iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 02/09/2026

Happy pub day to Henry Wise. PROMISED LAND is the second book in a series that began with his stellar debut, HOLY CITY. Give him a read, you won't regret it.

The cover of Henry Wise's new novel, PROMISED LAND.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 26/08/2026

This month's reads and rereads around a recent trip to Iceland. Liked them all, loved some of them, and am awed by the efficient, surgically ominous facility of @hildur.bsky.social and @maryrobinettekowal.com.

Jón Kalman Stefánsson's FISH HAVE NO FEET, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir's THE CREAK ON THE STAIRS, Hildur Knútsdóttir's THE NIGHT GUEST, Joachim B. Schmidt's KALMANN, Hallgrímur Helgason's THE WOMAN AT 1,000 DEGREES, and Halldór Laxness's INDEPENDENT PEOPLE.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 17/08/2026

Nessie is judging you because you haven't read @cmattwrite.bsky.social's new novel, THE ONES IN THE CORNER. Now's your chance to remedy that situation. Order it alongside his last novel, TWENTYMILE, and get back in her good graces. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

The best dog --- a white English cream retriever named Nessie --- poses accusingly with C. Matt Smith's excellent crime novel, THE ONES IN THE CORNER, judging you for not reading it.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 09/07/2026

David Attenborough Voice: The English cream retriever is able to use her natural camouflage to hide herself from predators and baths.

A cream colored dog lies on a cream colored rug, ignoring the people calling her name.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 27/06/2026

Cocktail shrimp tower giving Cthulhu vibes

A stainless steel shrimp vessel hung with colossal shrimp.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 24/06/2026

Who has four thumbs and gave herself $200 worth of diarrhea by drinking out of the fountain the birds and squirrels use?

Nessie, an English Cream Retriever, looking proud of herself in front of a green background after a needlessly expensive vet bill.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 28/04/2026

Adobe Acrobat offering the first real unsolicited piece of criticism of my new novel... #5amwritersclub

"This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI Assistant."

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 24/04/2026

Based on my own experience publishing my debut novel, SMALL ANIMALS CAUGHT IN TRAPS (regional, male-ish, outdoorsy), I'm going to answer this question with a big, fat "yes." But I do take exception with other parts of this article. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/b... #5amwritersclub #thewritinglife

"A River Runs Through It" turns 50 this month. In getting to its exalted place, the book had to navigate a tricky set of rapids. Though it sailed through them, a question lingers half a century later: Would a book like this, with its regional setting and its male and outdoorsy focus, face different challenges in today's publishing world?

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 20/04/2026

RED ALERT! I bought a copy of @pahoehoe.bsky.social's new story collection, "The Divide," to give away, because great writers at small presses need more publicity. Want it? I"ll send it to the first person to promote a new book by another writer in the replies. #writinglife #notTHATevanwilliams

Two copies of Evan Morgan Williams' new story collection, THE DIVIDE, on a dark stained desktop.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 31/03/2026

Book Mail today! Got my copies of @pahoehoe.bsky.social's story collection, THE DIVIDE, which I highly recommend. Give him a follow and check out his books at www.evanmorganwilliams.com

Two copies of Evan Morgan Williams' story collection, THE DIVIDE, sit on another writer's desk, making his own manuscript a little sick with envy.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 27/03/2026

Every dog is just a little tragedy waiting to happen. I'm sorry, my friend. Happy birthday.

Nessie sitting for what looks like a studio portrait but is really just her waiting for me to finish writing so we can go for another walk. (A white English cream retriever looking somber against a dark background.)

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 28/02/2026

This sentence in The Guardian says a lot about where we are as a country.

The Pentagon had demanded the AI company loosen ethical guidelines on its systems or face severe consequences.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 27/02/2026

Do you like romantasy? Of course you do, according to nearly every woman and half the men in my life. My friend @jeannerenee.bsky.social just put out a new book you should read and give to all the women and half the men in your life. (Her last book, too.) bookshop.org/p/books/of-e...

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 01/02/2026

This is who runs this account.

A young boy whose mother has dressed him so egregiously that she should have an appointment at The Hague pecks at an old typewriter. His hair looks like a horse has been chewing at it.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 16/12/2025

Santa's not the only one making a list and checking it twice this year.

A notebook titled PEOPLE I WANT TO PUNCH IN THE FACE.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 11/12/2025

Happy Jim Harrison's Birthday to all who celebrate. #5amwritersclub #writinglife

A black and white photo of the writer Jim Harrison, looking weathered, pensive, and old, with a cigarette in his mouth and a cloud of smoke rising like doves above his head.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 20/11/2025

Same, same. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/m...

A woman sits on a porch with a coffee. The headine says "Is it Monday? I"m not really into these things."

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 11/11/2025

Convincing you to read ORDINARY BEAR by sharing the first sentence. But I cropped the photo wrong, so you get two paragraphs...

STAINS OF UNCERTAIN PROVENANCE

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THE BEAR STOOD ON FARLEY’S SOFA RIPPING FOAM FROM THE CUSHIONS, day-old seal blood crusted on its jaws and chest. The sofa—a shade of green not readily found in nature—had belonged to an oil company investigator named Hennessy. When Hennessy left Alaska a decade earlier for Sand Point, Idaho, to marry a Russian woman he’d met online, Farley inherited the sofa along with his job, his company house, and the rust-hollowed Ford F-150 he drove. Some days Farley thought he’d inherited his lingering existential ambivalence as well. Too big for the house, the sectional extended the length of the living room and angled into the galley kitchen like a threadbare peninsula, blocking the fridge from opening more than a foot. It looked tiny beneath the bear, which dug through the cushions with a kind of joy, throwing stuffing behind it like snow. The real snow had melted early this year across much of the Arctic. The pack ice too. Watching from across the dump, Farley wondered if the bears had resorted to trying to make their own in the face of climate change.

This fucking world, he thought. Not for the first time.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 07/11/2025

"The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries." --Kurt Vonnegut @everylibrary.bsky.social @drinksinthelibrary.bsky.social

A flier promoting a conversation between novelist C. B. Bernard and Drinks in the Library host Gigi Howard on the EveryLibrary Live podcast, Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 7 PM.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 17/10/2025

This makes me think of the New Yorker cartoon someone sent me when I moved to #rhodeisland.

Statue of a man dressed like Thurston Howell III, holding a martini glass, towering over the bluffs of Newport, RI.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 20/09/2025

Favorite exhibit at the Newport Car Museum.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 06/09/2025

"There are three rules of writing, the first one is that nobody knows the other two." - @blacktopkid.bsky.social

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 21/08/2025

We are a deeply stupid culture.

A sitting U.S. congressman (guess which party) losing his mind in public about a chain restaurant's rebranding. He even gave his life to Christ in the parking lot.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 15/08/2025

We just can't have nice things anymore.

A screenshot of a column by Washington Post book critic Ron Charles announcing the end of AP book reviews.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 01/07/2025

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian family and friends, but especially to any Canadian citizens who want to adopt a nice middle-aged American novelist, his wife, and their sweet-tempered dog.

Nessie the English cream retriever, raised on The Tragically Hip and pea meal bacon, rolls on her back after a Toronto Maple Leafs' loss.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 28/06/2025

Greetings from Rhode Island's 649,000th consecutive rainy Saturday.

Rain falls on boats at Stone Cove Marina in Wakefield, RI.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 24/06/2025

I spend my days writing novels that underperform on sales because THIS is what America really wants. #writinglife

Netflix banner advertising something called "Trainwreck Poop Cruise," showing a cruise ship on a brown wave breaking out of a toilet.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 15/06/2025

One of the signs that spoke to me most at today's #nokings rally in Providence, RI.

Sign says Anti Putin, Pro Poutiine at today's No Kings Rally in Providence, RI.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 07/06/2025

Live your life so that no one ever hates you the way the Guardian's photo editor hates Trump.

An angry hemorrhoid, red with irritation.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 05/06/2025

We have actual owls nesting off the kitchen.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 23/05/2025

Apparently Chirp has audiobooks of my novels on sale for under $4. Narrators Chris Henry Coffee & Phil Thron do bangup jobs, maybe give them a listen on this rainy Memorial Day weekend? (ORDINARY BEAR is "a thrilling 2024 release" that's up for the Barry Award, just saying...) tinyurl.com/chirpcbb

An ad from Chirp showing the audiobook covers for the novels ORDINARY BEAR and SMALL ANIMALS CAUGHT IN TRAPS, by C. B. Bernard.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 13/05/2025

The PNW authors section of Wallace Books in Portland is a pretty good physical representation of the inside of my brain, tired shelves bowing beneath the weight of history and narrative.

Tired wooden plank shelves bowing beneath the books they carry.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 12/05/2025

Seen at a friend's house in Portland.

Sign in a houseplant saying "I'm staging a comeback, please say nice and encouraging things."

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 30/04/2025

After tearing her ACL, Nessie had surgery back in March. She used to run in a field with a pack of neighbors' dogs each afternoon but can only walk short distances now. So the pack decided to walk on leash and swing by our house every day so she can see them, and it just makes her so damned happy.

White dog in a purple harness on a brown lawn.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 24/04/2025

New England friends, join me 9 am Saturday for a chat with Ron Currie Jr. at the @nbptlitfest.bsky.social about his stunning new novel, THE SAVAGE, NOBLE DEATH OF BABS DIONNE. Come for me and Ron, stay for the full day of free events.

The cover of Ron Currie's THE SAVAGE, NOBLE DEATH OF BABS DIONNE, showing a crow staring down at a smoking cigarette butt with a lipstick stain on the filter against a green background.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 01/04/2025

Happy Porky Bickar Day to all who celebrate. #alaska

Mt. Edgecumbe last erupted April 1, 1974—or at least that’s what Sitka residents thought when they woke to funnels of dark smoke lofting from the cone. That morning, a local joker named Porky Bickar hired a helicopter, dropped a stack of oil-soaked tires into the basin, and set them on fire, a joke he’d planned for years waiting for an April Fool’s Day with clear skies. “Just don’t make an ass of yourself,” his wife told him when he got out of bed that day. Porky’s patience and resolve met with great reward. The legend of his prank spread. In 1980, he received a card in the mail from a stranger in Colorado with a newspaper photo of Mt. St. Helens erupting and a short note: “This time you’ve gone too far.”

A section from C.B. Bernard's CHASING ALASKA: A PORTRAIT OF THE LAST FRONTIER THEN AND NOW

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 01/04/2025

Narrator (in Sam Elliot Voice): Star-spangled asshole.

Meth-head and "musician" popular with "the youths" wears a gaudy, America-themed athleisure suit in the Oval Office (at least it's not beige) while grinning next to a bag of demented Cheetos.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 11/03/2025

Holy crap is this notebook getting a workout lately.

A notebook labeled "People I want to punch in the face," filled with the names of my sworn enemies real and perceived.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 11/03/2025

Some strong Mommy selling Girl Scout cookies at work vibe here.

Orange president rants about buying Teslas for Elon.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 10/03/2025

Nessie tore her ACL last week. Surgery in the morning. Anybody been through this and have good advice or encouraging words? #writersdogs

An English Cream Retriever lying on the kitchen floor looking sad and sweet.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 10/03/2025

As a non-crime writer playing tourist in the genre, this is particularly thrilling to me. Thanks to the nominating committee. Voting is open until July 31. If you read ORDINARY BEAR and liked it, please consider showing your support? Learn more at new.deadlypleasures.com/2025/03/04/b....

A banner showing the cover of the C. B. Bernard novel ORDINARY BEAR with text announcing it as a 2025 Bary Award nominee for Best First Mystery Novel.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 05/03/2025

I know which side The Guardian is on.

A story in The Guardian shows an image of a brave and noble Canada goose with the stench of poutine and Moosehead on its beak slaying a ridiculous American Bald Eagle, a trash-eating bird that thinks it's tall because it was born in a nest high atop a tree.

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C.B. Bernard @cbbernard.com · 28/02/2025

Be like Stiff Little Fingers' Jake Burns.

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