Catherynne M. Valente

Aaaaaaand Covid

Hullo loves.

I have so many things ready to post for all the paid tiers, but after the eclipse I was absolutely bludgeoned by my 4th bout with covid. I’m finally testing negative now but I’m still not quite right in head or body; everything hurts all the time. And an inflammatory disease turns out to be terrible for carpal tunnel…

I’ve lost a ton of work time, and haven’t hardly been able to drag my aching carcass from room to room. All the stuff I had 3/4 completed will...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Chocolate Cake Waffles

Ok, I admit it. I saw it on a diner menu but I was being a brat and figured I could reverse engineer that idea for way less.

INFLATION IS ROUGH, KITTENS.

But I was right, though?

It's all pretty simple, really. The big improvement was adding half a box of brownie mix. It makes the waffled crispier on the outside and more dense inside. Without, the pure cake version is very floopy, which is not a quality one seeks in eligible waffles.

I think I'm mildly obsessed with f...

Random Access Mind: Scion of My House, Heir to My Line

I hope this RAM is pretty special to you, because it's pretty fucking special to me.

I've slowed down on posting photos of my child online, both because large groups of random anonymized people are simply the worst and I don't trust them ever and because they're old enough now that it feels to me like consent is starting to come into play.

But Bastian (currently attempting to convince everyone in their kindergarten class to call them Draco) said I could show you their story.

Purity for Thee, Convenience for Me!

Note: This is a cross-post from my Substack, arriving here 24 hours later so that there is advantage to subscribing there but no loss for my loyal patrons here. The way my Substack works is that every public essay has a follow up piece under a paywall for the part I wanted to say but either didn’t have space for or, more often, didn’t want to deal with drive-by goblin-screaming by bad-faith internet vultures. This piece, somewhat unusually, follows on from two: 2024-03-21 18:00:26 +0000 UTC View Post

RAM: Space Oddity Deleted Easter Eggs

This is probably the most fun and exclusive RAM there will ever be: the song titles, singers, television shows/movies, books, the occasional concept, and band names that just didn't make it into the final Space Oddity manuscript...and therefore probably won't appear anywhere but here, unless the animated series in development gets greenlighted. I'm not saying never a third book, but I'm not planning one right now. 

Italics means a song, book, or show--should be obvious which--every...

Annual Awards Eligibility Post

It's a bit late for this but I was crumbling under a deadline, so...now for the most awkward post of the year!

You have about a week left to get your Nebula nominations in, the Locus Recommended Reading List is out, then Hugos to follow that (god willing and the fraud don't rise) and World Fantasy after that (did you know you can nominate for World Fantasy? You can!). 

I didn't...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Szechuan Fusion Salsa

It is not generally my experience that a bowl of salsa is completely cleaned out, down to the last swipe of juice, at a midweek movie night.

This one was GONE.

So I'm mildly obsessed with this peanut salsa thing one of the groomsmen made for my brother's wedding and have been trying to recreate it. 

This isn't that salsa, this is just a tribute.

But it's DAMN FINE. Addictively fine. People kind of stopped eating at all once it was gone fine. I threw it together as...

Take My Life, Please: The Media's Will They/Won't They Love Affair with American Fascism Prepares For Its Terrible Wedding Night

(Cross-posted from Substack 24 hours later so no one misses anything if they hate a platform)

If you were thinking of joining the ranks of those who like to comment suggesting I write these pieces with less swearing, or indeed type without one elbow on the capslock key, this would not be the essay to try me on.

Because I am fucking STEAMING. And it’s BEEN A MINUTE.

I just…I can’t…fucking BEING ALIVE RIGHT NOW is like watching eve...

Denizen of the Month Special Edition: Space Oddity!

IT'S DONE.

The sequel to Space Opera, Space Oddity, is all finished but the copyedit. FINALLY.

It took so long and so much of my soul,...

Reward update

I’m so sorry to be having to say I’m so sorry again. If I don’t turn a manuscript around by Friday the book will be pushed back to 2026 and I am struggling.

I will post January’s remaining rewards starting Monday. I really am so sorry, I will make it up to everyone.

Twenty Years Ago Today My Life Began

Twenty years ago today, January 4th, 2004, my first chapbook and its companion were published.

My first anything was published.

I was living in Japan, the wife of a naval officer (a biographical fact that always stuns people who have only known me as I am now), lonely and miserable as a candle in a lamp shop, convinced that I'd never really be or do anything worthwhile now that I'd made the choices I'd made.

And these two little chaps were hardly much. Poetry, not f...

Goodbye November, Next Month Will Be Better, Surely...

Hello my darlings.

This week has been a roller coaster and I can't really talk about any of it but it's very high and very low. I apologize again for stumbling in my vain attempts to balance life and work and parenting on any level, and like Boxer, will work harder now that my schedule is a little less punishing and my carpal tunnel a little less excruciating. Though only a little.

November rewards have all gone up except, of course, the essay, which will go up tomorrow due to eve...

Denizen of the Month: A TERRIFYING Disaster, Barely Dodged

This is a big one...because it was a big problem, and fixing it was a huge process. I can hardly get over how close we came to losing the back half of the house.

So...turns out my back porch was pretty much gone. I didn't realize it until early summer when I went outside and saw some rot, though paint and ignorance hid the worst of it from my exhausted eyes. I did know it was bad. I did look around and get a very resigned and upset look on my face imagining how much it would cost and, h...

Some Brief But Important Admin Concerning Patreon's Recent Changes

Before we get to the rest of this month's rewards, I want to make a public post explaining a few things from the Patreon creator backend (ha ha).

Recently, Patreon added a "subscribe for free!" button to all creators' front pages. Great idea, right? Easy click button to get people onto the free feed and increase visibility blah blah blah.

Well, if you follow any other creators you've probably already heard a little about how not-well that idea has gone. Once you hit a subscribe bu...

Hitting That Work/Life Balance Beam Nose-First: Books, Children, and Time

Everything I’m about to say in this essay is pretty much borne out by the month of October in my world, in which many things went corkscrewed, but most noticeably in this space, things went radio silent.

Call it a proof: of concept, of theorem, of life, which is only 35% a joke.

Don’t mind me. I’m just tired. So tectonically tired.

On New Year’s Day, I will have been publishing for 20 years.

For 15 of those years, interview questions that revolved arou...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Apple Cheddar Walnut Scones

I have never put these out for any number of people and had any single crumb left at the end of 20 minutes. Doesn't matter how many scones or how many guests, they're inhaled instantly.

But I'll be honest, this is a Smitten Kitchen recipe with a bit of spice and walnuts. I just kept adding little bits of things every time; it didn't feel quite right without a little more crunch and a lit...

IT IS DONE

The Space Oddity edit is finally done and I can return to the land of the living!

Thank you all SO MUCH for your patience, this has been an incredibly trying Oct/Nov and I apologize for falling down on you guys when I was under so much pressure from book and life.

I need a day off REAL BAD so starting Tuesday, rewards will go up with an extra goodie or two.

Again, thank you for your patience. Hopefully I’ll be able to balance better next time! (Ha ha lol)

CMV + October Rewards Update

Hey everyone

You've probably noticed I haven't posted this month!

That's because many exciting things are all crushing my shoulders beneath their weight just now.

I have a really tight, everyone-will-yell-at-me-and-not-the-firm-taskmaster-kind-the-super-mad-kind deadline next week, I mad the DAMN FOOL MISTAKE of trying to carve a pumpkin for my kid and obviously my carpal tunnel was like YOU RANG? I'm fighting off the latest variant of yersinia kindergartnis, my hou...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Egyptian Limeade

I can't take credit for this one. Sophie made it for the girls' going away party this year, and she got it off an instagram reel, and I just copied down what she did. To be honest, I feel like it's rife for experimentation...coconut milk, a sugar lime zest ring, I don't know, go nuts, it's just an amazing drink that's so creamy and lime-y and somehow doesn't curdle, but it tastes like summer and summer is almost gone, so LET'S GET LIME DRUNK.

Because yeah, most alcohol goes CRAZY well w...

Pain Is Not a Penance

So I looked up the etymology of the word pain the other day.

I don't know if this is a TED Talk or the opening to a Letterkenny episode, but either way, I can feel a black turtleneck and discreet-but-not-really headset and/or a plaid flannel shirt and deeply unfortunate bangs spontaneously sprouting from my skin as I type this.

But I can't really stop thinking about it, idly, at the beginning of this day or the end of that one.

It's not so odd, really, and ...

ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Too Soon Sauce (A Variant On One of the Last Meals Served on the Titanic)

Now, now, I know that looks like the most basic boring unflavorful lame white people dishes up there, but I promise it's not. I'll be hard pressed to make any other kind of sauce for fish again for some time. It's SO bright and tasty and silky and elegant AS SHIT.

I swear.

So it turned out that one of my chosen nieces staying with me this summer had not seen Titanic. Which is just totally unacceptable for an 18-year old girl. Also, chosen my nieces may be but they truly a...

On Chun-Li, Dinosaurs, and Ducks: Nineteen Years of Alleged Writing and I Still Have No Idea What I'm Doing

Next summer, I've have been publishing professionally for twenty years.

It's funny, I still don't really feel old enough to have been doing anything for twenty years, even though, you know, I was there the whole time, doing the thing for twenty years, but I suppose that's time and memory and the strange loop of existing in an organic body on a linear path through self and history on a ball in a void that used to have dinosaurs on it millions of years ago but doesn't anymore and...

Hot Fresh Discord Invite Straight from the Oven!

We've had a number of new people sign up this month (HELLO NEW PEOPLE YOU ARE WONDERFUL THANK YOU SO MUCH) so it's time for a piping hot new Discord invite so that you all can join our little happy place in the maelstrom of the internet.

Be cozy in there, the mod team is god-tier and very tolerant but we are all protective of the deep thread of kindness and acceptance in the community we've made.

Invite code here! 2023-07-24 20:55:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Huddle Up, Geeks: Some of These Hot Garbage Developments Are Our Fault

Cross-posted by request from Substack with the full knowledge that nothing in here feels cozy because I feel just as guilty as anyone. Sorry, guys. Tried to end on a hopeful note?

Remember how I said I’d be using the paid tier for follow-up pieces to talk about something I wanted to say in the main public essay but felt was just a little too spicy to devote b...

Bonus Caturday Content: A Very Normal Cat Being Normal

IS THIS THE END FOR TOTORO? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT...

(Also do not judge my unscrubbed shower)

Yes, my very normal, very petite ragdoll Totoro lies despondently in the shower like a fluffy Norma Desmond. But don't be fooled. This one looks fancy as fuck but he is 100% BROTORO in the soul. He's a pure fratjock, Channing Tatum's cat form. Friendly, handsome, not, like super smart, but fun for all seasons. 

Though he does not eat wet food, if you open a can...

Aduiography Playlist Volume 16 is Live!

Pink in the house!

For your ears (and minds) to enjoy.

To be fair, I will only provide the link to the playlist here - you can  share it if you choose! But initial access will only be through this site, for all patrons.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77pRlCRBSP7rmdQzIH8Fug?si=55d67f77133b4f79

Mark F**king Zuckerberg Is Not Your Friend

Crosspoted from Substack even though it's not cozy because I feel this is pretty damn important to get out now while the beast is young.

You know, I had other things I wanted to yell about. I have about five essays in my drafts folder about like, deep systemic issues and big bad shadows on the horizon. And I have like three jobs, all of which are screaming for my attention.

But I cannot believe what I’m seeing these last few days. You have got to be kidding...