📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
@kateem.bsky.social
Fantasy writer at peachfieldpress.uk. 18 years of academic writing & reviews at katemacdonald.net. Literary historian VRF @OxfordBrookes. Recorder of🏺finds, press @ Malvern Festival of Ideas, Q clerk, knitter, frog fosterer.
Pinned
The Handheld Diaries | Kate Macdonald | Substack
We published 48 books in seven years to recover forgotten fiction and lost authors. This is how we did it. Click to read The Handheld Diaries, by Kate Macdonald, a Substack publication with hundreds o...
katemacdonald.substack.com
Greetings, all those who wander in the Bluesky! I write SFF fiction at peachfieldpress.uk, I write about how I set up a small but doughty publishing house at katemacdonald.substack.com, I move words around, I measure excavated things and I organise. 💙📚🧶🏺🐸🌱🍫
I wrote a story, and here it is published. 💙📚🪄 A bit ghost, a bit Gothic. houseoflongshadows.substack.com/p/hls-no-44-...
HLS No. 44: The Rules About Knives
Postwar Gothic from Kate Macdonald
houseoflongshadows.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I wrote a story, and here it is published. 💙📚🪄 A bit ghost, a bit Gothic. houseoflongshadows.substack.com/p/hls-no-44-...
I wrote about The Hunt again.
katemacdonald.net/2025/11/22/t...
katemacdonald.net/2025/11/22/t...
The Hunt: looking for complications in Portland
This week’s ‘The Hunt’ in The New York Times was a bit different. Normally we get to read about a couple retiring and wanting to downsize (or, recently, upsize), or a single perso…
katemacdonald.net
November 22, 2025 at 1:37 PM
I wrote about The Hunt again.
katemacdonald.net/2025/11/22/t...
katemacdonald.net/2025/11/22/t...
Settling down to a nice wet day of knitting indoors while watching the livestream of the @cymerafestival.co.uk Writers' Conference!
November 22, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Settling down to a nice wet day of knitting indoors while watching the livestream of the @cymerafestival.co.uk Writers' Conference!
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Finally out into the world, the labour of many months. My long essay in the inaugural edition of the Alter Magazine on the pasts, presents, and futures of Indian science fiction.
“The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction” —
altermag.com/articles/the...
“The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction” —
altermag.com/articles/the...
The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction.
Before Asimov, there was Rokeya.
altermag.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:11 AM
Finally out into the world, the labour of many months. My long essay in the inaugural edition of the Alter Magazine on the pasts, presents, and futures of Indian science fiction.
“The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction” —
altermag.com/articles/the...
“The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction” —
altermag.com/articles/the...
Sublime exhibition of Paul Kidby's artwork for Terry Pratchett's Discworld, at Worcester Art Gallery.
www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk/museums/worc...
www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk/museums/worc...
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Sublime exhibition of Paul Kidby's artwork for Terry Pratchett's Discworld, at Worcester Art Gallery.
www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk/museums/worc...
www.museumsworcestershire.org.uk/museums/worc...
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Proud to be sponsoring this event next summer.
November 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Proud to be sponsoring this event next summer.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Pine marten
November 19, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Pine marten
This was brought in today for recording on @findsorguk.bsky.social Massive bronze palstave axe head, found in Staffordshire some months ago. The blue stuff is apparently a bronze disease. It's 3500 years old.
November 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
This was brought in today for recording on @findsorguk.bsky.social Massive bronze palstave axe head, found in Staffordshire some months ago. The blue stuff is apparently a bronze disease. It's 3500 years old.
My mouse is so venerable and elderly it now makes a sound like a quiet raven when I'm scrolling for wisdom.
November 19, 2025 at 1:35 PM
My mouse is so venerable and elderly it now makes a sound like a quiet raven when I'm scrolling for wisdom.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Yesterday off Bainbridge Island, Wa.
November 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Yesterday off Bainbridge Island, Wa.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Our statement on the government’s abhorrent plans for people seeking safety.
Politicians are dividing communities, when they could be building affordable homes and strengthening them.
Politicians are dividing communities, when they could be building affordable homes and strengthening them.
November 17, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Our statement on the government’s abhorrent plans for people seeking safety.
Politicians are dividing communities, when they could be building affordable homes and strengthening them.
Politicians are dividing communities, when they could be building affordable homes and strengthening them.
I finished it. Decided that I didn't think Mum would like it for Christmas (I made her a cowl last year). My husband has been drooling over the colours for the 5 weeks it took to knit it. So it'll be for his Christmas instead, and he'll have to wait till he can unwrap it. #knitting #showmeyourknits
November 18, 2025 at 6:52 AM
I finished it. Decided that I didn't think Mum would like it for Christmas (I made her a cowl last year). My husband has been drooling over the colours for the 5 weeks it took to knit it. So it'll be for his Christmas instead, and he'll have to wait till he can unwrap it. #knitting #showmeyourknits
This Govt minister is making sweeping assertions about asylum seekers coming to the UK *already with* cars and ebikes, which are to be confiscated and sold to cover their benefit claims. This is mad. Have these people actually met any asylum seekers? He could so easily be a Reform spokesman.
Govt minister Alex Norris is asked if the govt will take jewellery from people [fleeing war and persecution]. Norris says the govt won't be taking peoples wedding rings but they will seize assets.
November 17, 2025 at 8:30 AM
This Govt minister is making sweeping assertions about asylum seekers coming to the UK *already with* cars and ebikes, which are to be confiscated and sold to cover their benefit claims. This is mad. Have these people actually met any asylum seekers? He could so easily be a Reform spokesman.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
Have to say I find the proposals to take away the route to permanent settlement of refugees both shocking and repulsive. It's code for 'whatever you do and contribute you can never become one of us so we won't allow you to try.' Racism, pure and simple.
November 15, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Have to say I find the proposals to take away the route to permanent settlement of refugees both shocking and repulsive. It's code for 'whatever you do and contribute you can never become one of us so we won't allow you to try.' Racism, pure and simple.
I've started a new series reviewing the New York Times house-hunting column 'The Hunt' because I adore it. katemacdonald.net/2025/11/15/r...
Reviewing ‘The Hunt’: a new series
I’m going to start sharing my enthusiasm for The New York Times’ occasional house-hunting column, ‘The Hunt’. I’ve moved house myself three times in the past ten years…
katemacdonald.net
November 15, 2025 at 7:58 AM
I've started a new series reviewing the New York Times house-hunting column 'The Hunt' because I adore it. katemacdonald.net/2025/11/15/r...
This is good, I assume? My Substack followers are not quite legion but possibly a small battalion. I think this message is intended to keep me on Substack by showing it has noticed I exist.
November 14, 2025 at 3:54 PM
This is good, I assume? My Substack followers are not quite legion but possibly a small battalion. I think this message is intended to keep me on Substack by showing it has noticed I exist.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
‘Inventions used by women – like cradles and bras – are rarely seen as technologies, and when women invent things men have tended to get the credit.’
Tess Little on how the ‘rape kit’ changed the prosecution of sexual assault.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tess Little on how the ‘rape kit’ changed the prosecution of sexual assault.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tess Little · Nutshell Crime Scenes: The Rape Kit
The rape kit is a cardboard box containing ordinary items anyone might own: envelopes, combs, swabs, nail clippers....
www.lrb.co.uk
November 14, 2025 at 12:10 PM
‘Inventions used by women – like cradles and bras – are rarely seen as technologies, and when women invent things men have tended to get the credit.’
Tess Little on how the ‘rape kit’ changed the prosecution of sexual assault.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tess Little on how the ‘rape kit’ changed the prosecution of sexual assault.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Green checked flared trousers from C&A, people. That was my life in 1975. We can't go back.
"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
November 14, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Green checked flared trousers from C&A, people. That was my life in 1975. We can't go back.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
They’re running Under Milk Wood as originally broadcast, for the first time, this weekend on R4 Extra. Obviously, it’s brilliant. And I highly recommend a listen. It still sounds amazing; truly timeless. The most dated bit is the credits - but, oh, those character names.
November 8, 2025 at 2:19 PM
They’re running Under Milk Wood as originally broadcast, for the first time, this weekend on R4 Extra. Obviously, it’s brilliant. And I highly recommend a listen. It still sounds amazing; truly timeless. The most dated bit is the credits - but, oh, those character names.
Reposted by 📚 🍫 Kate Macdonald 🧶 🐸
![[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]
JANET:
Ugh...
LIZ:
What's up?
JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!
LIZ:
Have you tried...
AI peas?
JANET:
AI peas?
LIZ:
They're peas with AI!
[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].
LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas
JANET:
What
LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]
Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?
[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]
LIZ:
Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine
[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]
LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!
JANET:
What
LIZ:
Shut up
LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow
From opening the bag of peas
to boiling the peas
to eating the peas
To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.
JANET:
Is it really necessary to-
LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET
[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:
AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiayqa37f7kik7l7s7fbtfp2sir5ckb662ry2lylinyjrfa2rkvvka@jpeg)
This is really quite scary. LLMs deciding at will to serve up erotica options in choose your own adventure programs, and that they chose at all. And that OpenAI et al seem uninterested in designing safety systems in Chat GPT to prevent other choices being made.
www.wired.com/story/the-bi...
www.wired.com/story/the-bi...
The Former Staffer Calling Out OpenAI’s Erotica Claims
Steven Adler used to lead product safety at OpenAI. On this week’s episode of The Big Interview, he talks about what AI users should know about their bots.
www.wired.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:07 PM
This is really quite scary. LLMs deciding at will to serve up erotica options in choose your own adventure programs, and that they chose at all. And that OpenAI et al seem uninterested in designing safety systems in Chat GPT to prevent other choices being made.
www.wired.com/story/the-bi...
www.wired.com/story/the-bi...
Excellent news! A very good journalist and asker of the most nicely disguised tough questions. Good digger of Big Beast traps too.
I'm thrilled to announce I'm returning to the New Statesman as Political Editor in November. 🥳
An honour to step into @andrewmarr.bsky.social's legendary shoes as he becomes editor-at-large. Can't wait to get started with @tommctague.bsky.social and the whole team!
An honour to step into @andrewmarr.bsky.social's legendary shoes as he becomes editor-at-large. Can't wait to get started with @tommctague.bsky.social and the whole team!
November 13, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Excellent news! A very good journalist and asker of the most nicely disguised tough questions. Good digger of Big Beast traps too.
Etruscan ducks from Fondation Rovati museum, Milan. 🏺
November 12, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Etruscan ducks from Fondation Rovati museum, Milan. 🏺
I have never seen a painting of a devil-cherub before.
November 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM
I have never seen a painting of a devil-cherub before.
Cory Doctorow describes generative AI as an automated word-guessing program whose makers just shovel more words into it, hoping that will make it better. Which it won't, and it certainly won't replace human thought or creativity. @thenewyorker.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Cory Doctorow describes generative AI as an automated word-guessing program whose makers just shovel more words into it, hoping that will make it better. Which it won't, and it certainly won't replace human thought or creativity. @thenewyorker.bsky.social