iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 07/07/2026

I was watching THUS SPOKE ROHAN KISHIBE S2 with my son and got to an episode I don't remember at all from the manga. Rohan, during Covid. And he adopted a puppy in October 2021, which has to be the least Rohan thing he's ever done. But I also got a puppy in October 2021 and dug up some old pics...

A picture of two dogs cuddling in blankets. One is a black and white rat terrier adult dog (Mugen), and the other is a teeny tiny black rat terrier chihuahua puppy (Radical Edward). His face is the most precious thing in the world.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 29/06/2026

True fact about me: I hate typing with my thumbs and very rarely send texts. (I'm on a laptop or desktop when I'm on here for sure.) My son and I have a image language where I can send him pics and he answers the implied question. This is how I ask him when he expects to be home:

A photograph of a black rat terrier chihuahua looking out the window beside the front door, watching anxiously for someone to come home.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 22/06/2026

I didn't get my homework back yet, so I finished this up today. I did this in black and white, which is kind of my preferred thing (in physical media, I stick with ink and charcoal and some graphite), but I added a color filter to give it an old photograph sepia kind of tone. I think I like it?

Finished digital art sketch of Mansai Nomura as Abe no Seimei. He is looking serious, dressed in his onmyoji robes with tall onmyoji hat. His hand is extended in a gesture that says he's about to unleash a little of his considerable power. The drawing was done in blacks, whites, and grays, but a color filter has been added to make it look like an old photograph.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 21/06/2026

Just spent five hours today on the assignment for my art class. I still get the yips so bad turning something in for feedback, this sort of thing is *not* my wheelhouse. But after all of that focusing on the fundamentals, I started another thing just for me.

Photo of the screen of my Wacom tablet showing a side by side of a photo of Mansai Nomura playing Abe No Seimei in the movie Onmyoji and my attempt to sketch him using a grid for guidelines. It is, as is my usual experience with sketching, not going great. But rendering always helps.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 18/06/2026

It obviously reminds me a lot of my favorite bit from FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, the one I loved so much I had to draw it myself...

Fan-made redraw of a couple of panels from FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST. In the first panel, two goons are pointing and exclaiming "Hey!! W're the ones asking questions around here! Who the hell are you!?" In the center panel, Izumi with power bursting all around her points at her own chest and declares, "I'm a housewife!!!!". Three others look on in the final panel with varying emotions: dumbfounded, aghast, and mildly impressed.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 18/06/2026

Watching DAEMONS OF THE SHADOW REALM while rowing this morning and got to one of my fave moments from the manga. This is why I love Hiromu Arakawa so much.

Two panels from the manga DAEMONS OF THE SHADOW REALM by Hiromu Arakawa. In the first panel on the right, an older out-of-shape woman opens her housecoat to reveal an array of kitchen knives. She is thinking "Fine! Not like I have a choice..." and the main character Yuru is thinking "Whoa! Hidden kitchen knives?!" In the second panel on the left, she says in heavy, bolded letters "I'll clean up here quick, and then I'm goin' home!! I got a hubby to cook dinner for!!" as she brandishes one of her blades. Yuru and his guardian Dera are both wide-eyed in amazement as Dera is thinking "Housewives are scary..."

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 17/06/2026

Name a TV show you're positive no one remembers but you.

Promotional photo for the 90s one season only tv show Relativity. Kimberly Williams is sitting on David Conrad’s lap with her arms around him and her forehead touching his. But frankly Adam Goldberg and Jane Adams were why I watched this show.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 30/05/2026

Still trying to get back up to speed with my illustration skills. The online class I'm taking is very hard core on the fundamentals, but this week I sneaked in a few hours to work on something just for fun. And, yeah, it's Rohan Kishibe. I *might* be obsessed.

A black and white illustration of Rohan Kishibe as portrayed by Issei Takahashi. He is slouching back in an office chair, holding up the dip pen he draws manga with. And he is intensely cool.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 01/05/2026

He's going to hang out in the display case by my writing computer, among my cohort of Funko authors. I mean, I know he's fictional, but I think he'll fit in just fine.

Poseable doll of Rohan Kishibe flanked by Funko pops of George RR Martin, Stephen King with his corgi Molly the Thing of Evil, Guillermo Del Toro, and Edgar Allen Poe holding a skull.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 01/05/2026

I had a pretty rough April, so I splurged on a little toy I in no way needed. But he's so cute! Look at that little dip pen, and the manga page, and the pen nib earrings that actually *dangle*. No regrets.

Poseable doll of Rohan Kishibe from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. He is holding a dip pen and is displaying a finished page of a manga. Beside him is his stand.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 28/04/2026

I recently replaced the sliding door in my bedroom with a bay window, specifically so my girl would have a sunny spot in my room. But she's super skittish about getting in it. Then the little guy jumps in there and hogs the middle. They got it sorted. Kind of. Her head is jammed for sure.

A very nervous pit bull is sitting awkwardly in a bay window. She's not sure about any of this.

A black rat terrier chihuahua has hopped up behind the pit bull and made himself at home, sprawling over more than half the space. He's 1/5 her size.

The rat terrier chihuahua and the pit bull are both napping in the sunlight. But the pit bull's head is jammed up in the corner of the windows in a way that just can't be comfortable.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 27/04/2026

This gnome is definitely my favorite NPC in Baldur's Gate 3. I will literally go back to my last save if, for some reason, he does NOT survive.

Screen cap from the game Baldur's Gate 3. Rescued hostage Thindo Vintevur is running for the submersible. He's yelling as he dashes, "Thindo Vintevur WILL survive! He WILL!"

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 24/04/2026

He had a slow decline before his quick decline at the end, enough so I'm not even sure exactly when I just stopped trying to get time in for sketching. I haven't started up again yet, but I plan to soon. In the mean time, I'll end with the one sketch I did of him from some time during the pandemic.

Graphite drawing of a rat terrier wearing a collar.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 24/04/2026

A lot of things that happen in the books were just straight up things he had done.

Cover for the book Over Freezing Altitudes, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

Cover for the book At Galactic Central, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 24/04/2026

But he (along with my second dog, my pit bull Tachikoma) was a huge part of all six of the Scout Shannon books. So much so that he appears on all six covers. Which might be one of my favorite things I've ever done.

Cover for the book Under Falling Skies, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

Cover for the book In Quaking Hills, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

Cover for the book Among Treacherous Stars, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

Cover for the book Against Impassable Barriers, featuring a blonde girl flanked by two dogs, a black pit bull and a white rat terrier.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 24/04/2026

So a week ago today my family and I gathered at home to see our dog Mugen off to the great beyond. He was fourteen and was not responding to treatment for an inflamed gallbladder, which was starting to affect his liver, which made it impossible to continue his arthritis meds. In short, it was time.

A blurry photo of the author holding a three-month-old rat terrier puppy. He's black and white with cinnamon patches around his eyes, and his puppy ears are absolutely adorable.

Photo of an old black and white rat terrier. The cinnamon patches are all gray now, but his eyes are as alert as ever. He's chilling on his rug under the kitchen table.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 20/04/2026

These two are still extra needy today. They’re missing Mugen as much as the humans. He was definitely the leader of their pack.

A black and white pit bull in a pink collar is crushing my shin while a black rat terrier chihuahua is lying on my lap facing the other way.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 16/04/2026

The nice thing about having an appointment for at home euthanasia tomorrow is that it gives my son time to come down from Fargo to say goodbye. But knowing exactly how much time I have left with my buddy is making me completely useless.

A white and black rat terrier is enjoying the smells of the yard.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 05/04/2026

Sure it's a little weird to call it "Best Sellers" when all the books are free, but thanks to a Bookbub on Thursday I'm in the top ten of the very non-niche category of "Literature and Fiction." That's my pen name there at #6!

Screenshot of the top ten "Best Sellers" on Amazon in the free category of "Literature and Fiction." Number six is a certain "The Teashop Terror" by Cate Martin.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 02/04/2026

I mean, the guy on the far right is holding a flute over his shoulder. I have so many questions.

BTS from the opening of their video 2.0 dressed as gangsters. With props. Like a flute. I want to see the movie that has a gangster who carries a flute. So bad.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/03/2026

We’re getting some windows replaced upstairs. I think my plan to just work from the basement has hit a snag.

A picture of me working on my laptop. A fully trembling rat terrier chihuahua is between me and the keyboard. A white rat terrier is pressed up against my thigh, and a pit bull is lying on my feet.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 06/03/2026

Anyway, I needed a darker background on my gaming laptop for Reasons, so I pulled up an old art of mine. So glad I'm not watching that show currently, I think it would wreck me worse now than it did then.

Digital fan art drawing of Mikasa from the anime ATTACK ON TITAN. She is wielding her sword, preparing to strike, and is looking badass as always.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 25/02/2026

Then after she was dragged away we finally got a proper look at them, and I wasn't going crazy. It was definitely the two guys from Creepy Nuts, the hip-hop duo. They banter a lot in their concerts and on their first album, but I still think it's wild I recognized their voices on a TV show.

Two characters in the anime CALL OF THE NIGHT who are clearly modeled after R and DJ from Creepy Nuts. I might be a little obsessed with them at the moment.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 25/02/2026

So I was watching CALL OF THE NIGHT while rowing on my machine, and the two guys hitting on Nazuna at the pool club sounded familiar. Which is weird since I'm watching it in Japanese? They either had their backs to the "camera" or were only in frame from the chin down so I wasn't sure at first...

Screen shot of a scene from the anime CALL OF THE NIGHT where two men are hitting on the vampire Nazuna. She is facing the viewer, but their backs are to us.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/02/2026

My son and I went into it joking about maybe just watching the Rohan Kishibe character walking through the Louvre and commenting on the art, which we were down for. But what we got was so much cooler than that. Seriously, if you dig Japanese ghost stories, check it out.

Image from the film ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE of the mysterious woman who was the subject of the painting that is too dark to be looked at.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/02/2026

What you have instead is a fine Japanese film that's not quite full-on horror, but is definitely a ghost story. About artists and their obsessions, especially about things like finding the blackest of blacks. It was *so good*, and Essei Takahashi and Iitoyo Marie were so good as Rohan and Izumi.

Promotional photo from the movie ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE, with the title in Japanese and in French.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/02/2026

But this movie? Doesn't have anything to do with JOJO at all. You could totally watch it thinking it's about a manga artist who has a special power to open people's faces and read & edit their life stories. You never see his "Stand", and the word doesn't come up. And there are no real fight scenes.

Rohan Kishibe in the anime opening up Koichi Hirose's face, much to his understandable horror.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/02/2026

For the uninitiated, Rohan Kishibe is a character from the manga and anime series JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE. Which is basically about guys with magic ghosts that have super special powers but mainly use them to punch the other ghosts. (Warning: that summary is potentially a bit reductive.)

Picture of a drawing of the character Rohan Kishibe from JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE. He is quite a bit more colorful than the live action version.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/02/2026

So my son and I watched ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE last night, because Amazon Prime finally added English subtitles to the Japanese. Don't think I wasn't tempted to just see what I could make of it without them, but I'm glad we waited. This movie was so much better than it really had to be.

Photo from the set of ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE. Issei Takahashi is playing the character of Rohan Kishibe, and he's bringing the energy to match that outfit.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 03/02/2026

This is who runs this account.

Picture of a girl of about fourteen wearing a sailor hat for some reason and grinning like a fool.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 29/01/2026

My littlest dog spent the day at the vet, getting sedated to get his teeth cleaned. My biggest (but not oldest, just most Mama Bear) dog won't stop fussing over him now that he's home. He's still a little dopey, so he's strangely tolerant to all the extra sniffing.

My black Pitt bull Tachikoma is being very intrusive with her smelling all over of my rat terrier chihuahua Radical Edward. He is allowing it. But he's also coming down from a lot of drugs.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 18/01/2026

Me: Lifting and rowing both make my hips so tight. Why do I keep forgetting to keep yoga in the rotation too? Me, three minutes into a yoga workout: Oh. Right.

Photo of Mugen, my black and white rat terrier, lying down on my mat. He is taking up a quarter of the surface but has plausible deniability because he's facing the other way. He's 14 years old, now. We let him sit where he wants.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 08/01/2026

Also my youngest has been sending me super cute BMO pictures, so that's cool.

A drawing of BMO from Adventure Time building a sand castle on the beach.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 26/12/2025

I kept telling my husband that the Stargate SG-1 sets with the gold foil walls were making me crave Ferrer Rocher, so for Christmas I got this Ferrer Rocher hand grenade. I’m not really a sweets person, but luckily this is mostly air.

A hand holding a Ferrer Rocher ball the size of a hand grenade. It’s wrapped in gold foil with a cheery golden bow on top.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 30/11/2025

My alter ego Cate Martin has a story in a new anthology of romances. Wait, I wrote a romance? Yes. Yes, I did. But if it helps, it takes place amidst a mid-blizzard raid during Prohibition. There, that sounds more like me, doesn't it? Lots of fun stories here. Check it out! books2read.com/u/31jX0w

Image is of the cover of the new holiday romance anthology titled Romance for All Seasons. The cover is on a paperback book, on a phone screen, and on an e-reader.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 25/11/2025

And if you think that's cool, check out the full print book art without the text. I love my cover artist so much! (His name is Benjamin Roque, but alas is not on Bluesky.)

Image is of a book cover titled FORAGING THE HIDDEN SANCTUARY. The cover shows a girl in a deep sea diving suit looking up into a beam of sunlight that is illuminating the wreck of a massive spaceship behind her. Her dog is floating behind her, also in a bubble-headed spacesuit, trying to play with a shark. Many aquatic creatures are swimming around the corals behind her and to the left of the image.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 25/11/2025

New cover drop! This is the cover of my next YA scifi novel, FORAGING THE HIDDEN SACTUARY, the fourth book in the FORGOTTEN PLANET series. It will be out in April (still setting up the preorders on all the sites), but a month earlier at ratatoskrpressbooks.com/products/for.... Check it out!

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 25/11/2025

My alter ego Cate Martin has a new short story out! It's called "U-2 to Cuba" and is part of the latest issue of MCM, SPIES. Mine comes from spending way too much time in various air and space museums. But it's also a rather sweet romance. Check it out! www.mysterycrimeandmayhem.com/product/spies/

Image is a cover of the quarterly magazine MCM Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem titled Spies. The image is of a man in a car shooting photos through a long lens.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 24/11/2025

The irony is I actually have a Lego minifig of Gunther, which my husband gave me. He bought the Central Perk set for some parts and just handed me all the minifigs, so he probably didn't even notice. They currently reside on top of my Jazz Club.

Photo of the Lego minifigure of Gunther from Friends. He is wearing a green shirt with a white tie and is holding a broom and a coffee cup. Behind him are Ross at a keyboard, Phoebe with her guitar, and the rest of the cast all drinking from Lego coffee cups. There is also, for no particular reason, a squirrel sitting in a nest made of autumn leaves.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 23/11/2025

My husband and I are in the middle of season 6 of STARGATE SG-1, so we've watched 150ish episodes so far. It's just now I've realized that every time I call this particular character "Gunther," my husband has no idea why. Because he's never watched a single episode of FRIENDS. Sigh.

A photo of the actor Gary Jones portraying the STARGATE SG-1 character of Walter Norman Davis. In the first season or so he's always there in the background but doesn't say much. Then he starts getting lines, ever so slowly more and more lines. You know, like Gunther on FRIENDS.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 20/11/2025

Yes, but I have a different best film in the genre.

Movie poster for the film Love and Basketball. A guy and a girl play one on one basketball, and it’s hot. (But, if you’ve seen the film, complicated.)

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 12/11/2025

If you live in Minnesota, go outside.

Pictures of the northern lights in salmon and green.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 03/11/2025

I realize my personal Venn diagram of interests that overlap polar exploration, airships in general, and any kind of terrier dog is pretty niche. But this movie (animated with interspersed archival footage), really hit the mark for me. And how cute was Titina in real life?

A photo of polar airship captain Umberto Nobile and his terrier Titina. By Unknown (Mondadori Publishers) - http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/italian-colonel-and-explorer-umberto-nobile-smiling-holding-news-photo/186170556, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43552222

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 03/11/2025

So I've been on a bit of a quest to find and watch this film since I first heard about it. It's an animated film from 2022 called TITINA, about the first dog to travel (by airship) to the North Pole. It was so very charming, I'm not sure why there's no English language release.

Image from the Norwegian-Belgian animated film Titina about the first dog to travel to the North Pole. Standing behind Titina are Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 27/10/2025

Ah, that explains why he just exploded.

A photo of what appears to be blood sprayed all over the corner of a dingy room.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 22/09/2025

I don't post on Facebook or Instagram anymore, but I do occasionally scroll through to see pictures of family and such. Of course Facebook shows "Memories" to encourage you to post again. Not doing it there, but here I can say that this post from 9 years ago still totally describes me. No notes.

A Facebook Memory from 9 years ago of a meme that says "Describe yourself by using three fictional characters" with photos of Rachel Weisz showing off one of her many quirky talents in the movie THE BROTHERS BLOOM, Kate McKinnon working on something techy from the female cast version of THE GHOSTBUSTERS and the character Raven from the animated TEEN TITANS GO! show.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 26/08/2025

Anyway, have you all seen PORTLANDIA? My pit bull is a sweetie to humans, but she is a terror to small animals. Just like in that sketch. Which I think of. A lot.

A picture of my black and white pit butt, Tachikoma, chilling with my ratcha Radical Edward. He's her puppy, and she loves him. Bunnies, raccoons, and otters, on the other hand...

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 12/08/2025

But speaking of not quitting my day job (we were, weren't we?), book 14 in the Viking Witch Mysteries drops in stores everywhere today. A bunch of you have already picked it up (thank you!). If it's as miserably hot where you are as it is here, enjoy a story of a town encased in cool delicious ice.

Cover for the book Threat From the North, the fourteenth book in the Viking Witch Cozy Mystery series. The image is of a red-haired witch with her black cat chilling in a snowy, mountainous, forested landscape. Magical symbols float around her like snowflakes, and everything is coolly blue.

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Kate MacLeod @katemacleodwrites.com · 12/08/2025

Everything I noodle with on my drawing tablet spends a large chunk of time in the "ugly middle," where nothing looks right and it feels kind of pointless to keep grinding at it. But this thing I'm working on now, when I was setting it in grayscale to check the values, actually looks kind of cool?

Half-rendered digital drawing of a still from the movie YinYang Dream Master. Two men in Chinese courtly garments are kung fu fighting over a lute. The drawing is not complete, it is only blocked-in colors in gray tones to check for color value. But it looks kind of cool.

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