catching halos on the moon

Jun. 28th, 2025 08:30 pm
[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

I had such a good time with my garden last season. It was the first time I had ever capital-t Tended a garden in my life, and it was a deeply meaningful experience for me. I learned a lot about myself in the process, because I kept allowing my garden to be a metaphor. Also, I had more tomatoes than I could give away, the biggest pumpkin I have ever seen, peppers forever, and sunflowers that went up to here.

I have been intensely focused on CPTSD recovery from child abuse for a couple of years. I work on it in therapy every week, and I work on it in between sessions, when I’m able. Walking my garden twice a day gave me lots of opportunities to reflect on The Work that I was doing, and I’m pretty sure it gave me an extra d4+1 on all my saves.

I live in zone 10B, and we can grow just about anything here, all year long, if we’re willing to do some extra work during the frigid 40 degree nights we endure for up to a whole week every January. I’ve never done that before, because I’ve never felt connected enough to my garden to get the winter survival gear out of the trunk.

But this past winter, I thought I’d give it a go. I looked into it, and saw that most of the winter stuff available to me didn’t interest me enough to plant and Tend it. But I read about planting a cover crop, and that sounded pretty cool. I liked the idea of putting a ton of seeds down and staying out of their way while they did their thing for a couple of months.

I ended up choosing a mixture of oats, peas, and radishes. I cut everything down to a nub, to let the roots die off and nourish the soil, and tossed the seeds all over the place.

Over the winter, they sprouted and grew into one hell of a cover crop. The peas produced beautiful, delicate, purple and white flowers. The oats got so tall, and surprisingly smelled kind of sweet, too. Marlowe loved eating big blades of grass every day. I noticed that they sort of whistled or hummed softly when the breeze was just right. Depending on the sunlight, they looked green or blue.

About a month ago, they started to dry up. Marlowe lost interest in the grass, which I presume wasn’t as sweet as it was when it was still cold at night. Anne and I planned this season’s garden, with fewer tomatoes, and I began to prepare the planting beds.

I started clearing the cover crop out, one section at a time. The peas were all dead and crumbled in my hands. I turned them into the soil. There was one radish, a big daikon-looking thing that filled the air with a spicy blast when I yanked it up. Then there were the oats, three and four feet tall, growing in thick clumps that formed a tiny forest for ants. I pulled them out, one at a time, shaking all the soil off the roots. Dust clung to my hands and forearms.

I started on one side, and worked my way down and around, one clump at a time. The soil came up and fell off the roots easily. It fell back into fluffy mounds that I swept into the holes left behind. I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my right hand, then wiped the mud I’d left behind with my left hand. I tried both forearms before I started laughing and accepted my muddy forehead.

I kept working, silently thanking the oats for doing exactly what they were asked to do as I cleared one and then the next and the next.

I blinked sweat out of my eyes, shook some mud off my head, and looked at the newly-cleared garden. The soil was fluffy and rich. Loamy, I think they call it. It was ready for the growing season, and I was ready to plant it.

But first, in the final corner, there were a couple clumps of very tall, very thick, oats to pull out. I considered leaving them, so Marlowe could continue to have her grass snacks, but she hasn’t been that interested for about two weeks, at least.

“You have done all that was asked of you,” I said, “you can rest, now.” I wrapped my hand about the base of the clump nearest to me and gently pulled it up. I shook the soil out of its roots, put it to the side, and moved on to the next one. I stopped suddenly and stared through the little forest.

There was a deep green … something … against the wooden edge of the planter. Some kind of hornworm, maybe? A beetle I’ve never seen before? What the hell is that?

I parted the stalks and saw a single jalapeño hanging from the top of a single stalk. The nub I cut back at the end of last year, safely hidden by the cover crop, grew back at some point, flowered, and produced a single, perfect, beautiful fruit while nobody was looking, or expecting anything from it. I looked closer and two additional flowers revealed themselves.

I cleared the remaining oats, careful to not disturb my unexpected jalapeño. It’s obviously thriving, but the flowers are so delicate before they begin to bear fruit; they must be treated with care, even if that just means being careful around them. It’s good to do that, from time to time, I think: remember to take care. We can easily damage something we aren’t even thinking about, when we are careless.

I didn’t expect anything from the cover crop. I just put it down and hoped the seeds would grow. I didn’t expect anything from this jalapeño. In fact, Mr. Bond, I expected it to die.

It’s amazing what happens when we plant seeds, and tend to our gardens, without any expectations, isn’t it?

[personal profile] altamira16
This is a weird slipstream book that feels like it is trying to horn in on Nick Mamatas's territory sometimes.

Jonathan Abernathy is a lonely adult. He is an orphan, and his life is going nowhere. He goes and begs his old manager at the hotdog stand for a job because he desperately needs the money.

But he is working on a bigger project where he is a dream auditor. At night, he enters people's dreams and sucks away the bad parts so that they can be more productive. (This is the thing that feels Mamatas-like. People are doing weird things because of capitalism.) There are all sorts of things about the dream world that are unclear. What happens to the parts of the dreams that are sucked away? What happens to the lives of the people whose dreams have been changed?

He has a neighbor named Rhoda who has a daughter named Timmy, and sometimes Rhoda asks Jonathan to watch Timmy.

He likes her. He starts seeing her in dreams, but whose dreams are they? Which dreams are real?
Tags:

Interview with DeWanda Wise

Jun. 27th, 2025 09:13 am
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
For Murderbot Day, a great interview with DeWanda Wise, about playing NavigationBot in The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon:

https://www.nexuspointnews.com/post/interview-dewanda-wise

I had worked with Paul on Fatherhood. He literally texted me and was like, "do you want to play a murderous robot?"

New Interview

Jun. 24th, 2025 11:46 am
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
Great interview with Murderbot executive producer Andrew Miano:

https://www.nexuspointnews.com/post/interview-murderbot-ep-andrew-miano

First and foremost, my partner Paul Weitz read the book for pleasure, not with any eye towards adaptation, and came in with it and said, "this would make an amazing TV show." We all read it and really sparked to it and thought it was unique and special and funny, which is not something that you always get in a lot of sci-fi. [It is] also very meaningful and emotional. It was the whole package so it was very exciting and we went about it. We met Martha... One of the biggest things to focus on is how do you honor the book? How do you translate that to the screen? It's not easy, but I'm very fortunate to have Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz — two smart, talented partners — creating and running the show with their guidance and Martha's support and involvement to sort of capture and stay true to the books.

Every Kind of Craft now open!

Jun. 23rd, 2025 03:02 pm
yourlibrarian: Every Kind of Craft on green (Every Kind of Craft Green - yourlibraria)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] knitting


Do you make crafts? Do you like to look at crafts? Would you like to get (or give) advice about crafts? All crafts are welcome. Share photos, stories about projects in progress, and connect with other crafty folks.

You are welcome to make your own posts, and this community will also do a monthly call for people to share what they are working on, or what they've seen which may be inspiring them. Images of projects old or new, completed or in progress are welcome, as are questions, tutorials and advice.

If you have any questions, ask them here!
[personal profile] bethbethbeth
On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the seventh recced book review.

It's been a long time since posting one of these (I had non-recced books to read!), but I just finished:

The Lost Flock (2023), by Jane Cooper (recced by marinarusalka on dreamwidth)

When this was recced to me, marinarusalka wrote, “I’m curious to see if a non-knitter will find it equally interesting.” Because here’s the thing. I know nothing about raising sheep, I’ve never knitted, I’ve never been to the Orkney Islands, and yet this is why I loved reading The Lost Flock. It’s the same reason I like reading science fiction and fantasy; learning about and getting immersed in a world you know nothing about is great.

So…if you want to know about Boreray sheep (a rare, primitive short-tailed breed) or how felting is done or how to spin without a wheel or about sails for Viking ships, this is your book.
[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

Back in the old days, the good old days, when it was generally accepted that Fascism and Nazis were bad, bloggers would write these posts that were sort of recaps of what we were doing, what we’d been doing, with some links to stuff we liked. This is one of those posts.

Good morning. I’m in Jackson, Mississippi, for the Mississippi Comi Con. Come see me if you’re local! I’m here all day today and tomorrow.

My travel yesterday was basically uneventful, once I was actually on a plane and in the sky. My connection in Dallas was delayed three different times, and each time the airline told me that my gate had been changed from where I was, to the gate that was farthest away in the terminal. So I spent a couple hours walking back and forth, which honestly wasn’t bad at all. I probably got in more steps walking in that terminal than I get on a typical Thursday.

The invention of noise canceling earbuds has made all the difference for me, with travel. I can wrap myself in a bit of a cocoon, and just get where I am going without a lot of sensory overload and overwhelm. Usually, I just listen to one of my playlists, but I have a mountain of Audible credits that I’ve been turning into books. For the last week or so, I’ve been going back and forth between Rip It Up And Start Again, by Simon Reynolds, and Peter Hook’s book about Joy Division1. They are both oral histories of the post-punk movement from around 1976 to 1990, from different points of view. The parts where they overlap are just fascinating. Hookie has his memories of specific events, and Reynolds collects memories from other people who were at the same event. I’m sure there are other books, from other members of other bands, that would fill in even more details. This is one of the reasons I just love history so much, and why it’s so satisfying to track down primary sources.

When I wasn’t listening to those books, I read a short story that’s one of the Hugo finalists2, Marginalia, by Mary Robinette Kowal. It’s featured in Uncanny Magazine, which is where a TON of finalists were published this year.3

I usually arrive hungry (thanks, Anthony Bourdain4) but I did some math in Dallas and realized I wouldn’t be landing until almost 11, and I didn’t want to eat at midnight, even if my body insisted it was only 9pm. So I looked around the terminal and my choices were Starbucks and Whataburger, or some combination of granola bars, a dodgy-looking apple, and a sad Wil. So I chose Whataburger and OMG it was perfect. I don’t usually eat stuff like that, and it was like BOOM COMFORT FOOD from the first bite. It reminded me of the little burger shacks that were in parking lots in the Valley when I was a kid, with those perfect drive-thru fries that you’d eat half of before you got home. My body wasn’t thrilled that I put a burger and fries into it so late in my day, but my body’s been kind of a dick lately, so it can just deal with it.

ANYWAY. I finally got to my hotel. Finally got checked in. Got to my room just around 1130pm, not hungry, but wide awake. Neat.

I watched some YouTube, read some blogs, and finally fell asleep around 1am local time. I slept shockingly well, woke up feeling fully rested, and now I’m trying to find things to do until it’s time to go to work. I’ve actually run out of brain cycles for reading, or even listening to someone else read — does that happen to other people? You really want to keep going because you’re so interested or enthralled or whatever, but your brain is just like, “dude I can’t. I’ve run out of focus and I don’t know what to tell you.” It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.

While I was trying to wind my brain down, I watched this video about merch5, and now I want to record myself narrating a very short …. something … that’s up to about 5 minutes, and release it on extremely indie, extremely DIY, cassettes and vinyl. When Sean Bonner and I did Saturday Night Massacre back in 20176, as part of the Kickstarter one week project thingy, we wanted to do something like this, and I can’t remember if we actually made physical media or not. I don’t think we did, but just because we ran out of time. It looks like it isn’t too difficult to get the things made, though. It’s just the fulfillment that would take some meaningful time.

If I created some bespoke physical media that cost around $30 all-in after shipping, would you be into that? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll prioritize accordingly.

Oh! Speaking of physical things … we have a new enamel Good Morning Nerds pin for you at Stands! Check it out!

I love the image of my bookcase they put on the card, my glasses, and the spout of hair that always explodes off the side of my head. It’s the little details, y’all..

And I brought Trek Side of the Moon back at Cottonbureau.

This con marks the official beginning of my 2025 Summer Convention Season. Over the next month or so, here’s where I’m scheduled:

  • July 4-5 I will be in Montreal for Montreal Comic Con
  • July 11-13 I will be in Knoxville for Fanboy Expo
  • July 20-22 I will be in Atlanta for ATL Comic Convention

I think there are one or two others that I’m not remembering, but that’s July. I really should have a page with this information that I can link to, rather than relying on my memory, but I’ve never done more than five shows in a calendar year before now, and my memory has been more than enough to keep them all straight. This year, I’m doing more than I have in a long time because I feel like we need to get out and do the fun things, get together with our fellow nerds in a safe place to express ourselves and see each other, now more than ever. Everything is terrible, but at least we can have a few hours, a couple days, of peace and respite, surrounded by people who love the things we love, the same way we love them.

Community is important in the best of times. It’s VITAL when we have thugs brutalizing, terrorizing, and kidnapping our friends and neighbors, under orders from a wannabe despot who seeks to use the power of the State — power that belongs to the people — to wage war against citizens who won’t accept him as our king. Going to conventions, game days at your local game shop, Neighborhood Nights Out in your community, and gently interacting with other people is a massive bulwark against tyranny7, according to professor Timothy Snyder, one of the leading experts in the world on the subject.

So do your patriotic duty and go to a convention this summer! It’ll be fun! Joy is resistance!

I’m so blessed and so grateful that I attract kind, creative, enthusiastic people when I am at a show. I always get the most surprising and beautiful things, and I love to share them. As always, I’ll be posting to my Instagram stories from the con. Clever is my Kryptonite, and there are always clever people at these things.

Okay, that’s all for today. I hope everyone has the most wonderful weekend possible. Take care of yourselves, and take care of each other.

  1. He has the most soothing voice, ever. I feel like I’m sitting in a cafe with him while he tells me all about this time in his life. The way he makes me feel as I’m listening to him is what I hoped to give to people who listen to Still Just A Geek. ↩
  2. I have this idea to narrate all the finalists in the short story category for my podcast. I don’t think we’ll be back in production in time to do this before the awards are handed out, but it’s something I’d love to do next year, and every year after that, if they’ll let me. ↩
  3. Have I mentioned that Lynne and Michael Thomas, who edit Uncanny, found all the stories I read in the first season of It’s Storytime? If I can afford it, I’m hoping to work with them again. They are amazing. ↩
  4. May his memory be a blessing. ↩
  5. As it relates to DIY and indie creators. This guy is as enthusiastic about this kind of thing as I am, and loves to make fun stuff just because it’s fun to make. There are a lot of ancillary benefits, as he observes, but even if you’re not someone who would enjoy (or is looking for) those particular benefits, his excitement, enthusiasm, and creativity shine though. I can see how just making this thing he thought was silly and fun affected not only his creativity, but the whole band’s creativity. ↩
  6. GodDAMN was this project fun. The history, the Kickstarter, all of it. It’s one of those things we did because we wanted it to exist, and we didn’t care if a hundred people or zero people liked it. As it turned out, 138 people liked it. That’s a nice, even, 140 when you count both of us. ↩
  7. 12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life. ↩

lift every voice and sing

Jun. 19th, 2025 05:37 pm
[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

Lift every voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.

I did not know about Juneteenth until I was in my 40s. I recall how embarrassed and ashamed I felt, but it just wasn’t taught to me in school, and America doesn’t exactly go out of her way to teach privileged white kids like me about the horrors our ancestors inflicted on generations of human beings. Hopefully, that has changed.

In the extremely unlikely event you are hearing about this for the first time: “Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday’s name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of the words June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.”

As the institutions and corporations that influence so much of American culture draw shamefully away from celebrating and honoring marginalized communities, including communities of color, it falls (as it always does) to us, the people, to step up and use our collective voice to speak out so our friends, neighbors, and fellow humans who do not have the same privilege that so many of us have are seen and heard.

Here’s LeVar Burton reading the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Google put this on their doodle a few years ago. Today, there is nothing. Shameful. My bad. My VPN autoconnected to the UK, and when I reset it to the US, I see that Google is honoring Juneteenth. I regret the error.

it picks me up, puts me down

Jun. 19th, 2025 12:34 am
[syndicated profile] wwdn_feed

Posted by Wil

I’ve been open and unashamed about my mental health struggles and triumphs, always willing to talk about my CPTSD, always willing to supportively listen when someone chooses to share their experience with me.

I make this choice every day, because I am doing my best to be the person I need in the world. I need people who are kind and compassionate, who are willing to share their struggles and victories in a way that validates my own experiences. I make this choice so that maybe I can be the person I need, for someone I will never meet, the way people like Jenny Lawson, or Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade were for me, when I was beginning my healing journey.

It’s in that spirit that I’m writing today. This is sort of a general update on how that journey is going, and a look at where I am, with some thoughts on how I got here.

So, broadly and generally speaking, I’m doing great! I mean, everything in the whole world is terrible, but the little bit of reality that’s being rendered around me at any given moment is pretty great. I’m healthy and safe, my family is healthy and safe, I have all the work I need, I have time and space for activities.

But … the chaos, cruelty, rage, and unpredictability coming out of the White House is identical to what I experienced growing up1 and holy shit has that activated a lot of stuff for my body to remember.

For the two weeks or so that preceded Sunday, I woke up to intense anxiety every morning, before I was even fully awake and aware of anything. It was really unpleasant, but at least I knew that it was nervous system dysregulation2, and I have a lot of skills I can use to help my nervous system get back into a parasympathetic, resting, state. I’m grateful that I know what to do, but my god did I wish I didn’t have to do it every morning at the start of my day.3

Then, Sunday, I woke up like Frodo in Rivendell, and I have, every morning since. I don’t feel tight and clenched in my chest. I haven’t sweat through my pajamas and woken up shivering. I have had peace and warmth and gentle calm.

And the thing is, I didn’t know when this would happen, but I knew that it would. This sort of nervous system freakout thing tends to happen when I’ve been working hard to reprocess one or more specific traumas, and I’m really close to closing a circle on my imaginary trauma healing watch. It’s like my body doesn’t realize, yet, that I’m safe and I’m now, and it needs to be gently coaxed out of dysregulation.

I’ve closed a few metaphorical circles over the years since I started EMDR and IFS therapy, and I have had some version of this experience each time. When it does, I imagine a drawing of my body, like from one of those old Disney SCIENCE IS FUN cartoons. In some places, there is fear and anxiety.4 In others, confusion5. Depending on how old I am in the drawing, there’s anger and resentment6. And all around these memories, connected to each of them, is sadness and loss. Over time, as I’ve worked so hard to heal from the abuse of my emotionally immature, toxic parents, those pieces I see in the drawing have faded away, eventually joining together in lingering loss and sadness.

And honestly, I’m okay with that. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to acknowledge the loss. I hasten to clarify that this took literal years of work. When I first began to see all the sadness, it was like looking into infinity. When I first felt the enormity and profundity of the loss, it was free falling into an abyss. There were a lot of stops and starts as I learned how to regulate it, how to reprocess it in a way that wasn’t overwhelming.

Again, not easy. Again, years. Again, worth it.

Now, listen, I am not a doctor and I have no professional experience or education. I’m just sharing my experience. But if you see something familiar, I encourage you to look into what nervous system dysregulation is, and learn some of the techniques we use to calm our bodies down when they aren’t on the same page as our mind, our soul, our Self.

A few resources I value include

There’s a somatic component to emotional healing and trauma recovery that I didn’t expect. It’s only recently that my emotional self and my physical self have started to work in harmony, and that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t know that the somatic part existed. It’s taken such a long time, and though the work is ongoing, I hope that someone who needs to know that they aren’t alone sees this. I hope this helps on your own healing journey.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you would like to get these updates in your email, here’s a thing:

Take care of yourselves, friends, and take care of each other.

  1. My father’s rage, my mother’s fear, and the tension between them was so thick in the air, it was suffocating. I never knew what was coming down the hallway, or through the front door. Would dad be mean to me, or would he just ignore me? Would mom and dad fight so ferociously that it ends with my mom kicking another hole in another cabinet? We’re running out of towels to hang over the ones that are already there. I’m going to put headphones on and turn them up as loud as they can go because that’s the only way to escape the yelling and arguing that vibrates through the walls into my bedroom. ↩
  2. For decades, I had panic attacks every night when I was falling asleep. More often than not, I had night terrors, these vaguely remembered nightmares that had no images or other senses associated with them, just pure terror. When it was really bad, they happened more than once a night and the only reason I stayed asleep was after I’d cried myself to sleep in exhaustion. Trying to escape them was a big part of my alcohol abuse. I’m so grateful that doesn’t happen anymore. ↩
  3. And it still kind of lingered with me throughout the day, you know? It was a lot. ↩
  4. Oh, imagine that Professor Duck guy, giving a lecture at a chalkboard. ↩
  5. Why is he so mean to me? Why won’t she just let me be a kid? Why won’t they love me like they love my brother and sister? ↩
  6. Or, there was. The healing ring I am most proud of closing, the one that was the key to closing so many others, was this one. When I realized that my anger was no longer a shield that protected me, but something else entirely that only caused me pain, it was astonishingly easy to find it, coax it out, validate it, and send it on its way. There isn’t any anger in my drawing now. Where it used to be is something that is almost indifference. ↩

Out of the Blue

Jun. 18th, 2025 05:09 pm
[syndicated profile] yarn_harlot_feed

Posted by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I was in a yarn shop a while ago and I saw a sweater and I loved it. It was short sleeved and summery and knit out of this great yarn (Cottage Fingering, 50% Merino, 20% Linen, 15% Silk, 15% Cotton) and thanks to that plant/silk ingredients, it had fantastic drape and weight. It was oversized but a little elegant, and looked super wearable. For years and years I’ve been smitten with this sort of “post-apocolyptic my clothes are all rags but I still look fabulous like the matrix” vibe, but me being me I’m pretty sure that all I ever manage is the first part of that phrase, but it never stops me from buying stuff that I think might take me over the line. The point is that I was in this shop and this sample was so great, and so I looked at the tag and was absolutely stunned to see that it was a sweater that I’ve looked at a thousand times and had no interest in – Ranunculus. (That first picture alone – the waif in the giant version was enough to put me off.) This version though… before I even knew what happened to me I had the yarn in my bag.

Some months later (like a couple weeks ago) I decided that I would knit the thing. I’ve got a shelf in the stash room where I put things that are “next” and it’s been taunting me from there so I dove in and swatched, wondering if that would take the edge off. It didn’t. It did convince me to go down an needle size and redo a little math so it would be a slightly tighter gauge but still give me the ease I wanted, and that convinced me to cast on provisionally at the beginning of the yoke and come back to the neckband at the end. Off I went.

It’s a fun knit, I give you that – I can see why so many people have made it. Fun little stitch pattern on the yoke, big needles… the yarn is a bit slow, so it could have been faster, but I was at the divide in no time, and cruising cheerfully down the body and almost ready to start the ribbing when the trouble started.

The trouble took the form of the voice of my inner knitter and she said “It’s too short”. Is it? I thought? My inner knitter has a lot experience so I stopped and measured. It was not too short, so I knit a couple more rounds to reassure her, and then started to think about the ribbing again. “It’s still too short” she muttered. I measured it again, this time lying it on top of a sweater that I like the length of, comparing the total length of the sweater. It was not too short, so I did a few more rounds to humour her and got ready to do the ribbing. (Oddly, the sweater didn’t seem to get any longer when I added those five rounds, which should have been a clue that something else was going on.) Debbi and I were together for the retreat at Port Ludlow at the time, so I announced the milestone. Debbi creased her brow and said “Huh. Really? It looks too short.” Now Debbi has a ton of knitting experience as well, so that smartened me up again.

“Really? I said? I’ve measured it twice… It’s totally the right length -remember it’s getting ribbing so it will be longer than it looks now…” Debbi brought out the big guns and raised an eyebrow, and then suggested I try it on. I dutifully got some knitters cord and slipped it on, then popped it over my head. It WAS too short, but by the length of the ribbing so it’s perfect. I knew from my swatch it was going to relax but not really grow, and I told Debbi that. “It’s the right length” I said, admiring it in the mirror again.

“Great” Debbi said, but she didn’t mean great. She meant she thought the sweater was too short. I knit a few more rounds, then measured it again, then held it up to the other sweater again, then tried it on again. It was the perfect length. Debbi and my inner voice shrugged and I started the ribbing. The whole time I was knitting that ribbing, it wouldn’t stop dogging me. Every few rounds I repeated the ritual. Measure, compare, try on. It took forever to knit it because I kept stopping to do all this – and the whole time it wasn’t just Debbi and my inner knitter who thought it was too short – at my birthday party I cast off and was about to start the sleeves and I held it up to show off to Amanda. She made a face and said “I’m surprised you wanted a cropped sweater…” I looked down, trying to reconcile what she’d said with what I was seeing. It isn’t a cropped sweater – it ends at my hip bone. I measured again. I compared again, I tried it on again. It is the right length. I don’t know why it doesn’t look like it is, but it is. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t have have a neck band yet – or that it is very wide. It has tons of ease and maybe the proportions are making all of us think that it should be longer if it is wider?

I’m about done the sleeves now (I think they are too short as well) and have thought constantly about unpicking my bind-off (I’d rather not it’s slubby yarn and a super pain) and adding more length, but I’m committed to staying the course. I’ve been down this road before and I have a too-long sweater upstairs to prove it. I have swatched. I have measured. I have compared, I have tried on. It is the right length. It is not too short. I don’t know what game this sweater is running, but I’m not falling for it.

Right?

Things Coming Out Next

Jun. 16th, 2025 01:49 pm
marthawells: (Witch King)
[personal profile] marthawells
Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology

Out in ebook and paperback on July 1. My story is "Data Ghost"

https://bookshop.org/p/books/storyteller-a-tanith-lee-tribute-anthology/a74b320486117220?ean=9798992595406&next=t

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/storyteller-a-tanith-lee-tribute-anthology?sId=e0bafab6-32a8-4ffb-9436-2dcda473349c

Edited by Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett, and Craig Laurance Gidney. Stories by Martha Wells, Andy Duncan, C.S.E. Cooney, Nisi Shawl, Mike Allen, Alaya Dawn Johnson, CL Hellisen, Maya Deane, Rocío Rincón Fernández, Theodora Goss, Getty Hesse, Starlene Justice, Amelia Mangan, Michael Yuya Montroy, Marisca Pichette, KT Wagner.

Sixteen new stories from some of today's most renowned authors. All inspired by the master storyteller Tanith Lee.

Drowning cities and unicorns. Burning deserts and forgotten gods. Golems, elf warriors, and inner-Earthers. Alien lifeforms and museum workers. Ancient plagues and the future of humanity. The familiar and the fantastical. Each story in this anthology is both unique and compelling: from fairy-tale retellings to romance-tinged high fantasy, from nihilistic horror to gripping science fiction. Immersive, wide-ranging, and sublime, Storyteller features worlds and characters that are sure to travel with you long after the last page has been read.



***


Short Story: "Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells

will be available on Reactor Magazine on July 10

Illustrated by Jaime Jones
Edited by Lee Harris

Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover...


***


Summer of Science Fiction & Fantasy: Martha Wells in conversation with Kate Elliott

https://www.clarionwest.org/event/summer-of-science-fiction-fantasy-martha-wells-in-conversation-with-kate-elliott/


July 30 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm PDT

The Clarion West Summer Reading Series will be held virtually and streamed live over Zoom during the Six-Week Workshop.

Join us for our final event, a conversation between Martha Wells and Kate Elliott!

This event will begin with a conversation between Martha and Kate. There will be time to take questions from the audience. Participants will be able to submit questions in the webinar.



***


The New Yorker announced "Platform Decay" will be the next Murderbot novella. No word on publication date yet.


***


Grimoire: A Grim Oak Press Anthology For Seattle Worldcon 2025

https://grimoakpress.com/products/grimoire-a-grim-oak-press-anthology-for-seattle-worldcon-2025

My story is a fantasy called "Birthright" which is reprint that's not currently available anywhere else.


***


Queen Demon, the sequel to Witch King, second book of the Rising World, is up for preorder and will be released in ebook, audiobook, and hardcover on October 7.

From the breakout SFF superstar author of Murderbot comes the remarkable sequel to the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling novel, Witch King. A fantasy of epic scope, Queen Demon is a story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs' Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there's something he isn't telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what's right?


Bookshop.org https://bookshop.org/p/books/queen-demon-martha-wells/21751501?ean=9781250826916

B&N https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/queen-demon-martha-wells/1146167707?ean=9781250826916

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/queen-demon

Audiobook Libro.fm https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781250291981-queen-demon

Bakka-Phoenix (indie bookstore in Canada): https://bakkaphoenixbooks.com/item/3Czr8TaWU9-_fwJ25ytSCw