anxious sardine. This is terrible, how do people do this regularly

On May 14, 1947, the Chinese Immigration Act was finally repealed after 24 years. The Act essentially prohibited any Chinese immigration to Canada except in very rare cases. The Act prevented many families from seeing each other for years. This is the story. 🧵 1/10

A very cool list! And I’m not just saying that because I’m on 👀

this is a really great piece that gets at just how messy this problem is

73% of mothers with kids under 18 are in the workforce. More than flowers or brunch, working moms need: -Paid family leave -Equal pay -Universal childcare -Universal healthcare (But get your mom flowers, too)

Looking at my to-do list for tomorrow and as always, what is the point of Mother’s Day if I don’t get it off 😒

Okay, crew—there’s less than $1000 CA (less than $700 US) between us and funding… ONE ✨ WHOLE ✨ YEAR ✨ of Tales & Feathers !!! 🐉🏰🔮 + knocking the first of our three goals (year 6 is next!) out. LET’S GOOOOO!! Give us a share, help us get there !! 😤

Something always goes wrong when you move home. Maybe the washer doesn't work. Maybe the sink in the bathroom drips. Maybe your solitary cottage turns out to be a semi-detached, complete with an unseen neighbour ready to intimately share your isolation. HOME SICK @solarisbooks.bsky.social

Am looking over proofs and have realized the most fantastical element in this book is that the protag gets accurate and useful google search results

Protect Sir David at all costs 🥺

Toad woke up. “Drat!” he said. “This house is a mess. I have so much work to do.” Frog looked through the window. “Toad, you are right,” said Frog. “It is a mess.” Toad pulled the covers over his head.

OH: “Don’t worry, Chinese food is almost as bad as Japanese food” Sir do not make me come over there and smack you upside the head

”Mom, did you ever listen to music with lo-fi beats?” Time to introduce my child to Portishead.

Five places you may think you are safe from Canada Geese, but aren't

Happy Murderbot Day to those who celebrate! I hope you are all having an emotion (in private if that makes you more comfortable)

I needed to have an emotion in private.

I see it’s that time of year again

Does anyone else on the spectrum find themselves identifying with their Pokopia Ditto character? ie masquerades as a human most of the time, learns by imitating others, natural state is a squishy genderless blob

evergreen

I wish

Not sure if this is a Chinese or a Chinese Canadian thing, but I've noticed at dim sum time in restaurants there is always at least one elderly gentleman sitting in a corner with a Chinese-language newspaper, a pot of tea, and a single plate of something and you know he's been there for HOURS

Here's where you can perceive me in a couple weeks at @tricon-hfx.bsky.social 🔱 Looking forward to the jaunt east!

TOAD WILL NOW DANCE, AND HE WILL BE WONDERFUL.

Hello friends, we are 🎉✨LIVE ON KICKSTARTER!! ✨🎉 WE'RE FUNDING: 🌟 T&F Year 5 💫 T&F Year 6 and, if we reach $15k: our first ever Tales & Feathers PRINT EDITION! 🎊📚‼️ Check it out below! Like, share, and back the campaign to help us bring our dreams into reality. 💚

Sometimes as a parent you get asked difficult questions you can’t answer like “Why can’t an evil mad scientist with unlimited resources defeat a hedgehog??”

I just sent out the meeting poll for our next South Asian #Kidlit support group zoom chat! Email me to join the mailing list. These are very casual chats. (so casual I don't have a proper name for the group...)

I don’t understand, with all the effort and learning put into writing better prompts, why don’t you put that energy toward learning how to write

I think I’ve done a similar post before, but here are 5 topics I could give an hour-long talk on: 1. Rabbits Uh, that’s pretty much it. Unless you want me to critique a website

It's that time of the year again. I'm nominating for the Elgin Award: Speculative books of poetry published in 2025. Did you publish a book of speculative poetry last year? Link me, fam :)

Old acquaintance announces they’ve self-pubbed their first novel. Great, good for them! Cover and summary copy look like they may be AI-generated. Oh, for crying out loud 😒

As a UX/UI designer this is an excellent edge case to be aware of

In extremely cool news I'll be doing an online launch for GRIEF EATER on June 1 (USA)/June 2 (Aus) with the wonderful @kyliu99.bsky.social! I'm so excited!! Details here (free tix but registration required): www.eventbrite.com/e/emma-osbor...

A cartoon for #IndieBookstoreDay, which is tomorrow! Get out to your local bookstore! www.indiebound.org/

Got a few band tees lately and have noted that men’s size M has gotten smaller - and only today I realized that perhaps I have changed, not the T-shirt sizing 😬

E.L Chen's SWEETSIDE MOTEL is a contemporary twist on the gothic horror novel with Psycho vibes told from our favorite type of mc, the "unhinged woman". www.interstellarflig...

SLASHER SUMMER is on order at the TPL if you want to place a hold! Is there a better feeling than picking up a book from the library no one has touched yet? 🤗 (Sales are nice, but remember in Canada, writers still get paid if you check out our books in Canadian libraries!)

Sweetside Motel by @elainechen.com is a pressure cooker novella that succeeds beautifully as both thriller and horror. Set in the paranoid days of the pandemic, when all strangers were suspect (particularly Asians), the novel channels the claustrophobia of lockdown into an absolute page-turner.

Annual gripe questioning the wisdom of making a parent, who is likely on the spectrum themselves, endure a 3.5-hour call every year in order to secure funding for autism supports for their kid 😒 And I'm lucky I can take a half day off work, I imagine many parents can't.

UI vs UX

👀

Sometimes I wonder if gamification in order to make subjects ”fun” (eg all the online math games they had my kid use in school when he was younger) has trained people to fear getting things wrong

NEW: A new pre-print study offers the first causal evidence that outsourcing reasoning tasks to AI can rapidly erode users' independent performance AND their will to persist despite difficulty. "People’s persistence drops... they’re also not willing to try without AI.” futurism.com/artificial-i...

Please help spread the word! I'm teaching Creative Writing: Introduction at U of T's School of Continuing Education again this summer! Course # 1664-600. In-Class Thursday evenings, 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM. Jun 11, 2026 to Jul 30, 2026 Come learn with me! 😀 2learn.utoronto.ca/search/publi...

It’s fleece vest over blue button-down shirt season. If you wear a blue button-down shirt, you must wear a fleece vest on top. I disn’t make the rule, just observing

Yahoo!'s homepage (1994)