There are three teenagers having Loud Fun in our kitchen. 1. How nice to hear them having fun rather than wandering round the house wrapped in The Gloom! 2. Good lord, they're loud. Thank you, that is all. I am putting my earplugs in and going to sleep now.

It’s today! 13 months after I started writing it, Daughters of Nicnevin is out in the world! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/daug...

A reminder that if you can spare them, you can donate your Clubcard points to @trusselluk.bsky.social.

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Now is the time to pledge your support for banning octopus farming. Octopus farming would be an ethical and environmental disaster, but with enough public support, we can protect octopuses from a lifetime of suffering: secure.everyaction.com/lE4sjpZgqUST...

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.” aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

So a transphobe is threatening @northwestbylines.co.uk with defamation over this 100% accurate and factual piece of Journalism. Support us by sharing it far and wide 🏳️‍⚧️ northwestbylines.co.uk/news/equalit...

My sis has persuaded me to join ancestry dot com and I am obsessing about long-dead relatives. Also fighting a desire to do a DNA-test to see what comes up and who I might link to. Mr AL argues, rightly, that they can then sell my genetic information to anyone they like so it's a bad, bad plan.

Head's up there is a Bluesky ban scam going around. This account just joined 40 mins ago and send me this DM. DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. Bluesky would NEVER send a DM like this and make you scared. This would come through email and would have a more professional email than this. Stay safe!

A small story of the pain off loss, memory, and #remembrance in 1920s Seven Dials.

Hello! Hope you’re on the mend? I’m reading House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson. It’s gorgeously written

Happy Sunday Womble! I’m currently rereading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie for the first time since it came out and trying to fend off a migraine (nrgh)

Got round to this novella by @leemandelo.bsky.social yesterday. Halfway through now. It's a thoroughly fresh, sharply written and increasingly sinister slice of queer historical Appalachian horror. I'm absorbed, unsettled and impressed.

Morning, I'm just about to start Snake-Eater by T Kingfisher then the conclusion to the Sworn Soldier trilogy when I've finished that, so a Kingfisher week

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today after being a little unwell I am planning to finish the excellent The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson. What Are you reading at the moment?

I read this in the week and it's another corker. Highly recommended -- I am starting a a series reread off the back of it.

I don't use generative AI because as a writer of fiction, it offers me nothing useful creatively and nothing trustworthy when I do research. It's not worth the environmental impact. That it's been created by stealing my work and using it in breach of copyright law is a further but separate issue.

1,300 copies of Magic, Maps, and Mischief sold since 24 October. I always believed that there's a readership for this book but the response so far has been beyond what I thought I could do without a publisher. Thanks to *everyone* who has helped me from a word of encouragement to buying the book ❤️

I would love it if you could join me at one my upcoming events to celebrate the release of Daughters of Nicnevin Waterstones events here: www.waterstones.com/events/searc... The Highland Bookshop tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/daughters-...

"I’m convinced that it’s the cost of living, not immigration, that voters care about. The Green party is the only party honest enough not to try to conflate the two for political convenience." – @zackpolanski.bsky.social

There's less fraud in disability benefits than the average millionaire's tax return. We can't save money by screwing over disabled people - that would lead to higher spending in health and social care. (As well as being a crappy thing to do.) Tax wealth; raise welfare. #DisabilityBenefits

"The AI industry’s most important product at this moment is not a chatbot or a video generator; it’s the story the AI industry is telling about itself.... According to an MIT study, 95% of businesses that have deployed generative AI have gotten no value from it." www.theringer.com/2025/11/04/t...

In good news though I got my quarterly from the fab @jms-books.com and despite having done no marketing at all for god knows how long, I made some sales! I'm trying to work out whether to get my newsletter going again, what to put it in, how frequently to send it, all that stuff.

I would like a quiet day reading today. I half-said I'd go to the Remembrance Sunday service with my sis, but I'm not sure I can bear to. It's a long walk up the church path to begin with, and then you walk past Mama's and Littlest's graves. A bit too much remembrance, really.

#20s30s Note the absence of kitsch, maudlin plastic tat, and fascists trying to co-opt the memory of war (for now).

November but my nasturtiums are still blooming.

Hah yes this. Some of the books I loved as a teen have really not held up, while others did and are clearly excellent. But there were books I was also just not ready to read, and my opinions on them were a waste of space.

In other news, Frenchie, the stomach on legs, ate a £26 packet of functional mushroom gummies yesterday morning. Was she very cheerful and focused all day? Yes. Was her bottom very sad? Also yes, but that might have been down to the Bertolli spread she stole from the fridge and hid in the garden.

Slight vaguepost: Humaning is complicated and I still after 55 years feel that I'm terrible with people and am crap at the intersection between friendship and boundaries. Sigh. This too will pass, live and learn etc. I do feel a bit meh about it all though.

Of course, narcissists are successful - they take no-one else into consideration, damage others & the world without compassion or remorse, they don't share, support, or compromise. They bully, threaten, & cheat. It's time we rethink our definition of success, bcs we're celebrating the wrong people.

A friend said he was having trouble finding a site that's a replacement for amazon. That's because the replacement for amazon is buying from a mix of: 1. Local small/niche businesses 2. Less local small/niche businesses/creators 3. Companies who make just one kind of thing really well

I loved The Road to Montelpulciano! Can't wait to read this. Congratulations @gazrj.bsky.social! 🎉🎉

I know I'm a broken record about AI, but if it can't turn a profit, and it's horrible for the environment, and it takes away jobs from actual human beings, and it's wrong half the time, WHY ARE WE STILL PUSHING SO HARD TO MAKE EVERYONE USE IT??

"What radicalized you" Nothing really, its just that society had redefined radicalized to mean "Basic Fucking Human Empathy"

If you aren't seeing skeets from some of your fave people, they might have been labeled "Rude" by bsky mods. Idk what they are thinking, I don't need a mommy to tell me who to be buddies with. Anyway, go into Settings > moderation > bluesky moderation (advanced) and turn Rude off.

Historical fiction writers of the world unite.

“London and New York, two of the west’s largest, richest, and most diverse cities are now run by Muslim men, both of them elected on the ticket of left wing, pro-LGBT, pro-multicultural parties…The victory is a reminder of the fundamental weakness of Trumpism, Faragism, and the politics of hate.”

My Christmas chocolate collection is finally out. 🎄 It’s been a lot of work these past weeks, but I’m really proud of how it turned out. There are some cosy, festive flavours this year that I think many will love. If you’d like to have a look, it’s all now available on the website. 🍫

I spy a familiar cover… I’m so excited!!!

In other news, I think we need to hire an industrial-sized glass crusher. I reckon I probably need a tiktok channel or something for all this.

Fire Guy was supposed to be starting the woodburner install yesterday but there was an unexpected ancient jackdaw nest in the chimney and he needs his mate to come with the big sucky-blowy machine to get rid of it before he can drop the chimney liner.

It's Pictcon this weekend, a one day science fiction convention in Perth, Scotland. Guest of Honour is @lunapress.bsky.social's Francesca Barbini. The chair is @effjayem.bsky.social . We're really looking forward to it. See you there? www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pictcon1-t...

Such a mystery, what MASS DISABLING EVENT could have happened after 2019 to cause this?

We are almost at the end of our campaign, and closing in on £7,000. Hopefully we can get there tomorrow. Meanwhile here is an update about the supposed legendary Welsh hero, Hu Gadarn: www.kickstarter.com/...

This is horrific. I know families with young people caught up in this. They and their children are devastated. It's a dangerous, ideologically driven witchhunt against a GP who has been operating entirely working the law and best practice. Sussex ICB are motivated by transphobia not patient welfare.

#Booksky Terrific review by Keith John Glaeske of "Point of Hearts: A Novel of Astreiant," by Melissa Scott at Out in Print.. outinprintblog.wordpress.com/2025/05/26/p...

Happy Halloween 🧛

The last survivor of the Crimean War died in 2004. "Timothy" spent 40 years in the Navy. After retirement, having moved in with the Earl of Devon, she revealed she was a girl. She would wander round his garden wearing a sign that said. "My name is Timothy. I am very old. Pease do not pick me up".

I may also have purchased a pair of dinosaur dungarees from Vinted.

We have a decorator coming to give us a quote tomorrow. The chap is coming to put the woodburner in this week -- we have no central heating. I've spent a couple of hours moving boxes of family treasures from one room to another to allow Fire Guy access and I am now having a celebratory gin.