The Platonic Ideal, a Dragon Age exchange focused on platonic relationships, went live earlier today. I got not one, not two, but three lovely gifts this year!
As the title says, The Boat of Small Mysteries is out today :)
You can get it on Amazon here, or everywhere else (Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple etc) over here.
~
When a new disability ruins Emily’s life and family turns her out, she finds herself forced into a nomadic life on a narrowboat. With very little money and even less physical stamina, she doesn’t know if she has it in her to forge a whole new future on her own.
In the idyllic surroundings of the British waterways, as she moves from place to place she encounters a series of small mysteries. Can she solve them and find a new purpose for herself in the process? Or must a missing person remain lost and the case of the body in the lock remain unsolved?
Half cozy mystery and half fond ode to the narrowboat life, ‘The Boat of Small Mysteries,’ is a charming tale of resilience and intuition, sure to appeal to anyone who enjoys BBC Four’s Canal Boat Diaries, or the gentle adventures of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.
~
Currently it's out in ebook only. The paperback is in the works but I am waiting for the proof copy to arrive so that I can check that it's ok before I release it.
It's also currently at 0.99c as an early bird discount, but it will be going up from that probably on the first of March - to the heady heights of $2.99
First book in seven years! I am sick with nerves over how it will go. There's a lot to be said for a few years of rest--it's all new to me again.
This one came out well, in my opinion. I like the expressiveness with the hands. The magic of Pen's world is largely invisible to ordinary eyes, which presents a challenge for cover art; we'll call this the Second Sight view of things.
I would note with approval that the female figure is fully and sensibly dressed! Praise somebody.
My fave of the Baen Pen & Des covers remains the elegant one for Penric's Travels, but this moves into a close second.
Penric's Intrigues is a hardcover collection containing a short intro from me, the novel-length The Assassins of Thasalon, and the novella immediately following same, "Knot of Shadows". Projected pub date May 5.
An e-version of the volume will be available exclusively in the Baen ebook store at baen.com.
Lila Macapagal's quest to keep her aunt's ailing restaurant afloat is greatly complicated when a pesky foodblogger dies mid-meal... with Lila as the most likely murder suspect.
This Thursday, I'm recommending everyone do a quick brush-up on the recent community rules update, especially since I'm adding a teensy bit more today: Dreamwidth Admin privileges do not allow me to edit post content, only to add or remove tags, change age restriction settings, or delete entries entirely. So starting now, if I notice that your entry has needs a cut, I'll do my very best to get ahold of you ASAP to fix things, but if you don't respond or find a way to contact me in 48 hours, even to say "I'm sorry, I don't have proper computer access at the moment!", I'll have to delete the entry. This is not something I want to do; I'd much rather just change the access level to Private (where presumably only the poster and the community admin can see it), but that doesn't seem to be an option at the moment. I plan to ask about that when I get a moment, but in the mean time, those are the options.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this, or any of the new rules! I'm open to input on anything community members think needs adjusting.
On a lighter note: Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
Earlier this week, I learned there's a squirrel nesting on the roof of a nearby empty house. A squirrel on a sidewalk less than a block from a park isn't unusual; a squirrel running away from the park is worth noticing. It ran along the concrete until it got to a tree, and about halfway up the trunk I saw it had some nesting materials in its mouth. Sticks, dried grass, nothing that could be mistaken for food. It went all the way up the trunk, well past where there'd be room to nest inside the tree, and jumped into the thin, empty branches, running along and over and finally making one last jump from the tree onto a row house that's been on the market for more than a few months at this point. Long enough a squirrel would feel safe nesting somewhere on the roof.
Yesterday, I got to feed a few urban pigeons after a couple of grizzled old-school construction workers were generous with the birdseed they'd brought with them that morning; none of the pigeons flew onto my hands, but a particularity bold one kept grabbing at my fingers, possibly to pull my hand closer so it'd be first in the pecking order.
Today, I saw a raven; it was close enough to see every tail feather, and make out the distinctive spade shape. Also to see how utterly gigantic they are compared to a lot of other birds. It was carrying some kind of food item in its beak, but I couldn't make out what it was, just that it'd been opportunistic and scavenged it from a garbage bin.
You've got to keep your eyes open for these things.
Current Mood:contemplative
Current Music:You Are A Tourist - Death Cab For Cutie
This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It is posted here in thanks for nsfwords helping with website updates. It belongs to the series Hart's Farm.
AO3 Link | The Morning After (300 words) by Merfilly Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Birds of Prey Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dinah Lance Characters: Dinah Lance, Barbara Gordon Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, +Modern Age (1986-Present), Post-Crisis, [Birds of Prey Vol. 1 - 1999-2009] Summary:
It's the morning after, and doubt hits.
The Morning After
Dinah reached across the bed to find it empty. The transfer assist was already stowed, and the bed was cold. She sighed softly to herself, knowing she could not actually complain. Just because they had chosen to go to bed together, to take another step in their partnership didn't mean the demands on Oracle were any less.
She got up, carefully stowing her costume into the duffel bag, then slipped into her gym clothes, with a shirt that said "Certified Wildcat" on it. She wondered if that particular honorary uncle would be up in New York or working on the new gym he was opening down here today.
It would be easier to spend the morning after punching things, after all. Dinah just wasn't ready to decide if this was serious, if she was strong enough to share a hero's life again.
"You really are a piece of work, Junior. Should've thought of that before you seduced her last night," she muttered to herself.
Once she had her tennis shoes tied, she grabbed the bag and headed out of the bedroom, listening to the tap of keys as she got closer to Oracle's workspace. Really, what the hell had she been thinking? Barbara was closer to Roy in age, she was always handling some fire or other, and … Dinah didn't live a peaceful life.
"Give me five to get some vital connections made for Mr. Terrific, and we can grab breakfast," Barbara called over her shoulder, not really looking at the woman that had almost convinced herself this was a mistake.
Almost.
The offer of such a domestic moment after what they had shared hit Dinah in the pit of her stomach, before she grabbed her courage.
"I'll go see what's appetizing," Dinah said, putting the bag down to stay.
Botanic gardens have amassed one of the world’s largest living reserves of plant diversity.
A new study demonstrates that fragmented data systems have kept that global collection from functioning as a single, coordinated safeguard against extinction.
At a moment when plant loss is accelerating, the information needed to act often remains locked inside incompatible databases, limiting the very safety net designed to prevent disappearance.
I have mixed feelings about this. A unified body of knowledge is certainly easier to use -- but it's also easier to damage or destroy. Right now, the government is a major threat to information that it dislikes. So having that information scattered around in places that aren't easy to reach all at once can offer a kind of protection.
Chop Wood, Carry Water is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The airspace above El Paso was shut down and everyone decided that either aliens had landed or we were going to start bombing Mexico. Fortunately neither was the case—the Trump administration seems to have just engaged in another colossal cock-up. According to Forbes “The notice stemmed from disagreements between the FAA and Pentagon officials, which mistook a party balloon for a cartel drone and shot it down.” Huh? Anyway, the airspace has been reopened.
The Epstein survivors also held a press conference—one at which I was honored to be present. They spoke with enormous grace and dignity about their trials thus far, and how much they hoped Pam Bondi would do her job, commit to releasing all the files, and get busy investigating people in the Epstein files.
They were to be gravely disappointed. Just after that Bondi was questioned at a House Oversight Committee hearing and flagrantly lied, deflected, and behaved like an out-of-touch lunatic. She is engaging in a coverup of historic proportions. She will be held accountable.
In other news, House Republicans passed the SAVE America Act. It’s a bummer, but I still hold it has virtually no chance in the Senate unless Thune abolishes the filibuster. The chances that he will are vanishingly slim. We’ll make a lot of noise about it to our Senators nevertheless; better safe than sorry.
ICE, of course, continues to wreak havoc everywhere. (Apparently, though, they are leaving Minnesota! I’ll believe it when I see it but if true, it’s HUGE.)
Meanwhile I spent the day yesterday in a convening of content creators, hearing from all kinds of wonderful folks—among them Don Lemon, who spoke about his experience being targeted by the Trump administration, and Senators Warren, Ossoff, Smith, Booker, and Blunt-Rochester (she was a delight). We also had a session on Senate rules with a high-level staffer who spoke for 45 minutes about the arcane ways of the “deliberative body.” It was fascinating.
My favorite session of the day, though, was with Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. She is an absolute badass and so is her whole team—if you’re not aware of the work Democracy Forward does defending democracy in the courts I highly recommend checking it out. Hearing from Perryman reassured me that our side is not only successfully defending ourselves from the Trump admin’s attacks, but preparing to go on the offense in a big way. It was beyond heartening.
I’m going to see if I can get Skye to come speak to us on a Substack Live. You’d feel so much better about everything— almost—once you heard about the work DF has done so far, as well as how they plan to protect our elections in November. It’s great stuff.
To tie a bow around all I’ve just written: Trump and MAGA are descending further into cruelty, chaos, corruption, and cover-ups while our side is getting stronger, more organized, more strategic, more courageous, and more bold. I like what I’m seeing!
Does that mean we’re out of the woods? Not at all! There are (proverbial) trees on all sides! It is still dark. It is still cold. We are still miles from civilization with no map.
But it’s becoming more and more clear that we have the tools not just to survive, or to get out—but to thrive, to make sure there are consequences for all that’s happening, and to ensure that we never, ever end up here again.
Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.
First, I’m glad ICE is leaving Minnesota but Congress still needs to use the power of the purse to stop ICE and CBP’s violence and abuse. We want real accountability through strong enforceable standards enacted into law. Until then there must be no DHS funding and no Continuing Resolution. Also we need to get children out of detention. What ICE is doing to kids in these concentration camps is absolutely horrifying.
Second, I’m very upset that the House passed the SAVE America Act yesterday. This is a viciously anti-democratic bill that will suppress votes from both parties—especially those of people of color and married women. The Senator must vote no. Thank you.
Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.
I’m calling to ask that the Congressmember support articles of impeachment to remove Pam Bondi as Attorney General. She is engaging in a cover-up of child sex traffickers’ crimes, she lied under oath yesterday, she’s weaponizing the justice department, and she’s making a mockery of the rule of law. She even refused to apologize to Epstein’s victims for releasing their un-redacted data. She’s a disgrace. She cannot be trusted to lead our Department of Justice. Impeach her now. Thanks.
Organizers, community members, and Reps. Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal will share practical lessons we can take from the ongoing resistance in the Twin Cities as we all work to protect our own communities.
After doing a bunch of focus groups, some top messaging organizations put together this information sheet detailing how best to talk about Republicans’ attacks on our elections—specifically the SAVE Act and all of its antecedents. There’s stuff in it I didn’t know, and I’ll be adjusting the way I speak because of it. Highly recommend you check it out!
Join the national, all-volunteer team at Walk the Walk USA TONIGHT for their 2026 Zoom kickoff. Walk the Walk USA recommends strategic grassroots initiatives that utilize the most effective voter engagement tactics, supporting the most impactful voters in the most competitive geographic “pressure points” in the country. They’ll be sharing evidence-backed recommendations for how to have outsized impact with limited political dollars. In a nutshell, they support voters rather than candidates.
Resist and Unsubscribe, Scott Galloway’s Big Tech boycott campaign, is really picking up steam! It’s now been covered in NPR, USA Today, the Daily Beast, and many other media outlets.
He explained how—and why—it can work in this interview.
Read more here, and please consider joining this effort!
Win Races! 🗳
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Majority Is on the Line.
On February 24, there are two special elections for PA House Districts 22 (Lehigh County) and 42 (Allegheny County). Both seats were held by Democrats. Lose either one and we lose our one-seat majority — and with it, control of the agenda on voting rights, reproductive freedom, and gun safety. If you’re in these districts, vote. If you’re not, share this with your Pennsylvania contacts. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is February 17.
Not sure about all the choices on your ballot? Worried about picking the wrong candidate in a race you haven’t been following? BlueVoterGuide.org shows you what’s on your ballot with endorsements from trusted, pro-democracy organizations — so you can make quick, informed choices even in races where you’ve never heard of the candidates. It’s free, and millions of users say it helped them vote in races they would have otherwise skipped. Bookmark it now for every election this year.
Chop Wood, Save the Planet 🔥
Great news! The Environmental Voter Project will be targeting 3.4 million low propensity climate voters across 21 states in 2026!
They’ve identified huge numbers of potential voters in some crucially important districts and states. If climate matters to you, please take a moment to watch and share their in-depth briefing on where volunteers and donors can have the biggest impact in 2026. I love EVP—they are data backed, determined, and great at what they do!
(Note that for the most effective RESISTBOT it’s best to personalize this text. More about how to do this here. But if you’re short on time just send it as is using the above code.)
At a time when so many American families are struggling to get by, it’s a shameful abuse of office for Trump to pocket billions of taxpayer dollars by suing the IRS. The only reason he’s talking about donating this money is because even he realizes what he’s doing is indefensible with the public, and given that he’s a lifelong cheat and conman, there’s no reason to trust he’d follow through with the donation. Congress needs to shut this down.
The Stop Presidential Embezzlement Act would impose a 100% tax on any settlement a president, vice president, cabinet member, or member of Congress receives from the government as a result of a lawsuit filed while in office. It’s only right.
Please support and pass this bill. Thanks.
OK, you did it again! You’re helping to save democracy! You’re amazing.
Talk soon.
Jess
Chop Wood, Carry Water is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Because there was good word of mouth from various friends and trusty reviewers, I decided to give the latest Star Trek show a go, have now marathoned the six episodes released so far, and can report that word of mouth was correct: this latest installment, which is set in the 31rd century last seen in Star Trek: Discovery, shows none of the weaknesses of the third season of ST: SNW and is actually really good. Mind you, watching the first three episodes I thought, okay, they're good, not not groundbreaking, and some of the reactions made me expect more, but then came episodes 3 - 6 . building on the previous ones and fleshing out more characters, and I went "wow!" myself. And also "awwwww" at certain points. More beneath the spoiler cut.
The reason why I wasn't wowed by the first three in the way I was by the later three is that they included some clichés I never much cared for, such as a Marine, err, Starfleet instructor yelling "give me 100 pushups" . And the only school/school prank war I enjoyed fictionally was Das fliegende Klassenzimmer by Erich Kästner, plus I thought, really, do we need more mean Vulcans. These nitpicks aside (and the prank war did have its plusses as well), the first three episodes do a solid job in introducing the premise, the setting, and some of the main characters. They also showed versatality in format: the pilot episode has more action while the second episode is a classic ST ethical dilemma with lots of debate type of episode (and not the last one of the first six), and the third episode while having some serious character stuff mainly goes for broad comedy. Which is all fine, and confidence-building, but with episode 4, the show simply becomes more than that as we get our first hardcore (previously supporting) character episode which simultanously is an ethical dilemma episode and adds to the overall Star Trek lore because it tells us how the Klingons fared post Burn, something Disco did not. Now after a quiet spotlight on supporting character episode I expected the next to revert back to ensemble or main character format, but no! We got another " (different) supporting character in the spotlight" episode - which also doubled as an unabashed love declaration to one Benjamin Sisko in particular and DS9 in general. Which was great, because while other more recent ST shows did include some nods to DS9, it never got as much love as TOS and TNG did from the new kids on the block. Until now. And it was especially lovely to see because it did nostalgia right instead of going ST: Picard season 3, sigh, or follow ST:STNW's increasing tendency to become ST: TOS in its cast. Instead, it did a Star Trek: Prodigy. By which I mean: The love for the "old" characters as strong and great - but it was used in service of character fleshing out and growth of the new characters of the new show. Complimenting them, instead of replacing them. Homage, instead of a rerun. It was great. And then episode 6 went for a taut space thriller while also using what we learned so far about the characters and sharpening the profile of who seems to be the season's main villain. (And it took me until this episode to finally recall where I had heard the voice before. It was John Adams, I mean Paul Giametti!)
One more general observation: As a Discovery fan, I was delighted to see Admiral Vance again in most of the episodes, being his calm and responsible self, ditto for Jett Reno snarkng and being dead-pan as ever, and a bit surprised that Mary Wiseman has yet to make an appearance because I thought she was supposed to be a regular. Speaking of Discovery, its last two seasons feature a supporting guest star, Laira Rillak, who has both Bajoran and Cardassian heritage, and I thought that was great and that by the 31st Centuy, there ought to be a lot more "hybrids" of spacefaring nations with centuries of interaction . Starfleet Academy thought so, too, and we got indeed not just another hybrid in the regular cast but also several others popping up. And I really like the sheer number of middle-aged women we get in addition to the kids. Oh, and evidently the return to Discovery territory also meant the return to featured queer relationships. Excellent.
I went into Lessons in Magic and Disaster somewhat trepidatiously due to the degree to which her YA novel Victories Greater Than Death did not work for me. The good news: I do think Lessons in Magic and Disaster is MUCH better than Victories Greater Than Death and actually does some things remarkably well. The bad news: other elements did continue to drive me up a wall ....
Lessons in Magic and Disaster centers on the relationship between Jamie, a trans PhD student struggling to finish her dissertation on 18th-century women writers at a [fictional] small Boston college, and her mother Serena, an abrasive lesbian lawyer who has been sunk deep in depression since her partner died a few years back and her career simultaneously blew up completely.
Jamie does small-scale lower-m magic -- little rituals to make things go a little better in her life, that usually seem to work, as long as she doesn't think about them too hard -- and the book starts when she takes the unprecedented-for-her step of telling her mother about the magic as a sort of mother-daughter bonding ritual to see if her mother can use it to help herself get less depressed! Unfortunately Serena is not looking for a little gentle self-help woo-woo; she would like to UNFUCK her life AND the world in SIGNIFICANT ways that go way beyond what Jamie has ever done with magic and also start blowing back on Jamie in ways that eventually threaten not only Jamie and Serena's relationship but also Jamie's marriage, Jamie's career, and Serena's life.
Serena is an extremely specific, well-observed character, and Serena and Jamie's relationship feels real and messy and complicated in ways that even the book's tendency towards therapy-speak couldn't actually ruin for me, because yeah, okay, I do think Jamie would sometimes talk like an annoying tumblr post, that's just part of the characterization and it doesn't actually fix everything and sometimes even hurts. But the book's strengths -- that it's grounded very much in a world and a community and a type of people that Charlie Jane Anders clearly knows really well and can paint extremely vividly -- are also its weaknesses, in that it's also constantly slipping into ... I guess I'd call it a kind of lazy-progressive writing? The book is full of these sharp, vivid, messy moments whenever it's focused on this particular relationship and Serena in specific, and without that flashpoint, the messiness vanishes. Jamie goes into her grad school classroom and thinks about how the white men are always so annoying but the queer and bipoc students Always pick up what she's putting down. Jamie's partner Ro sets down boundaries in their marriage after a magic incident goes wrong and they are Always right and Jamie is Always humble and respectful about it, because respecting boundaries is Always the Correct thing to do. (Ro is the sort of person who says things like "this is bringing back a lot of trauma for me" while Jamie's mother is actively, in that moment, on the verge of death. I'm all for honesty in relationships but maybe you could give it a minute?)
I don't know. I think there is quite a good book in here, but I also think that good book is kind of fighting its way a little bit to get out from under the conviction that We Progressive Right-Thinking People In The Year 2025 Know What Righteous Behavior Looks Like. You know. But sometimes it does indeed succeed!
I did really enjoy the book's hyper-local Cambridge setting. Yeah, I see you name-checking those favorite restaurants, and yes, I have been to them and they are pretty good. Also, as a b-plot, Jamie is uncovering some lesbian literary drama in her dissertation that gives Charlie Jane Anders a chance to play around with 18thc pastiche and write RPF about Sarah Fielding, Jane Collier, and Charlotte Clarke and sure, fine, I didn't know very much about any of those people and she has very successfully made me want to know more! There were a bunch of times she'd drop something int he book and I'd be like "that's SO unsubtle as pastiche" and then I'd look it up and it was just a real thing that had happened or been published, so point again to Charlie Jane Anders.
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