Catherynne M. Valente

Livestream Tomorrow Night!

Hello, my loves. Everybody holding up ok during these interesting times?

It's been too long but the livestream is back! I’ll be doing it tomorrow night, September 15, at 7:00pm EST. 

I will be bringing a big fat glass of wine as my co-host and I can't wait to see your questions. Remember that you can ask anything, doesn’t have to be at all about writing, especially now. I’ll sing a song and do a dance, have done before, anything that’ll cheer us all up.

Here’s...

Open Discussion Post

Here is your monthly place to chat and get to know each other! Feel free to talk about anything, but be kind, this is a safe place. 

How are you all feeling?

The Shark That Never Bit Me: The Authority in Fiction and the Fiction in Authority

Greetings, kittens. We are on month six of time ditching that whole Ligotti pastische flat circle gig and becoming a polka-dotted balloon filled with doom wasps and existential anxiety tossed from fool to fool on a beach of nightmare timelines.

Also, fall is here! Pumpkins! Apples! Foggy mornings! Crunchy leaves! The death of hope!

HA HA HA IT IS TO JOKE. WE HAVE GOOD TIMES, DON’T WE?

Nah, everything is still stupid and desperate and unjust and burning 24/7 but now I guess...

Mandatory Mad Fiction Frog Dissection: What We Do In the Pandemic: The Two What We Do in the Shadowses

You all picked an easy one for me this month. So I want you to sit down.

Brace yourself. Get some fortifying snacks, fluids, and smelling salts within easy reach. Hold onto something.

I have virtually nothing negative to say about the What We Do in the Shadows series.

I’ll wait for you to recover.

I just don’t! Even the theme song is pure fire! I love it and it’s awesome and pretty much everyone in it is fantastic and my major complaint is I don’t have...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Cast Iron Pepperoni-Bacon Pizza with Three Sooper Sekrit Twists

Most of what I’m going to say in this recipe is pretty basic.

Making your own pizza is awesome.

You do not have to make your own dough or sauce if you don’t want to, it’s okay, nobody is judging you, we are all very busy people.

It’s all about the cheese and the toppings anyway.

Cast iron pans are neat!

The sekrit is at the end.

So the deal is that cast iron pans can give your pizza a chewier texture in the crust and a nice billowy effect...

Housekeeping--Annual Patrons and Live Event Tonight

Hello, everyone! I hope this Thursday is treating you as well as a Thursday in 2020, the Nurse Ratched of years, can be expected to treat anyone.

Two notes of interest to some or all of you before I disappear into the last chapters of this bloody stubborn book!

One, the annoying PBS/NPR pledge-drive style barfyness we must engage in so we can live to eat another day:

Patreon has launched Annual Subscriptions, so you can lock in a whole year of benefits at one go and not worr...

Life Updates and Mad Fiction Mandatory Media Dissection Poll

Hello, my darlings.

It's been a hell of a month for me here at the old Laboratory. I'm finally within a chapter or two of finishing the book that's been hanging over my head since before I had Sebastian, so my mind has been in another world for weeks. But back here in this one, my grandfather is entering the last phases of his time with us, and I cannot be there because of COVID, and its been incredibly difficult, but as my family is pretty private, not something I've felt comfortable p...

Open Discussion Post!

Here is your monthly place to chat and get to know each other! Feel free to talk about anything, but be kind, this is a safe place. 

How are you all feeling?

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Pig: The Muppets, Childhood Trauma, and More Fun Things to Do On a Sunday

Time is a lie.

Summertime doubly so.

There is no such thing as people, or movement, or reality. Nothing matters anymore, but not in a cool way. Life is Wednesday divided by ennui minus December to the power of vodka over wise old owls in academic robes. I don’t know anymore. Taylor Swift put out a really arty, good album full of authentic generational feeling and I might die if I go to the grocery store. The fuck am I supposed to do with that. I guess a thing I feel about a lot ...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: The Amazing Disappearing Cheddar Apple Scones

Amazing Disappearing Cheddar-Apple Scones

I make these whenever I throw a party. Remember parties? No, me neither. But they are spoken of in deep legend and tome, and one day, when need is great, they may return.

Scones might not seem like party finger-food, but these are usually utterly GONE within the first 45 minutes because they are amazing and delicious and people get REAL ANTSY about there only being six (or twelve, it doesn’t matter if you ma...

Mandatory Mad Frog Dissection Presents: Oh Boy. Here We Go. Hamilton.

 This Fuckin’ Guy: Let’s Talk About Hamilton

The standard disclaimer applies twice as hard for this one:

You guys chose this. I told you my opinion on Hamilton is not one of an adoring, anime-eyed fangirl belting out songs out of her range with her eyes rapturously closed at singalong parties. It never was, even before the live performance dropped on Disney+ and suddenly everyone could see it without dropping a cool grand on tickets an...

Mad Fiction Dissection Poll

Ok, forcibly indoors kittens, what shall I review for your pleasure this month?

Remember I will be telling you the general mood of the review in parentheses so there are no surprises.

Open Discussion Post!

Here is your monthly place to chat and get to know each other! Feel free to talk about anything, but be kind, this is a safe place. 

How are you all feeling?

Captain, We Have a Problem: SFF’s Terrible No-Good Very Bad Week

 WHAT IS TIME WHAT IS PLANET NOTHING IS REAL EVERYTHING IS COVERED IN WASPS AND DISAPPOINTMENT

…

…

So that’s basically where I’m at.

It would seem that you can have a global pandemic, you can have a righteous explosion of anger against systemic racism and murder, but as far as 2020’s concerned, that’s just not enough to make a stew.

If you’ve been online in any fashion over the last two weeks or so, you have probably heard about a series of acc...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK Presents: Summer Strawberry Pistachio Cake with Fresh Basil Whipped Cream

I’m going to say something very brave. It’s just…it’s time. Past time. I don’t care if I get “canceled” by this overly-sensitive PC culture, it’s worth it to stand up for the truth.

Cake is awesome.

It’s just the perfect thing. When you want to treat yourself or celebrate or mark an occasion you say I WANT CAKE, because cake is awesome and represents everything special about being a high-functioning, carbohydrate-converting mammal.

TAKE THAT, HATER...

Mad Fiction Lab Mandatory Frog Dissection: Midsommaaaar (The A is for Art)

I would like to say for the record that in my experience Sweden is a very nice place full of nice people and pale food and winning Eurovision songs whose hicks are really some of the least likely of any country’s hicks to murder you and all your friends in some kind of mutant orgy of meat and flowers whose purpose and intended outcome is vague at best and nothing in particular at worst. Like, you are in way more danger in the hinterlands of the United States of Hills Have Eyes, in ...

Mad Fiction Dissection Table: What's On the Slab?

Another month, another piece of media to review for your comedic pleasure! Once again I'm tagging these with whether the review will be positive or negative so you can gauge your interest fully loaded with KNOWLEDGE

What will it be, my darlings?

Fun with Sales Tax: Ask Me How

A brief housekeeping note:

As some of you know, Patreon is about to start charging US Sales Tax on some kinds of content, in some locations, starting 7/1.

Does this suck? Yes. Can we not? No.

However, because of the specific kinds of content I offer here, this should not affect most of you. Almost everything here is simply access to posts and content, fan requests, voting rights, or personal access to me. I don't mail anything out, you're not purchasing anything from me. Acc...

June Excerpt: Moar Quidnunx!

I'm hitting the home stretch on this book FINALLY so I hope you're enjoying it! I did also write two short stories this month, but one is under an NDA and the other hasn't been accepted yet, so let's return to Littlebridge and Osmo!

I hope you are all staying safe and looking after each other. All my love goes out to you.

***

Chapter Four: Girls and Knights and Needles

Every girl in Littlebridge dreamed of being crowned Frostfrau....

The Story of Us, or, Read a Fucking Book Once In Awhile, Why Don’t You?: Empathy, Crisis, and the Function of Art Right Now

It seems impossible that it is the end of May. That the sudden green on the trees outside my window is real and not just a new, edgier kind of snow. That the only reason the humans where I live are not quite as confined to our homes on account of an invisible death borne by hugging and singing is that our aristocracy has told us it never existed and the dead are not dead, and instead of standing in the sun telling ourselves it is safe, even if it isn’t, to feel like life is possible again f...

Orphan's Tales Live Rides Again: A Poll

It has been about a week since we finished the not-an-audiobook-definitely-a-play reading series of The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, and I've been thinking about how to continue with the second book.

I said I would do a reading every night until lockdown ends, but I just...didn't expect "lockdown ends" to be such a moving target, with every state careening at a different pace, and no one sure if we'...

Mad Fiction Lab Mandatory Frog Dissection: A Survey of Children’s Edutainment

There's A Word for What We're Gonna Have, And That Word Is Blood

Hi everyone! Welcome to the newest feature of the Mad Fiction Laboratory, in which I review a piece of media every month, chosen by you! FIRST TIME'S A CHARM...

So. Let's be clear. You chose to hear me prattle on about the luridly-colored, overly cheerful, mass-produced entertainment my 20-month old son loves.

I say that because I want to remind you that YOU CHOSE...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Better Than Takeout Beef Penang Curry

Faster Than Takeout, Better Than It Has Any Right to Be: Beef Penang Curry

Unlike most of America, I have had no access to takeout anything except some seriously dubious pizza since the start of the epidemic. I live on a Lonely Island in a Lonely Sea, and nobody delivers to this Stephen King set piece, AS WELL THEY SHOULD NOT. 

So I have been longing for the kind of thing I can get in cities, the kind where the sauce oozes out of the box and you ...

This Month's Review!

I haven't come up with a clever name for the new review feature yet, but one will come to me, I'm sure. 

Nevertheless, the time has come to choose a subject for me to TELL YOU ALL MY THOUGHTS UPON!

I haven't had a chance to consume any of the Mad Post Doc Student ($20) requests yet as Childe and Booke have kept me running ragged, so this is just the stuff I have put in my face this month on my own recognizance. 

I realize this may reveal that I am...not that fancy ...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS A QUARANTINE BONUS RECIPE: The Actual Best Cheeseburger and Special Sauce

The Actual Best Homemade Cheeseburger and Special Sauce

*Just like last month, I'm posting a bonus recipe for all patrons at all levels BECAUSE WE ARE ALL STUCK AT HOME HAVING TO COOK FOR OURSELVES and it's BEEN A MILLION YEARS NOW and we're out of ideas mostly. The main Experiment ALLCAPS COOKBOOK Recipe will be an entirely new and different one. This baby is just because I love you guys and I don't want any of you risking your lives at a drive th...

New Goal Reached! That Means New Rewards!

Hello, everyone!

In what was really the most wonderful birthday present, we reached a new funding goal! I can't begin to tell you what this means to our household and our anxious artist hearts--thank you so much, and thank you for sticking with me in such a horrid time for us all. I will try to be worth it!

To that end, new goal means new features!

This is how it's going to work, starting this very cycle.

I'll be adding a (funny and fun, I promise) review of something ...

Thank You, and New Goals

I just want to thank everyone so much for sticking with this Patreon and being such an amazing community right now. I love you all so much and I am so grateful for your presence in my life and your support. Quite literally, I could not manage without you.

We are actually nearing the next stretch goal for the first time in well over a year! So I’ve decided that, should we reach it, I’ll add a comedic review of something I read, watched, or played that month to the main ($5...

Plotting for Clowns: A Class Distilled Into an Essay for Your Nerves

Hullo, you beautiful powerful narwhals.

What time of year is it? What time of day is it? What’s happening outside?

WHO KNOWS WHO CARES TIME IS A FLAT TIRE EXISTENCE IS MEANINGLESS SPRING IS A LIE.

I went into the city for supplies this week. I got a coffee at a coffee bar in the grocery store. Not espresso, I guess espresso is a plague vector? But coffee in a plastic cup with a fancy lid like they used to give you in the Before Times. I cried at the counter. The w...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Oh No I Made the Perfect Brownie and I Wept for There Were No More Worlds to Conquer

 Brownies are just this whole thing. Storebought, from a package, from scratch…it’s an endless quest for perfection, and nothing is ever quite there. 

UNTIL NOW.

My friend Cylia made these and then I altered them because THAT’S HOW I DO PRAY I DO NOT ALTER THE RECIPE FURTHER (but also because as originally written these directions did not work in my oven at all) and now the quest…is over. There is an emptiness. A knowledge that never again will we ride out togeth...

April Community Discussion Post

Hullo, all!

Here is your space for chatting with each other, checking in, ranting about whatever, bragging about the little accomplishments and big ones, staking claims on the best dinosaur, anything you like to feel a little more connected.

How is everyone holding up?