Barbara McVeigh
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barbaramcveigh.bsky.social
Barbara McVeigh
@barbaramcveigh.bsky.social
Writer, teacher-librarian, ESL advocate & cycling ambassador. SSAC completist. ❤️ my Brompton.

https://barbaramcveigh.weebly.com/
Day 11: teawithtracie.ca

Irish cream - black tea, blackberry leaves, calendula petals, sunflower and cornflower. Served with milk!

It is very hot, being a black tea, even with the milk. I’m waiting for it to cool so I can take a sip…

It definitely has a creamy taste!
November 24, 2025 at 7:32 PM
”WIKIPEDIA
As far as I can tell, this is mankind’s most honest cognitive project” (72).
#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk #Flights
November 24, 2025 at 7:22 PM
”Fluidity, mobility, illusoriness—these are precisely the qualities that make us civilized. Barbarians don’t travel. They simply go to destinations or conduct raids” (52).

#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk #Flights
November 24, 2025 at 7:21 PM
#TheGhostBoxIV from H&O
“The Three Infernal Jokes” by Lord Dunsany

A story told “on the lonely Highland road one autumn evening with winter coming on and the stags roaring.” And the devil sitting in the corner.

Make ’em laugh 🤣🤣🤣 - the eternal story.
November 24, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
The Library of the Day is Little Free Library #215110! In a world of bookworms, be a BOOK DRAGON 🐲

Find a Little Free Library near you by downloading our free mobile app: https://lflib.org/app
November 21, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
The Temperance Tarot card by surrealist artist and author Leonora Carrington, 1950s

#LeonoraCarrington #Tarot #Surrealism
November 24, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Day 10: teawithtracie.ca
Inner Glow herbal tea
Ah!!! This tea is nice! Not for my girl @ttbrader.bsky.social unfortunately - peppermint and spearmint leaves feature in this brew. However, the mints are tempered by rosehip pieces, ginger, hibiscus petals, rose, sunflower, calendula & osmathus.
November 23, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
We're opening for submissions TOMORROW!

That's ✨so soon✨
a drawing of a light bulb with a smiling face on it
Alt: A drawing of a smiling yellow light bulb against a blue background
media.tenor.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
There are now just eight maids-a-milking until the #WelkinWritingPrize is open for entries once again. Hope you're busy scribbling your stories.

www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize...
November 23, 2025 at 3:00 PM
“He goes back to the car via the small cemetery near the church. All the graves face the sea…Perhaps the white ferry cheers them, perhaps they even take it for an archangel escorting souls in that passage through the air” (50).
#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk #Flights
November 23, 2025 at 1:02 PM
”He’s never experienced that intensity. He is more familiar with the north, where masculine society is shyer. But here in the south…wine and sunshine open bodies up faster and more shamelessly” (44).

Interesting to see the man rally around Kunicki in his search

#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk #Flights
November 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM
What do we make of the maps included in #Flights? The first one, of the rivers, relates to the text, but the next map is of St. Petersburg. The story is currently set in/on Vis, Croatia.
#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk
November 23, 2025 at 12:54 PM
#TheGhostBoxIV
“Flicker” by @ldlewiswrites.blacksky.app
Heartbreaking and ghastly.
“Simulation…or just capitalism”?

I thrilled to this story.
@ttbrader.bsky.social
November 23, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Day 9: teawithtracie.ca
Green Envy
Sencha from Japan
Delicate and smooth
November 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
“I studied psychology in a big, gloomy communist city. My department was located in a building that had been the headquarters of an SS unit during the war” (10).

#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTokarczuk #Flights
November 22, 2025 at 1:49 PM
“I actually buy my books in paperback, so that I can leave them without remorse on the platform, for someone else to find. I don’t collect anything” (8).

#TravelLight

#Tokarczuk25 #OlgaTogarczuk #Flights
November 22, 2025 at 1:08 PM
#TheGhostBoxIV
“Eliminate Toxins & Increase Blood Flow” by @rubycowling.bsky.social

Gotta love a long title & it kind of relates to the story…

Loved the ick!

The author’s name was familiar…She appeared in #ssac2022 with “Odam on Till”.
@ttbrader.bsky.social
November 22, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
Google's AI is now snooping on your emails - here's how to opt out. (It’s in settings/super quick!)

A new change quietly rolling out allows Google to access your private messages & attachments to train its AI models - without your knowledge.
flip.it/4a2Im9 opt-in as a default should be illegal!!!
Google's AI is now snooping on your emails - here's how to opt out
A new change quietly rolling out allows Google to access your private messages and attachments to train its AI models - likely without your knowledge. Opting out takes just moments.
flip.it
November 21, 2025 at 11:04 PM
“Darkness spreads softly from the sky, settling on everything like black dew..the march of darkness halts at the door..& all the clamor of fading falls silent, makes a thick skin like on hot milk cooling..Now the dark soaks into my skin..the orchestra of the world has departed” #Tokarczuk25 #Flights
November 21, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Day 8 teawithtracie.ca
I finally got out the grown-up kettle to make my advent calendar teas.

Grateful Dreams is an easy-going herbal blend with ”buttery notes of toffee and cream.”

Rooibos & chamomile. I added a touch of sugar to bring out the flavour. Heck, it’s Friday night & time to par-tea!
November 21, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
I mean that you are quite kind

#7syllablesentence
#mean
November 21, 2025 at 11:37 AM
“Kushtuka” by @mathildazeller.bsky.social in H&O’s #TheGhostBoxIV

How you hoped it would end.

Indeed @ttbrader.bsky.social similar in the devouring, but this time it’s for revenge/justice and not, um, supper.

I need to pay more attention to the graphics on the cover of the stories…
November 21, 2025 at 5:36 PM
@royalhistorian.bsky.social FYI - in case you are interested in joining us :)
Twelve more days until we start the unofficial #ssac2025!
=Short Story Advent Calendar 2025

For the first 12 days of December, we’ll revisit previous editions of the SSAC by spinning two wheels to pick a random story. I’ll post the year and date on Bluesky. 1/2
November 21, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
Yellena James

yellena.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Barbara McVeigh
"The creative adult
is the child who
survived."

—Ursula K. Le Guin
November 21, 2025 at 4:03 AM