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Tuesday in Toronto! Join me for Margo MacDonald's book launch for A CURIOUS PRESENCE. Tuesday, October 6, at Indigo, Bay & Bloor, 55 Bloor St. 7PM @margo_thespian

A promo image including the cover of "A Curious Presence, an exploration of ghosts and the people who haunt them," by Margo MacDonald, foreword by Amal El Mohtar. The cover is black and gold, with a spooky cemetery border around a ghostly image of a clothed torso in light teal

Please join us for a Q&A and book signing featuring A CURIOUS PRESENCE by Margo MacDonald, Tuesday, October 6, 7PM, Indigo Bay and Bloor, 55 Bloor St. W. Toronto, ON.

Hosted by author Kelly Robson with special guest paranormal investigator Jack GK, this event will include a Q&A, book signing, and a demonstration of a ghost communication experiment.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 27/09/2026

I think this is what we call a horde

With a skyscrapers in the background, a zillion trillion people crowd a public square. The tiny white tents cannot restrain them.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 23/09/2026

Behold this beauty! The Book of the Dead, edited by Jonathan Strahan and illustrated by Galen Dara, out October 6. Includes my story "Time is a Liquid." @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social @harpervoyagerus.bsky.social www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

Two copies of a hardcover book like on a teal and black cloth. The covers say THE BOOK OF THE DEAD edited by Jonathan Strahan and illustrated by Galen Dara. The cover has an image of a spooky ghost-like figure with trailing hair and smoke in front of a full moon. It has a skull face and roses in its hair. Perhaps it is a ghost bride. The silhouette of a headstone is in the background.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 21/09/2026

My delightful Uncle Tom and Auntie Mary at the recent family wedding. Queer wedding, awesome elders! Love them so much.

In front of a friendly crowd sits a white-haired couple, both with big smiles. He is in a grey jacket and blue shirt, and has blankets covering his lap. She is in a blue dress and black leather jacket. They look very happy and friendly.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 18/09/2026

This is the non-fiction ghost book I've always wanted. No pretentions or pretending to have all the answers, just lots of curiosity from people who've spent their lives pursuing ghosts. A CURIOUS PRESENCE by Margo MacDonald, out October 6! ecwpress.com/products/cur...

Cover of A Curious Presence, an exploration of ghosts and the people who haunt them, by Margo MacDonald, foreword by Amal El Mohtar. The cover is black and gold, with a spooky cemetery border around a ghostly image of a clothed torso in light teal

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 16/09/2026

Can*Con is October 16-18 @canconsffh.bsky.social! Here's my schedule: Friday 5:30: moderating a panel -- Better Book Pitches Saturday 5-5:30: signing in the dealer's room Sunday 10AM: panel -- The Static Protagonist

A photo of a notepad with handwritten notes and a tiny iridescent dragon figurine sitting on it. It says:

Kelly Robson's Can*Con Schedule

Friday 5:30 Better Book Pitches (moderator)
Saturday 5:00-5:30: signing in the dealer's room
Sunday 10: The Static Protagonist

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 16/09/2026

Greetings from sunny, warm Toronto.

A redheaded white woman with braids is wearing tortoiseshell sunglasses and smiling at the camera. Her head is tilted on an angle she is wearing a gray and black striped shirt, Behind her is a non-descriptive blue building.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 15/09/2026

Lorenzo would like his share of the lettuce, please. He does not understand that it is not lettuce, but escarole, and he does not like the bitterness.

A photo of a tabby cat with a very handsome face, white stripe on the nose and half white on the cheek. He is looking expectant while standing on the arm of a chair overlooking the kitchen counter.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 15/09/2026

The beloved clock. You see why we couldn’t let this beauty go.

A ornate wooden clock with cloth covered panels around a light brown clock face. The cloth covered panels are in various brocade, in shades of red gold, silver and blue. The corner panels are topped with sun shaped designs in metal.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 14/09/2026

The University of Toronto is offering a course on Science Fiction for Engineers. "We will be looking at a large number of stories and seeing how they relate to engineering – how they inspire us, how they warn us, what they tell us about where we will go and about where we have been."

3. Science Fiction for Engineers
Science fiction has long imagined technologies that later became reality. But what can engineers learn from the genre today?

This course, offered by the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, unpacks the connections between engineering and fiction through topics ranging from AI to terraforming.

"Science Fiction for Engineers is a course for everyone who has read a story that makes them want not just to travel to the stars, but to help build the spaceship to get us there," says Shai Cohen, assistant professor, teaching stream, who teaches the course alongside sessional lecturer J. Coplen Rose. "It is also for anyone who sees a technological innovation being abused and wants to yell out, 'Haven't you read this book? Didn't you watch the movie? This is dangerous!

"We will be looking at a large number of [science fiction] stories and seeing how they relate to engineering – how they inspire us, how they warn us, what they tell us about where we will go and about where we have been."

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 10/09/2026

On the one hand, my hair looks amazing straight out of the overnight top-of/head bun. But on the other hand, nobody will ever see it because it is too hot to wear down in public.

A red haired, white woman with long cascading wavy hair. She is wearing a teal T-shirt and smiles at the camera. Her face is partially obscured by her hair.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 26/08/2026

Cheers to the one who queered us all 😭

Tim Curry as Doctor Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror Picture show, in a corset and hose, posed in front of a red and gold curtain, mouth open and hands on hips

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 18/08/2026

Toronto!! Ai Jiang's book launch for AN EMPIRE IN THE CLOUDS is Sunday, Sept 6, 4PM. You want to go to this! @aijiang.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-empire-...

A promotional image with text and images, including the cover of the book AN EMPIRE IN THE CLOUDS by Ai Jiang, which has stylized pagoda illustrations with flowers, plants, clouds and waves. The text is as follows:

Please join us for the book launch of An Empire in the Clouds, Sunday September 6. Doors open at 4PM, Event starts at 4:30

Society Clubhouse, 967 College Street, at Dovercourt, Toronto, ON M6H 1A6

Drinks and refreshments provided, books for sale by Bakka Phoenix books

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 04/08/2026

Just four more days to hit more stretch goals for the Locus anthology, all the way up to more art, a novella, and doubling the pay for authors! @locusmag.bsky.social locusmag.com/anthology

background: a mountain with trees growing on the side and dark sky with orange clouds. A graphic of a book cover featuring floating ruins and a person in a red cape. A green fundraiser thermometer with levels reading "sleek anthology, big ol book, more beautiful book, pay the editor" and unchecked levels "add a novella, variant covers, pay authors more!" a badge says "ending soon, kickstarter" and another green badge says "back us now on kickstarter". Link reads locusmag.com/anthology.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 03/08/2026

Linocut jelly plate Jimothies for your delight #jimothy

A blue and white, rather ragged print of a scabrous, hunched raccoon. It does not do Jimothy justice.

A red and white, rather less ragged, but still messy print of an adorable short-bodied raccoon.

A pink and rainbow, rather glossy print of an adorable short-bodied raccoon with a dark red tail.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 30/07/2026

You know, they totally did take flash fiction and so will we. Great grandpa never credited his regional correspondents by name, so we are to understand that this piece is by their loyal Raft Lake reporter.

A column in an old newspaper:
The Ogopogo of Raft Lake
The ice on the lake which was never very thick is now apparently thawing from underneath, and is positively unsafe. Grain haulers cautiously hug the west shore and the other day we were perturbed to find that the fool proof family water hole had turned into a yawning gulf, with water weeds floating up from the bottom of the lake, and steam rising like a volcano. Several sleighs have broken through in shallow water, the nearest approach to catastrophe occurring when two of our local sportsmen drove a heavy team and a light cutter across the deep part of the lake, and one of the horses’ feet went through the ice, only presence of mind and a superlative luck adverting a nasty accident. The aforesaid sportsmen claim that the Ogopogo broke the ice and attempted deceased the horse by his hind legs, even going to the length of describing the serpent’s silvery horns and glassy eyes, and the way in which the water swirled through the crack. This suggests a new and really exciting line of big game hunting, and should greatly add to the attractions of the lake.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 29/07/2026

Some obsessions cannot be denied. #jimothy

Work in progress shot of a piece of green, easy cut Lino, carved into it is the shape of a rotund raccoon. It is obviously very inexpert work.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 27/07/2026

Post a perfect album from the 90's that isn't Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains.

Cover of the album "Why do birds sing?" by Violent Femmes. It shows a black and white halftoned image, 1950s in style, of a man and woman, both smiling. The woman has her hands over the man's eyes. "Why do birds sing?" is is green sentence case, in a script font. VIOLENT FEMMES is in red all caps. The text is centered. It reads:

Why
VIOLENT
do birds
FEMMES
sing?

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 08/07/2026

On my old newspaper kick: What the everlasting heck is this image?

Old time Dentistry ads from 1885, with a mysterious image that looks like the front of a slipper with teeth in the sole

Second image, even more obscure than the first

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 15/06/2026

Interesting* design elements going in at Toronto’s most post apocalyptic subway station. Putting some icing over the cinder blocks cutting off the former murder slots. *to me

Three hunter-green trapezoidal wall coverings intermittently spaced over a grey cinder block wall. Bare metal struts above, and a mint green wall in the distance, where a few people are waiting for a train. On the left we glimpse the yellow safety strip and the subway track.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 11/06/2026

Look at this insanely witchy Victorian beast. Yours for a mere 1.75m pounds. Its name? Caple ne Ferne. St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex #witchyskeet www.inigo.com/sales-list/c...

A huge Victorian faux-Tudor manor house, with a massive tower jutting from its face. Big banks of windows and a brown shake roof, which missing a few pieces, giving it a ramshackle air. Red brick mostly, with the Tudor details confined to a few lacy bits on the second floor, and then the top floor of the tower. The tower's roof is very pointy and looks so much like a hat I can't stand it.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 10/06/2026

Not sure I've ever seen a mermaid with wings before. (ad in Canadian Printer & Publisher, December 1901)

A greyscale drawing of a bare-breasted mermaid with spiny-fin-like wings sitting on a can of Queen City Printing Ink, which is borne aloft on a wave. There's something weird going on with her legs, only one of which seems to be ending in a fin. The other is tucked behind and maybe the second fin is implied in the background. Anyway, she's a two legged/finned mermaid with wings.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 02/06/2026

Great to see @isabel.kim's spanking new book SUBLIMATION on the main page of the NYT site Review: (free link) www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/b...

A screen capture of the New York Times website, showing an item: BOOK REVIEW
"Sublimation" Reimagines the Dilemmas of Immigration
A woman's close is finally coming home. Should they merge back into one?

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 29/05/2026

This morning's random witchy house is plain but has some intriguing, almost random details. Of course there are working shutters, because this is France. Annebault, Normandy, France. #witchyskeet

A higgledy piggledy, half-hearted fence with a low stone barrier topped by intermittent brown hurdles is in front of a plain-featured, half-timbered, two storey structure. It's likely a former barn. The long side faces the street. The roof is low-canted, and plain, with one chimney modestly sticking up from the middle. Originally old half-timbering covers the bottom storey, dark brown and beige, with dark brown wood walls above. The left quarter of the building has new half timbering on both levels, likely a new addition. There are two doors, one in the middle which is double wide, and one in the new addition, latter. Both are recessed. There's a little orangey brown roof over the middle door. The windows seem randomly spaced, and are covered with dark brown shutters. All shutters are closed except for the second window on the top floor, where a man is reaching out to close it.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 28/05/2026

Been a long while since I've found a witchy beauty to share. Here's a sunny, five peaked treasure. Tallinn, Estonia. #witchyskeet

Under tall trees and a blue sky, a bright yellow house with a multiple-peaked roof. It's extremely inviting. The windows are trimmed in white, with narrow brown decorative shutters on the three leftmost windows. There's also an eyebrow-shaped porch over the brown door. The live roof peaks are all different heights, and roof is brown. On the right, there's a six-sided roof over a single-storey ground floor room which would be a turret if it were higher. Everything here is utterly adorable and I desire this house with all my acquisitive heart.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 13/04/2026

Surprised and gratified that my LANDLINE is a Locus Award finalist! Congratulations to fellows Nathan Ballingrud @tobiasbuckell.bsky.social @thomasha.bsky.social @isabel.kim @hildur.bsky.social @sentencebender.bsky.social @aimeeogdenwrites.com @tiatashiro.bsky.social Callie Vaughn

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 06/04/2026

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by @johnchu.bsky.social is out tomorrow, and I'm going to be freaking out about it.

Book cover of The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu, Nebula Award Winning Author -- bright blue and orange/yellow design showing dim sum buns in steamers receding down into a quantum space. Two hands with chopsticks reach into the steamers.

"A work of crystalline vision and meticulous humanity" says Max Gladstone

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 01/04/2026

A cajoling ad from my great-grandpa's country weekly newspaper. He looks sore!

$700 Arrears on our Subscription List

Among the large number in arrears with their subscription to The Journal are many who have no money and as an inducement to have them square their accounts we are asking them to bring wood, vegetables, turkeys or poultry

(A full length photo of an older man in an old fashioned suite)

He Looks Sore

(an old fashioned graphic of a hand pointing to the next paragraph)

So far the following were good enough to comply with our request:
(list in small type)

Many admit they cannot sell these things but surely they can pay their small accounts this way

There are a few who promised to bring wood even last year but have not yet done so. These will be cut off our lists as well as others who are stalling

The St. Paul Journal

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 03/03/2026

More delights from historical research: 1947 pharmacy was totally up on pronouns:

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 03/03/2026

Unintentional humor from early morning historical research. This is from the St. Paul Journal, May 1946 (St. Paul, Alberta)

A newspaper ad, all text, bounded by a fancy chain-like border:
Good Food Well
Prepared
is the only kind we serve
You Will Find THIS RESTAURANT not
"Another place to eat" but
"A place to eat another."
REO CAFE
St. Paul Alberta

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 03/02/2026

Yet more evidence of Google AI rot: I reverse-image-searched a painting I saw on IG, which is how I have fun around here. Google argues hard, claiming it’s by famous Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, but I’m pretty familiar with her style, so no way. Meanwhile, the original artist remains unfindable

In a cosy alcove, a round painting of three cartridges, eating berries

A screen capture of a bunch of incorrect bullet points by Google’s AI

A screen capture of a gallery webpage showing a beautiful stone cut print from 1972, by Kenojuak Ashevak, showing five gulls in green ink

A close-up of the original painting, or print, of three cartridges in a spiralling design, dark green with white outlines on a tan background. There are three red berries in among their beaks.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 21/01/2026

Today is our 37th wedding anniversary! I looked long and hard for a recent selfie that didn't make @alyxdellamonica.bsky.social and me look drunk and/or criminal, and this is the best I could find.

In front of an evergreen dusted with snow, two people wearing glasses (a woman and an non binary person) are dressed in bright red parkas and smile at the camera from under their hoods

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 17/12/2025

Yes, give me a witchy barn. Or sawmill, or something. Račak, Croatia. #witchyskeet

A green treed landscape, with a green lawn and shrubs. Blue sky above a large workshop-like barn structure made of caramel colored wood, with a wood shake roof. The long side is turned toward us, and has three butterscotch half doors or shutters, all closed. Above are two open dormers protruding from the roof like eyes, and between them is a small, narrow bell tower made of red brick. The third of the building on the right side is right open, with the roof held up by wooden pillars. The three pillars on the outside have red brick bases and have a low fence built between them. It's quite a lovely structure.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 09/12/2025

So imagine her delight when this year -- 2025! -- Alison Bechdel publishes the semi-autobiographical SPENT, and cleverly includes many of the Dykes to Watch Out For characters. It’s an utter delight. Buy it from your local independent bookstore.* *before it’s gone

Cover of SPENT, A COMIC NOVEL by the author of Fun Home Alison Bechdel is done is bright, high contrast comic book colours: On a bright blue background is a comic style illustration spoofing the classic American Gothic painting, with two short haired, older women gazing wearily at the viewer from behind a pitchfork.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 09/12/2025

Our young lesbian was hooked. She returned to the resource centre over and over again read all the strips from in the back issues of OOB. When she got caught up, she desperately needed more. A cosmic force drew her to Common Woman Books,* Alberta’s Only Feminist Bookstore. *no longer exists

COMMON WOMAN BOOKS - Alberta’s Only Feminist Bookstore. Non sexist children’s books – records – jewelry – t-shirts – fiction – feminist theory – overcoming male & female stereotypes – a good selection of lesbian literature. (hours) 8208 – 104 Street. 432-9344

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 21/11/2025

Reskeet with a time you looked cool

Against a painterly red-orange background, a middle-aged white woman looks imperiously down at the camera. We only see her from the shoulders up, and she seems to be naked. She is wearing a black plastic bag on her head. We see a glimpse of an octopus tattoo on her left shoulder.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 11/11/2025

Now the weather has turned cold, I get this

A redheaded white woman in glasses is peering over the head of a brown tabby cat who is snuggled on her chest. The only reason this is happening is the cat wants her body heat. She is just a space heater to him. A space heater who must not type.

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 09/11/2025

Huge turnout today for the launch of The Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, stretched from wall to wall to wall @bakkaphoenix.bsky.social @ourmankoto.bsky.social

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 07/11/2025

Tomorrow in Toronto! Join us for the launch of Year's Best Canadian F&SF Volume 3. Sat, Nov 8 at Bakka Phoenix @ 3pm @bakkaphoenix.bsky.social @ourmankoto.bsky.social maps.app.goo.gl/2qnXrY1mcgE7...

Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three. Book Launch, meet the authors, buy books, eat snacks! Hear readings from Kelly Robson, YM Pang, Timothy Quinn, Chris Clemens, Lisa Cai, Agata Antonow, Kaya Skovdatter, Gillian Secord, Pauline Barmby. November 8, 2025, Bakka Phoenix Books, 84 Harbord Street, Toronto

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Kelly Robson @kellyrobson.com · 07/11/2025

The era has not changed. I'm still exactly this human though perhaps am reading slightly more sophisticated books at the moment

An old scratchy color photo of a white toddler in a big blue onesie, with a red bow in her brown hair, sleeping in a crib with a Dr. Seuss book lying tented on her chest.

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