Photo of a book page. Text reads: "We won't get the goats till we're settled in, but I'm getting a bonded pair of cats! I named them Sam and Dean." When I look blankly at her, Chapel launches into a long description of some show about two brothers who hunt monsters. I shake my head. I've had enough monster-hunting for now.

I'm a day late but yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Supernatural so here's the reference to it I snuck into my book.

As a Millennial back in school, I can say with certainty that the part of my brain that cannot remember probability equation formulas is the part that still remembers every word to the Hymn of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen from Ren & Stimpy.

A lot of times I drive for ten miles with the emergency brake on. That doesn't say a lot for me, but it really doesn't say a lot for the "emergency brake". It's really not an emergency brake, it's an emergency "make the car smell funny lever".

The year I was born!

Moments from the field with Justin Robinson…

This tune is “Ryestraw” from our new album “What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow.”

Listen now: giddensrobinson.lnk.to/BlackbirdCrow

I've said this before but I'll say it again

If your reading recommendations (especially if you are an industry professional of some kind) include no works by Black authors

Then I urge you to *seek out and read* more work by Black authors

Omg I love this title!!! And the book sounds awesome!

Supernatural comp always gets me 👀👀👀 And this sounds amazing!

OOH THIS SOUNDS SO GOOD!

You discover an orange cat.
Orange cat has babies, some orange.
They grow up, have babies.
Cycle continues.
Wow, there's a lot of orange cats!
Congrats, you just figured out why there's more Autistics than 50 yrs ago. Genetics, & being able to discover more orange cats- I mean diagnose Autistics.

Your children are budding horror writers, too

Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn and yes! I still have a copy.

I was selected in the second grade to represent my school at the regional "Young Writers' Conference." My entry was a blatant self-insert ghost story with me as the ghost.

I read the graffiti in the bathroom stall like the holy scriptures of the shopping mall

Me: I am technically "Updates Only" on The Other Place, I should go over there and at least update...

The Other Place: Jews have non-human DNA!

Me: *closes door quietly*

And what metric is there for this anyway? I've seen people's careers take so many different trajectories. Like, "making it" doesn't necessarily look like one specific model of continuing to have success writing the same type of thing you started out writing forever.

If there's a suit I want in. They took my book too and that is the LAST thing I would give permission for it to be used for.

Trans kidlit author here!

A man with olive skin and dark curly hair and beard wearing a brown and cream trucker style cap and tortoiseshell glasses and a brown western shirt with brown and cream plaid shoulder patches sits in a room with white walls and curtains printed with woodland animals holding a book titled The Lumbering Giants of Windy Pines. The cover shows a Black girl with braids and glasses wearing purple overalls and a white androgynous girl with short dark hair using a pink wheelchair with a small dragon on her shoulder traveling through a dark wood.

Almost forgot to wish a happy birthday to my book baby! They grow up so fast...

Probably Alison Bechdel, in a now-defunct LGBTQ+ bookstore in Atlanta called Outwrite when she was on the Fun Home tour. There were promotional postcards and she drew a picture of me on the back of one.

That is awful. I'm so sorry.

And the tokenism, which isn't really anyone stealing your slot so much as there not being a fair amount to go around. You know, when a writer is told "This is good, but we already have a [x] book."

I will add here that *some* writers (i.e., marginalized ones) have a legitimate claim to not getting published or not getting good deals or industry backing for reasons outside of craft. But other writers' success is rarely to blame for our lack thereof.

Yep. Margaret Atwood was even honest about that; she's been asked how she thought of her ideas and said these are things that actually happened or are happening elsewhere in the world, iirc

I've been cagey about this since I look young and in this youth-obsessed industry hoped I could pass for one of the cool-kid rising stars instead of someone who'd been at it for decades before I broke through. But isn't that kind of the point of this? So... 42.

Heartbroken for Dolly. Her love for Carl, and his for her, is something we should all wish for.

He's not, but guess who is? All three Stooges!

Ditto to this!

Though I doubt you need anything like that.” She gave me a sly sideways wink. I don’t know why she thought the fat goth girl on crutches had people lining up for dates, but it wasn’t something I was all that interested in anyway.