iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 1h

Shopping in whisky country but not as we know it, Jim.

Entrance to the factory shop of a very fine shortbread maker

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 5h

By boat? From St A to Ipswich, exchanged for supplies in Suffolk and then back to the farm.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 16h

I hope it works! Nothing seems broken. I had no idea Mum had it, but the drawers and cupboards in her attic are like a Victorian hoarder's dream (from HER mother).

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 18h

Shockingly good advertising because I just bought 5 books from them. This is the company set up to rescue and republish authors left high and dry by the shameful Unbound abandonment.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 19h

Located and extracted a long-lost rug from Mum's attic. Marvelled at her collection of family trunks and suitcases. Gave her 2 jars of my chutney and a jar of mincemeat, gained a woven fish mobile and a Victorian wool-winding swift. Thus the family shuffling of objects and gifts continues.

Three wooden woven fish strung together as a mobile, and a Victorian wooden wool-winding contraption called a swift.

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Alex Harvey @alexharvv.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Oh this can just fuck off An AI-'written' complete copy of my own book is now on Amazon; same title, more-or-less the same blurb, and exactly the same impetus. Reviewers of Amazon, I urge you to absolutely dive-bomb this plagiaristic piece of shit: www.amazon.co.uk/FORGOTTEN-VI...

A hollow copy of my book with a shit AI-generated cover

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The reverberations from the female Ghostbusters pile-on reached mainstream media in countries not the USA.

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WarTranslated (Dmitri) @wartranslated.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

At around 6:00 a.m., Russia launched a missile strike on Pryluky, Chernihiv Oblast. One missile hit a five-story residential building. At this time, the bodies of three children have been recovered from under the rubble, and the death toll has risen to nine people.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

When my in-laws ask what my books are about, aargh. When they think SFF is just Star Trek, and I doubt that any of them would go to a bookshop out of choice.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 06/10/2026

Honford Star is having an autumn sale, up to 40% off, get the original Cursed Bunny edition with the purple cover while you still can—they are not being reprinted anymore honfordstar.com

honfordstar.com

Honford Star

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

So many men being dogmatic about how to say words. Such a pain.

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ContempraInn 🌹 @contemprainn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This guy got people from around the world to teach him their favourite dance moves. 📹Ed People

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

New glowing review for Radical Magic just in! ... available on ebook everywhere, and from The Peachfield Press shop here: peachfield-press.sumupstore.com

a rave review for my second novel, on amazon.com

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Morning Womble! I'm reading this issue of @speculativeinsight.bsky.social from last year which is so good that I've subscribed!

a dark magazine cover with a swirly sparkly pattern like star footprints in purples and reds.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Scottish voters (which I am not), please write to your MSP about this AI data centre which seems perilously close to being built.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Family lore has it that my rugby-playing grandfather Joe Macdonald, a strong Labour man who'd moved down from NE Scotland to work for McVities in London, happened upon the march on his way home after his shift and beat the crap out of some blackshirts. I definitely want to think that happened.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Paper maps. Looking up the route beforehand. Reading road signs as I drove. Looking at where I was driving. Knowing I needed this then that and then that road.

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Strange Horizons @strangehorizons.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Strange Horizons Fiction Submissions are open now! Check out our website for the fiction guidelines including the link to our Moksha submission portal ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/submit/ficti... (The window closes when we reach 1,000 submissions. Stories must be 5,000 words or less.)

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

There did seem to be a fundamental assumption (expectation?) that the spurned lovers wouldn't strike back in outraged jealousy and wounded pride. I bet they did. Hence all the rescues of ladies from kidnappings.

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Dr Tiffani Angus @tiffaniangus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Remember, folks: for every author you see on here describing how they’ve filled out forms to get *some* compensation from the Anthropic AI case there are dozens, hundreds, hell THOUSANDS of us who get 0 because our books weren’t registered with the US copyright office yet have UK copyright!

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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Heronry, 2022, etching by UK printmaker Janis Goodman #WomensArt

Print in blue and white featuring a tree lined still river or pond with reflections and a flying heron to the top right in silhouette

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Aaron, you're doing admirable work by watching this garbage and reporting it. Like a Meta moderator viewing filth and insanity.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Send me your pitches for reviews of pre-1976 speculative fiction in translation! @strangehorizons.bsky.social has a new home for Vintage SFF Reviews, and I am ze editeur.

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🜲 @fresh72.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They're starting early

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Addendum: both are/have working libraries, which actual people with voices use which can be oppressive if you need silence. So the heating in the bedrooms is worth noting: Gladstone's can be sweltering and freezing, Sarum's is currently very cold. Bring jumpers, gloves, wristlets and shawls!

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's about the same, really. I expect they compare each other and keep parity.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My aim here is to fill the theological libraries of Britain with science fiction writers and fantasy masterpieces in embryo.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yes, it's the Glynne Arms; been there. The soup had so much chilli in it (why???) I spent the afternoon on water.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I don't think I've even seen it? There's the rather basic coffeeshop and a pub in the village on the main street, and the skinny coffeeshop with a garden, and a fancier pub with gastro ideas, and a garden centre 10 mins walk beyond the village. Those are the only eating places I know in Hawarden.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I have only gone to Gladstone's by train so far: now we have a 2nd car I can drive there for my December trip: luxury! But without a car Gladstone's is pretty damn isolated. But the staff are fabulous, all of them. Sarum is certainly noisier so far.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Verdict? Sarum to be accessible to the outer world, shops, touristing, views. Gladstone's for true solitude and quiet, and a sense of 'I've made it to this isolation: now justify it'. Though once I was woken there at 1am by carousing conferencees because my room was above the drawing room.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Setting: Salisbury Cathedral and The Close make Sarum unbeatable. Also the drive over the Plain beforehand. Inspiration? Gladstone's is a splendid structure and the library throbs with neo-Gothic romance. Sarum College has medieval buildings all around, but it's a college, not a library. /nxt

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Dinners? Ditto. Though the Gladstone's restaurant is fine, and they will sell you a bottle of wine so you can have a drink from it on successive nights. Quietness: Sarum hosts loud confident CofE voices booming out at all hours. Also family parties. Gladstone's is almost monastic in its peace. /nxt

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Working space: Gladstone's wins, even in winter when you need shawls for the library. The most spectacular library space to write in after Duke Humfrey's. Sarum's is cosy and small, nothing wrong with it. Lunches? Sarum has all of Salisbury. Gladstone's is in a small north Wales village. /next

A library desk and handrails in the Gothic splendour of Gladstone's Library

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The breakfasts: Sarum has the edge here, an excellent array of high quality breakfast foods. Gladstone's is a bit less lavish, but Gladstone's offers Weetabix and bananas which Sarum doesn't, so hmm. The parking: plentiful and free at Gladstone's; hidden and tight at Sarum, if you can get it. /nxt

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The beds are good, but Sarum has the edge with bedding: fresher, less acrylic, very good pillows. The chairs in the bedrooms are pretty unsupportive in both places, needing supplementary bed pillows. The Gladstone's library chairs are incomparable. Superb. Could sit in them for hours. /next

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A brief user comparison of @gladlib.bsky.social and @sarumcollege.bsky.social as locations for solo #writing #retreats. Both are VERY GOOD, but there are interesting differences. And both are heaving with Church of England theological texts so if that's abhorrent to you, look away now. /next

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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026

This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!

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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

While listening to council meetings in Montreal, local mayor Sue Montgomery decided to knit in red when men spoke and in green when women spoke, when similar numbers of both attended. Day 1 results.... #WomensArt

Photo of uneven knitting with much larger amounts of red yarn than green

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

That seems very odd. Wouldn't a care home need his NHS number, GP name, something to link his identity to his medical records? An assumed name wouldn't work thrn.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A legend. Formative. Genuine good influence.

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Kate Macdonald 📚 🧶 @kateem.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

'It's pretty difference to claim total ignorance on this one.' Oh yes it is. Welcome to the rest of the world that is not in the USA.

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