Kate Heartfield
I write weird novels about weird history, plus games and stories. Next novel: MERCUTIO, May 2026. (Mostly) former journalist; currently teaching journalism. From Manitoba, now in Ottawa. She/her. Trans rights or gtfo 🏳️🌈
https://kateheartfield.com
- I kind of like the design of the Canada Olympic gear this time, at least going by the mixed doubles curling.
- Guess what I am building
- Those of you who followed me on Twitter in 2020 may recall my lockdown project was building these hurdy-gurdies by Ugears. They were fun and pretty and technically do play, but they sound Bad.
- I have wanted an actual hurdy-gurdy for many years, but they are pretty expensive and hard to find second hand. A small business in the Netherlands (called Nerdy-Gurdy) has created buildable hurdy-gurdies that have a good reputation as affordable starter or travel instruments. www.nerdygurdy.nl
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View full threadLittle bit of gluing going on over here
- I don't even know where to begin with the Post news. My heart goes out to all the journalists out of work. The loss of books coverage will hit my own industry hard. Just devastating in so many ways.
- Eastern Ontario folks, I saw some cars struggling to stay in the road or already in ditches when I did my school run this morning, including in spots where you wouldn't expect to go off the road. It's just snow but it's the soupy kind that grabs your wheels and makes it hard to brake. Go slow.
- Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard (John Prine)
- Contains one of my favourite Prine couplets: She said Carl, take all the money She called everybody Carl
- I put Neil Gaiman and all his works into the bin a while ago and there he remains. I suppose it is unsurprising that he has not made the slightest personal effort to reckon with the harm he's done, but it sucks to have it confirmed all the same. Solidarity with the women who can't forget he exists.
- Yeah. Fair pay for writers should be a labour issue, not a brass ring. Getting published in a pro mag means you matched the taste/vision/mandate of one of a small group of editors who have, to their credit, figured out a way to pay fairly, which is cool but not the be all and end all of literary art
- When I was starting out, I thought of pro sales as a way to prove to myself and the field that I was worthy, but as I went along and racked up more of them, I began to appreciate more that a pro sale meant I could buy my family a week's worth of groceries with a story, along with reaching readers
- My most interesting stories (at least according to me) have been published across the pay spectrum and where they ended up had more to do with editor taste and fit than anything, imho
- A recent watch I enjoyed: in 1987 John Sayles made a movie called Matewan about the West Virginia coal union wars of 1920, and it stars a delightful Chris Cooper and a young Will Oldham stealing scenes as a teenage preacher and David Strathairn as the skinny badass labour-ally sheriff Sid Hatfield.
- The Writers Union of Canada calls for Alberta to reverse the prejudicial directive targeting published work for removal from school libraries.
- Bonkers that we do the Groundhog Day stuff here even though it makes no sense in 98%* of Canada because "six more weeks of winter after Feb. 2" and "an early spring" are the same picture. *I have had enough smug relatives from Vancouver Island and southern Ontario to allow for exceptions
