J.A. Jablonski
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jajablonski.bsky.social
J.A. Jablonski
@jajablonski.bsky.social
1.4K followers 240 following 990 posts
Multi-genre writer: Academic Mystery, Speculative SF, & Magical Realism | One-time academic & librarian | Style guide nerd | NO AI | No autofollows | Alt Text used

My other online activities: https://jajablonski.com/linktree/
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jajablonski.bsky.social
Woo-Hoo! It's our 39th anniversary today! Beloved spousal person & I are celebrating with a visit to one of our fave art museums--the John Kohler Arts Center--and lunch at the Black Pig (both in Sheboygan, WI).
Top image: Main entrance of the John Kohler Arts Center. Glass and brick building with red brick sidewalk. Small trees with autumn leaves line the walkway. Lower image is the Black Pig restaurant's logo/sign. A large, fat pig in grey and charcoal colors over the restaurant's name, also in black.
November 14, 2025 at 11:36 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Setting up to weed and/or rearrange the books in my office. The weeding part will be difficult as I've decided to step away from some scholarly stuff I was hoping to write. Those books will be going out. But life is short so I am focusing on other writing. Still...ouch! 📚💙
Several sets of bookshelves against a wall with two large windows. Some of the books are neatly vertical or horizontal and some are haphazardly stacked atop.
November 12, 2025 at 6:19 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Last weekend I combined book research with play and lucked out on both sides! The home debut of the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s women’s ice hockey team was fast and fiercely played. And one of their players matched a character I'd created 3 years ago!

More: tinyurl.com/kyk3etdt
Side view of the MSOE Zamboni in action! A man drives the ice-clearing machine over the surface of the rink, smoothing the ice for the next period of play.
November 11, 2025 at 12:11 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Some kind soul absolutely *stuffed* our #StreetLibrary with so many books that you couldn't get at things. I did a little curating to make access easier. (The extras will go back in later.)

#LittleFreeLibrary 📚💙
Handcrafted wooden street library. Mass market paperbacks (mostly SFF with one Lee Child title & a CD of Gershwin's greatest hits set horizontally on the top shelf. Lower, larger shelf is about 1/3 kid's books, a book about classical music, an Indian cuisine cookbook, a few fiction titles, & the 14th edition of the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines.
November 9, 2025 at 8:08 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
For those of you who read large print books, of the 2 samples here (both are in 16 pt font), would you still be comfortable with the narrower line spacing of the page on the left? Thx!

#ManuscriptFormatting #LargePrint #LineSpacing
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Page of book text using 16 point font and what looks like 1.5 pt line spacing. Page of book text using 16 point font and what looks like double line spacing.
November 7, 2025 at 2:56 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Yesterday morning's sun absolutely lit up the small maple tree in our front yard!
A maple tree with its leaves turning yellow glowing in th early morning sun.
November 7, 2025 at 8:18 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
These 3 reference books have been super useful for me as I've worked with my #CoverArtist & worked out other practical & legal aspects of my #SelfPublishing project.

Full citations in Alt Text.

#WritingCommunity
Graphic Artist Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. 17th edition. NY: Graphic Artists Guild, 2025. ISBN: 978-0-262-55183-0. Tad Crawford, with Stevie Fitzgerald and Michael Gross. Business and Legal Forms for Authors and Self-Publishers. 4th edition. NY: Allworth Press. 2015. ISBN: 978-1-62153-464-8. Tad Crawford and M.J. Bogatin. Legal Guide for the Visual Artist. 6th edition. NY: Allworth Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-1-62153-811-0.
November 5, 2025 at 10:41 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
We decommissioned our small garden this weekend. We're planning a 3rd raised garden container next year for veggies.

#EndOfSummer
#BackyardGarden
Two pics of the a same backyard garden. This one shows the now empty raised containers. All the planter pots have been removed as well. This one is from August & shows 2 raised bed containers. One holds tomatoes, the other cooking herbs. In the foreground more herbs in large, miscellaneous pots.
November 4, 2025 at 7:36 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Made the tough decision to post a notice on our #StreetLibrary asking folks not leave foodstuffs. Suggested they donate to our local Hunger Taskforce who can make a larger difference. (We'll take the several cans of beans & dry soups to our grocery store's food bin.)
#LittleFreeLibrary #EndHunger
Handcrafted wooden street library with 2 shelves. Top, smaller shelf holds 4 SFF mass market paperbacks. Lower, taller space is about 1/3 children's books and a book by Nick Offerman, a trade paperback of the classic SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON by Wyss, a trilogy of the TRUE GAME fantasy series by Sheri S. Tepper, a book by Phil G. Goulding on classical music, a skinny, how-to book on self-publishing using Word, and an old multi-CD gaming program for golf called LINKS.
November 1, 2025 at 2:28 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
I was an archivist for a bit, an academic librarian for a bit, & a professor who taught new librarians for yet another bit. So I know the theory & need for occasionally weeding books. But it still gives me a gut punch to see this sort of stamp on a used book when I buy it.
📚💙
Library book stamp for the Flint Public Library of Middleton, Massachusetts has the word DISCARD stamped across it.
November 1, 2025 at 11:32 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
With the trick-or-treaters coming by tonight, we've temporarily redone our street library with kid, YA, and a few SFF books.
🎃 📚💙 🪐📚
Handcrafted wooden street library filled with children's & YA books (and a few SFF titles).
October 31, 2025 at 2:45 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Someone added foodstuffs to our street library. Kind, but sad too. In 2 days the U.S. govt shutdown will eliminate the food assistance benefits program for nearly 40 million citizens; 700,000 Wisconsinites will be affected. 1/2

#LittleFreeLibrary #SNAP #EndHunger
Handcrafted wooden street library with books on both shelves & 4 canned food items & 2 ramen soup packets.
October 30, 2025 at 3:52 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Had to spend a day on the couch after a medical procedure on my knee (ouch!) so I set up a little comfort TBR stack nearby. Between naps, I managed to finish one: Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life. A splendid work of insights, private pain, & partial memoir.
📚💙
Stack of books on a small table: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera Crime Ink: Iconic ed by John Copenhaver and Salem West Dionysus in Wisconsin by E.H. Lupton The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh The Indie Author Guide by April Hamilton Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer KA: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley
October 30, 2025 at 9:59 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Finding some solid stuff for the backstory of my fictional college's psychologist/counselor. (Doing research is as fun as writing! 😄)

Full citations in the ALT Text.

#AcademicMystery #CollegeMystery #CharacterDevelopment #WriterResearch #backstory #WritingCommunity 📚💙 ⚡📚
Cultivating Trauma-Informed Practice in Student Affairs. By Tricia R. Shalka (Routledge, 2024). ISBN: 978-1-64267-461-3. Techniques of Grief Therapy: Assessment and Intervention. Edited by Robert A. Neimeyer. (Routledge, 2016). ISBN: 978-1-138-90593-1. The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves. By Stephen Grosz. (W.W. Norton, 2013). ISBN: 978-0-393-07954-8. Entering Private Practice: A Handbook for Psychiatrists. Edited by Jeremy A. Lazarus. (American Psychiatric Publishing, 2005). ISBN: 1-58562-141-2.
October 27, 2025 at 10:28 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Have seen this before, but like to repost.

#WritingCommunity #Publishing #Ageism
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Screenshot of a post on X by author Doug Murano reads "I get tired of 'under 40' lists. Show me someone who got their PhD at 60 after losing everything. Give me the 70-yr-old debut novelist who writes from a lifetime of love and grief. Give me calloused hands and tender hearts."
October 26, 2025 at 2:26 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Comforting words from Becky Chambers' Wayfarer novel, THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET.

📚💙 ⚡️📚
Epigraph text reads "From the ground, we stand; From our ships, we live; By the stars, we hope. ~Exodan Proverb"
October 26, 2025 at 12:57 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Weeding my books in the early morning hours...will add these to the box in the front hall for later migration out to our #StreetLibrary.

#LittleFreeLibrary
Stack of books: Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen Eyes of Amber by Joan D. Vinge Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt The End of the Game by Sheri S. Tepper Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
October 24, 2025 at 10:53 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Rereading Becky Chambers' THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET after a very long time. Oooh...

Ashby, Sissix, Kizzy, Jenks, Rosemary, Dr. Chef, Lovey, Ohan, even Corbin!

I'd forgotten how much I love her characters. 🥰

📚💙 🪐📚
Author portrait of Becky Chambers shows a smiling white woman with buzz-cut hair and large, dark glasses standing in a small tree grove. A hand holds a copy of Chambers' book A LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET. Cover art shows an arm of a galaxy rising vertically over a small rise. A tiny human figure stands in silhouette at its highest point.
October 24, 2025 at 9:35 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Took on another short from the new CRIME INK: ICONIC, an "anthology of crime fiction inspired by queer icons." This one was "Level Up" by Katrina Carrasco, a story of online gaming & revenge. Tightly written, intensely visceral, and quite satisfying.

📚💙 ⚡️📚
#QueerCrime
#ShortStories
Author portrait of Katrina Carrasco shows a light-skinned woman standing against a brick wall. She has shoulder-length, wavy auburn hair, blue eyes, and wearing a dark leather jacket. She looks at the camera with a direct expression. Cover of CRIME INK: ICONIC, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books, 2025).
October 23, 2025 at 8:45 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Woo-hoo! Beloved Spousal Unit snagged me some new kicks at a local thrift store. Cue up ABBA's "Dancing Queen" as I trip the light fantastic! 🎶
Pair of gently used Converse low top shoes.
October 23, 2025 at 12:42 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
A secondary character--a private practice psychiatrist, who also works in the college counseling center--turns key character in my Bk 2. THE EXAMINED LIFE by Stephen Grosz has proved to be the ideal text to capture my sense of him.

More: www.instagram.com/p/DQHIjZEgGl...

#AcademicMystery
⚡️📚 📚💙
Hardcover book: The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz. (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014).
October 22, 2025 at 12:49 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
In the face of the AI onslaught, this author is seriously tempted to break out one of their manual #typewriters! (I have 5.)

For more on these lovely machines, see Richard Polt's Typewriter Page: site.xavier.edu/polt/typewri... and Alan Seaver's Machines of Loving Grace: machinesoflovinggrace.com
1940s era Corona Sterling portable manual typewriter set in its black carry box. The color in the pic is a bit off. The actual machine is shiny black.
October 21, 2025 at 11:22 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
Thanks to the Milwaukee Public Library, I've been able to get my hands on the recently published catalog of Sargent's charcoal portraits. Compiler Ormond is the artist's great-nephew.

Trevor Fairbrother's appreciative review also notes Ormond's social biases.

artsfuse.org/315080/book-...

📚💙
Book: JOHN SINGER SARGENT: THE CHARCOAL PORTRAITS edited & compiled by Richard Ormond (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2025). Most of the images are small, ca. 3x4 inches as the book is intended to be a catalog not a coffee table art book. Excellent companion to Ormond's book on the 2020 museum exhibition organized by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York. That book is titled JOHN SINGER SARGENT: PORTRAITS IN CHARCOAL and shows full-page renditions of 60 of the portraits that were displayed.
October 21, 2025 at 10:57 AM
jajablonski.bsky.social
A bit "snug." I should have let it proof a bit longer.
Closeup of a loaf of Rosemary Potato bread shows a tight crumb.
October 20, 2025 at 9:21 PM
jajablonski.bsky.social
The bread what I did make! (Rosemary Potato). Just now had a slice with a little butter & honey. Swooning occurred. #BreadSky 🍞
Newly baked loaf of bread on a wooden cutting board.
October 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM