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  #3goodThings 🧁 Being late to town meant I almost missed out on the beautiful sourdough bread by our local artisan baker - but I got the second last loaf, and this beauty of a lemon tart 🖼️ Was in town late enough that the combo tourist office and art gallery was open, so I could pop in and see the solo exhibition of a young local artist before it closed (definite candidate for cover artist, as I inch every closer to being able to hire someone) 🫱 Leaving the art gallery, I ran into a visitor t...

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  My old city library, when people are standing outside waiting for the doors to open: it’s 8.59, we don’t open till 9, but I suppose we’ll open the door a minute early this one time. (Me: I’m your volunteer for delivering books to people who can’t get here — oh, boy did he look shamefaced when he realised he’d told off a volunteer 😂) My country library, when people are standing outside waiting: it’s 9.55, so sorry that we don’t open till 10, come in out of the wind #library

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  I’m not a sports fan, especially not a football [AFL] fan, but I have been involved in organising grassroots community sport, and with my son playing representative basketball. And the thing I see all the time is a club/coach setting out rules and their consequences, including missing games for poor conduct. And then their star player breaks the rules and should miss a game. And the club/coach always finds a way to justify why that star should still get to play. Please stop. You ruin the kid...

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  The dog will literally sulk back to bed with a “fine, I’ll just starve then, shall I?” face rather than look to her left to find her food bowl in a slightly different spot.

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  If only she’d given her son a pair of pervert glasses and a spy watch, she’d have been A-OK (CW: link contains allegations of child abuse in a school setting) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-19/gippsland-mother-charged-hidden-recording-device/107172332

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  Dorothy L Sayers, about a fellow author: ICE-COLD #books #reading #DamnedWithFaintPraiseIndeed

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  Me: I wish Kobo was better at recommending books I actually want to read. Also me: I think I’ll make my fictional city’s religion be the worship of a whole bunch of saints. Kobo, before I’ve done a single search on the topic: you might like this book about Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, "An indispensable point of departure for anyone interested in the cult of the saints in the Middle Ages." Me: fucking hell, I didn’t mean creepily-read-my-mind better! #...

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  Hmm, so I’ll give my fictional city’s noble houses Adjective-Noun names but medieval-Spanish-sounding, so my main family will be Torresangrado, like Bleeding Bull, or less poetically Red Bu— GODDAMNIT #WritingCommunity #GivesYouWingsMyArse

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  Wow, the Anthropic authors settlement sounds like a shitshow. Not only it is a pitiful payout for contemptuous theft of work that has done nothing to solve the issue. Not only are fake claimants trying to grab the authors’ shares outright (somehow necessitating the *author* to disprove the claim rather than the scammer to prove it) But supposedly legitimate agents are claiming 25% of the payout amount for no work , and never mind it’s a legal settlement, not a consensual rights-sale. What a d...

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  I just went an entire week without a single error on Clues by Sam and I am so ridiculously proud of myself #CluesBySam #TinyAccomplishment

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  Tossing up names for my next MC, I looked up the Spanish version of Miles. After a brief detour to the 90%-crap portion of the internet (Kilometres!), I found out it’s Milo, which I like. And it derives from the Latin for soldier, which is appropriate! Only one problem: a fair proportion of my readers are Australian and there’s only one association we have with that name. #writing #milo

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  #mood

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  There’s a craft fair on today in town. Lots of local artisans. Handmade and unique products. AIslop all over the poster. I don’t think it’s their fault, I think they grabbed a default template from Canva without looking too closely, but it’s incredibly jarring to have that alongside professions of “handmade, heartfelt, homegrown”. https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vcmpg73bt2wudku3nqgx33yx/post/3msj74o3wds2f

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  Just got one of those “hi mum, lost my phone, using my friend’s, please text me on this new number” scam texts. Even putting aside the fact that my kid’s at school with no way to magically get a new mobile, sim and number sorted since 8am this morning…there is no way he would ever have started a text with “hi mum”. I get “bruh” if I’m lucky 😂

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  Friend sent me this and I feel attacked #books #TBR #Tsundoku

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  Cracker of a sunset the other day

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  New* library rules announced. “Anyone intoxicated was not allowed to borrow a book, and anyone behaving in a disorderly manner would be fined at least five shillings per offence. Book loans were restricted to one volume per person, but exceptions could be made to increase that if a household had six members who could prove they could read.” *150 year old https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-30/library-book-returned-after-150-years-kiama-library/106970186 #libraries

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  RE: https://mastodon.au/@wendypalmer/116844162472760771 Final weekend (and indeed final week) of the #Smashwords July sale. Lots of #indieAuthors on sale, including #MastoAuthors, including me 😊 #books #readingCommunity

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  We just spent an hour walking up and down a steep and overgrown riverbank with night falling because we could hear our dog barking for help, but every time we began to triangulate his location past the echoes, he’d decide the job was done and go quiet. He was fine, just stuck on the wrong side of a fence which was apparently A-OK to go through but utterly terrifying to come *back* through…until we showed up, whereupon he squirmed through the tiniest possible gap and merrily ran off without even...

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  I highly recommend This is Fascism by Rosan Smits: short and to the point, and mostly importantly gives a starting point for what politicians, journalists and the everyday person can and should be doing to hold the line. (I don’t pretend this can’t happen in Australia, but I take some bitter comfort in theorising that, since both our current proto-fascist and her billionaire backer are women, the inherent misogyny of fascism should cause fatal implosion-by-paradox relatively soon) #books #fasc...

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  RE: https://raggedfeathers.com/@lilithsaintcrow/116881837475926686 “It is time to tell the AI industry to go fuck itself, because it’s effectively done the same to the rest of society." This quote rings particularly loud for me today in light of this story from Bona Books, about coming within a whisker of contaminating an anthology with extruded mediocre: https://www.bona-books.com/news/we-bought-an-ai-story While they’re relatively philosophical about the new challenges of this type of...

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  RE: https://eigenmagic.net/@vampiress/116859241032699772 “sharted out of the maw of an ethically fucked averaging machine” Too good

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  The only thing better than reading a good book with my teen is reading a really bad book and making merciless fun of it with my teen #books #reading #parenting

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  Fanfiction fans, I need an image to illustrate the blurb for a fanfiction writing workshop for teens, and am having trouble thinking of one Is there a particular image or motif that you could suggest? (I’ll be using Pixabay or depositphotos, no AI) Title is Familiar Worlds, New Stories if that helps #fanFiction #imagery

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  On the drive into town, I enjoy seeing a pig happily wandering around its field. It gets bigger and bigger, and then it goes away for a while. But then it comes back, smaller! La-la-la it’s the same pig every time I can’t hear you la-la-la

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  “Why I Cried When My Husband Bought Me a Louis Vuitton Bag” I would cry if my partner bought me a Louis Vuitton bag too, because DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY BOOKS HE COULD HAVE BOUGHT ME WITH THAT MONEY??? 😝

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  Listening to Why Q needs U by Danny Bates, about the development of each letter of the English alphabet but with lots of wider linguistic and language detail. Highly recommended if you’re into that sort of thing 😊 So, English pronounces L two different ways, tongue right behind the teeth is Clear L, tongue a bit further back on the roof of the mouth is Dark L. Clear L tends to be for L followed by a vowel, Dark L tends to be for L after a vowel. If you pay attention when you say “loll” you mi...

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  The lingering effect of Untitled Goose Game: when I read a book blurb that begins “It’s a stunning summer evening in the Lake District”, my brain autocompletes. And you are a horrible goose.

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  My favourite reads for March, all of which ended up being queer in one way or another. #books #fiction #QueerRomanceClub http://wendypalmer.au/2026/04/05/books-favourite-reads-march26/

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  Just broke a lifelong rule and gave a hitchhiker a lift — the most non-threatening-looking young Japanese girl standing on the side of the road with a backpack and a shopping bag 😂 She’s been hitchhiking around Australia from Cairns and has made it to Southwest WA like an absolute champion. Had to drop her at my turn-off about halfway to the next town, but I gave her my phone number in case she gets stuck. Not the first, I imagine! 10/10 non-murdery hitchhiker experience