I woke up with the old Big Red gum commercial jingle stuck in my head and to be quite frank that’s mean as hell, Brain.

Why are you hitting yourself?

Cached US #KindleBookGiveaway on bsky: 10 copies of #SpaceOpera by @Catvalente, over at https://bsky.app/profile/kithrup.bsky.social/post/3myid3j5nqk2j

@Catvalente that is brutal. but they are brutal, we knew it. bug business.

FYI to the other Mass Effect fans... this legend Catherynne still has all her skills, experience, and potential PLUS a Patreon via which we can contribute to and engage with that. you know what to do. still holds her N7 rank

I now have permission to share something I hoped would be revealed with much more fanfare.

I spent more than 3 years as one of the writers of #MassEffect4

It was one of the greatest privileges & GLORIOUS challenges of my life. I smiled every day. I worked HARD for the fans, every day.

So when I say I am devastated by the end of #MassEffect I REALLY mean it. I don’t know how to express how gutted I truly am.

This is a crazy week for me, hosting a writing retreat for my MFA students; so I will be a bit quiet until next, folks!

Best jokes will of course be posted with credit

Truly amazing how a group “devoted” to “authors” “wrote” a wholly meaningless “charter” crammed full of weasel words, empty marketing lingo, *classically* slippery philosophical concepts like fucking “good,” & condescending hand-wavy “I hereby declare Facebook is forbidden to use my personal data!!”disclaimer vaguespeak a 3rd grader could chase up a sophist-tree to mean just about anything.

GOLD STAR COMRADES ✊

YOU HAVE SOLVED AI

https://bsky.app/profile/societyofauthors.bsky.social/post/3mxt2i5rrve2p

The 2nd book in my DOUBLE BOOK RELEASE DAY is…

…this incredible work of image + word celebrating the work of the impossible-to-competently-adjective Brian & Wendy Froud, edited by @terriwindling.bsky.social

Honored doesn’t cover it. At all. The Frouds built the interior of my heart.

This is also my first published poem in quite awhile: Witch (Wood) Wood (Witch) about the fell bargain between a witch and her forest…

https://amzn.to/4hLh1ea

Today’s a DOUBLE book release day for me!

The first is this amazing, star-jammed anthology The Book of the Dead ed by @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social!

My story is (very humbly) called This Is What Happens When You Die. I am SO proud of it; one of my favorite things I’ve ever written

https://amzn.to/3WbT9ZZ

I don’t care where you started out on the political spectrum.

If your kid comes out as trans & you don’t become a rainbow-clad, parade-cheering ally & rock-solid supportive girl/boy/enby dad/mom?

You were never a parent at all.

You were a doll collector furious they didn’t stay in their packaging.

If you can go every level of ham to support their travel hockey league, whether you like hockey or not, you can do it to support their deepest hearts & souls.

For fuck’s sake.

I don’t care where you started out on the political spectrum.

If your kid comes out as trans & you don’t become a rainbow-clad, parade-cheering ally & rock-solid supportive girl/boy/enby dad/mom?

You were never a parent at all.

You were a doll collector furious they didn’t stay in their packaging.

If you can go every level of ham to support their travel hockey league, whether you like hockey or not, you can do it to support their deepest hearts & souls.

For fuck’s sake.

I think I’m just going to keep our birthday sign up year-round.

There’s a lot of ways to be “on party business” after all.

Best find one before you knock!

It’s legit one of the weirdest things to happen on this Plane of Weirdest Things that of all the Weirdest Things, fucking Harry Potter and the Methods of goddamned Rationality might ultimately end the bloody world.

Every month on Patreon I post progress pics of my slow, mostly inept remodeling/reclaiming of my “quirky” 125-year-old Maine house.

This month: master bathroom windows—this room has been slow but soon will be done & ready to be shown in full!

https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/171025844

The Childe’s #LordoftheRings is accomplished!

Tag urself I’m the Bacons of Gondor Are Lit

(Full write-up on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/bonus-post-long-170913758)

As the Childe’s birthday party wound down this weekend, a group of adults were talking about homeowner nonsense & Childe calmly deadpans from across the room:

“When you think about it we’re all homes.”

Adults: “Wh…at?”

*8-year-old waves their arms in the air excitedly & yells:

“TO BACTERIA AND PARASITES OF COURSE!”

Happy 8th Birthday to my darling Childe, who makes everything a better kind of chaotic.

I love you, big kitten.

RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117331874326176875

Now, I’m probably the only one who’d know for sure that I never wrote an essay with a Ken MacLeod title

But maybe think about that the next time you trust AI’s mewling results

It all seems pretty good until it talks about something you know REALLY well

Is there someone out there who’d instantly know the AI is wrong? Even if it’s only one person? And unless it’s you…how can you be sure?

Aw, but it’s so TOUGH to keep all your mountains of stolen shit straight! Poor baby AI, thieving is hard.

Someone brought up Silently & Very Fast on Insta & AI butted in to “helpfully” inform me about my own book

Fun fact: I’ve never written an essay with that title.

That title is a line from Ken MacLeod, scraped from an 07 Gizmodo article by @annaleen.bsky.social which reviews KM right before reviewing me.

Wow this is so worth wrecking the planet & maybe ending all human life!

You better HOPE this is late-stage capitalism.

But that phrase was invented to describe the post-WWI era, babes. They thought it was late-stage 100 years ago, too.

Capitalism hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to make any kind of sweeping pronouncements about its natural life cycle.

This could just be the awkward young adult years before things get REALLY messy.

Have a nice day!

You know, when I can’t afford something & my credit is maxed out, I just don’t get to have it.

So weird.

Maybe they should hold a bake sale. That’s how we fund unimportant stuff like education.