I am a disappointment to my cats
October 14, 2026 • No Comments
It is no secret that felines catalogue the shortcomings of their humans. Judgment radiates around them like a force field shot from their whiskers. The servant classes (those with two legs) are slow, clumsy and painfully slow to anticipate their needs. Plus, we use silly voices.
Their attitude is never so acute as at Halloween. Note that I share my space with two black cats, so the date has special significance. Somewhere between fever dreams of tuna and fields of catnip, they imagine themselves familiars in want of a proper witch. In a just world, October 31 would see them frolicking with bats and Jack o’ lanterns around a bonfire instead of watching their human watch Netflix and scarf down fun size candy bars. It’s a sad fate, a kind of gray sad fraught with poetic ennui. They sigh and stare out the window, or perhaps at a blank wall, and pretend to see aliens.
It could be worse. There is the chance they might be forced to wear dumb costumes and have their picture taken. They anticipate this, and plot my demise with Shakespearean gravitas just in case.
I concede that their world is short on dignity as well as dancing skeletons. The closest thing to a coven at hand is my writing group, and our only incantations—primarily curse words—involve punctuation and the Amazon algorithm. Most of us can’t even drive (broom)stick. We are entirely unfit for purpose. All any cat can do is fling themselves dramatically across the keyboard like a starlet of the silver screen bravely greeting an oncoming train. A feeble gesture, but there is dignity in protest.
As the author of their disappointment, I am obliged to demonstrate sympathy. Ear rubs. Treats. Assurances that they are the most fearsomest wee fluffies ever. I receive the radiant glares of death, but then I break out the lickable treat tubes. We negotiate forgiveness with lapping tongues, and I am admitted back into their good graces.
Tricks. Treats. The only magic spells that matter are the ones that work.
In Praise of Little Things
October 11, 2026 • No Comments
We’re told to keep gratitude journals, and I am certain some better human beings (better than me, at least) actually do that. Because I lean into multi-tasking, I have managed to be grateful and slothful simultaneously. Still, there is merit in counting our blessings. Yes, let there be praise and thanks for the little things in life. In this cray-cray world, we need attainable morsels of joy. 
Really, there are so many things that make me happy in the moment—when the coffee is excellent and the sun warm on our faces. The play of music and silence, the scent of autumn woods, or the softness of a freshly laundered blanket. These are plentiful gifts—all we need to do is slow down and notice them. Today I am thankful for the cat sleeping on my feet.
We can create our own bits of contentment, sometimes from very basic places. A ten second pause to clean one’s glasses. Organizing a drawer. Getting the seatbelt adaptor out of the package and installed so buckling up isn’t synonymous with strangulation. Minor irritants get overlooked because a bigger fire is more urgent. And yet, life is so much better the instant we give ourselves permission to deal with it. Today I am thankful for finally fixing the hallway door so that the knob no longer comes apart in my hand.
There are plenty of other joys, such as chatting with friends and family, remembering or being remembered on a birthday or holiday, or simply doing someone a kindness. Giving the wave when another car lets you past. Smiling at the neighbor. Filling up the bird feeder. It feels good to be part of the positive energy exchange that makes up life. Today I am grateful that I phoned my aunt to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving, and unexpectedly connected with my cousin, too.
There is one common thread here—paying attention to the world around us, to our wants and needs, or to the other beings sharing our space. Gratitude requires perception and intention; we must notice and respond to things before we’re thankful for them. This is especially important when our attention has become a commodity every advertiser and media platform demands. Their job is not to generate a sense of peace and contentment, but to make us want what they’re selling. Kind of the opposite of thankfulness, and I don’t need that energy.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about swearing off screen time, although I take what I see there with a grain of salt. I enjoy my smart phone, but I try to budget my time, slow down and enjoy the real world, too.
And when that office mate pops by mid-afternoon with a box of cookies? Truly, it’s a gift from the cosmos to help me past the afternoon slump. Of course I give the event a precious piece of my attention, and a great many thanks.
Grandmacore for the Win
September 20, 2026 • No Comments
When I was in school, the subject of home economics was, to put it politely, considered past its prime. Homemade clothes were uncool, and acceptable snacks were of an unnatural chemistry impossible to replicate in a common kitchen. Scratch cooking was woefully Little House on the Prairie or, for the grimly imaginative, witches of Macbeth.
But that was then. Now there’s a sudden resurgence of “analog” crafts, aka Grandmacore hobbies, especially among younger consumers. For those who remember disdaining Home Ec, one might be forgiven a touch of whiplash as sewing, knitting, quilting, baking, gardening, and canning trend like mad. After years of having to hunt for supplies, retail options cram my social media feed.
Why? Breaking free of the relentless doom scroll is an obvious reason to take up, well, just about any hobby. A pastime that hones life skills is even better. Both the pocketbook and the landfill benefit if one knows how to mend or cook a basic meal: less waste, less packaging, more value. And, something made by human hands is just nicer, whether it’s a Christmas gift or dinner. It carries a bit of the maker with it in a lovely and personal way.
Peak Grandmacore includes canning and preserving. I’ve done a little, so when the subject came up among friends, I stuck my hand up to participate in a pickle-making session as I had some of the necessary equipment. So it was that three of us gathered to produce six dozen jars of crunchy dill delights. For anyone curious, this is the basic recipe we used. 
One friend purchased the cucumbers and dill from a local farmer, so they were absolutely fresh when they arrived in my kitchen, still smelling of sunshine and a salt bath. The next hours were all about fragrant spices, sparkling clean jars, chatter, snacks, steam, and shared work. Women have always known how to divide and conquer complex tasks—just ask Macbeth’s witches. There is a magical connection in shared physical labor that can’t be replicated online.
And here’s another reason to break out the ladles and crochet hooks—community. Sewing bees and quilting circles have long existed as an excuse for getting together based on shared crafting goals. Friendship and creative communion are a powerful mix. It’s living real life in the best possible way.
My grandmother—the one who taught me how to bake when I could barely reach the counter—would be gratified that the younger generations are finally figuring this out.
Dill pickle recipe:
Here are the ingredients we used:
For the bottom of each quart jar:
1/8 tsp calcium chloride (for crispness)
1tsp mustard seeds
1tsp black peppercorns
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
2 or 3 peeled garlic cloves
Head and ferns of fresh dill (put some on top as well)
The brine recipe:
8 cups water + 8 cups vinegar + heaping 1/3 cup of granulated sugar.
These are the very basic instructions. I recommend watching this video , especially if you haven’t used a water bath for canning before. Put the spices in sterilized canning jars, fill with clean pickling cucumbers and top with brine (leave about ½ inch at the top). Poke with a chopstick to release any bubbles. Seal until finger tight. Process in a water bath per instructions in the video. Let cool and then tighten seal. Leave 4 to 6 weeks before consuming.
Please note this process involves pots of boiling water and other hot equipment. Although I paid the price in feline wrath afterward, I locked my oh-so-curious cats upstairs during the process for everyone’s safety.
Autumn Haunts
September 6, 2026 • 1 Comment
The weather is hinting at the spooky season. It’s not the cold, although long sleeves and fleece are making their way from the back of the closet. Nor is it the dark—at least not completely. It’s the mood, sweet and mellow as the scent of leather-bound books. It’s the mist on spider webs and the call of geese at sunset. This season unfolds old memories like a paper fan.
My thoughts turn to new creative projects in the fall. Perhaps it is the golden-syrup light, or the sense of turning inward. This is the time of quiet reflection, not the intoxication of riotous bloom. It is the time to hunt ghosts.
A half-remembered idea took me to the older parts of town, where the past seeps through the soot-stained bricks. Words spoken a hundred years gone linger just beyond hearing. A story hides there, around the corner. A shadow of what was, or what it wanted to be if it could choose again.
If I pursue, it will vanish. One can’t chase these haunts with the enthusiasm of a toddler scattering chickens. These autumn shades must be coaxed with offerings of stillness. They evade possession like feral cats among the fallen leaves. The only avenue is patient communion, lingering among books and in coffee houses and courting a certain eloquent mood.
There the story may visit. If I am lucky, I will come away with a voice, an image, or an emotional thumb print to build on. The first warp on the loom. Gently, gently, it must be captured. One unwanted distraction and it dissolves back into the autumn dusk.
If the hunt goes well, a thread is caught—the idea, the whisper, the gift the ghost can offer. It will demand a new weaving, a manifestation built from fresh imagination. That was the blood bargain made in the moment the past touched the living. Once summoned, the haunt is in pursuit of you.
Victorian Science Through the Female Lens
August 23, 2026 • No Comments
Mary Somerville (1780 – 1872) was a prominent mathematician and the author of several books on science that were important in their day. She was born in Scotland, largely self-educated, and rose from very modest means to play a leading role among the literati. Her writings examined everything from astronomy to the microscopic, and were aimed to synthesize and illuminate the leading concepts of the day for like-minded peers.
I had never heard of her before picking up the biography, Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind by Kathryn A. Neeley (Cambridge University Press, 2001). Somerville’s name is attached to a college in Oxford, but not to any “great discovery” that perpetuates her memory, such as Fahrenheit or Edmond Halley of comet fame.
At the height of her influence, science had not yet professionalized to the degree it would later in the Victorian period. Disciplines were not yet in silos—one could be a generalist and know a great deal about the cosmos as well as microscopy, calculus, ferns, and geology. A broad knowledge was considered best for detecting patterns in the universe and the natural laws that guided them. Science was something to discuss in salons and in correspondence, and Somerville was an outstanding networker. Many of her achievements can be traced to her skill with personal connections.
As well as a very broad acquaintance, including the Herschels of astronomy fame, Ada Lovelace, Walter Scott, and countless other notables among science and literature. In 1840, she was honored with a bust in the Royal Academy of Science for her translation and interpretation of Pierre-Simon Laplace’s mathematical tome, The Mechanism of the Heavens. It was the very first representation of a woman on the Royal Society’s premises. Not that she was admitted as a member, of course.
And there is the interesting path that Mary Somerville trod. She had as fine a mind as many of her male peers, which earned her their respect, but what is frequently mentioned in tandem with her intellect is that she did not present as a bluestocking. Instead, she was a very skilled and feminine navigator of societal norms, further blessed by a marvellously supportive husband in Dr. William Somerville (of her first spouse, Samuel Greig, little is said). However, the social delicacy that brought her freedom in life may well have contributed to the ease with which she was crowded from the stage of history. While she was far from self-effacing, she was just too normal.
I looked into Mary Somerville as research for Queen’s Tide since my protagonist, Olivia Fletcher, is also a student of mathematics. There are parallels between their lives—both Olivia and Mary balance between family obligations and the studies they love. Their worlds, however, are very different. As a result, Olivia has far more exciting adventures, while Mary Somerville led a reasonably sane life, free of ravening monsters. I’m fairly sure Mary would not mind, outside of a lingering sorrow that she never had the chance to study the Unseen.
Lessons from the back of the closet
August 8, 2026 • No Comments
Every so often I’m asked how one learns to write. There are a lot of answers to this question, especially given that there are many approaches to writing, such as planner, pantser, and let’s-just-cannonball-into-the-pool. A good tool kit is gathered from a variety of experiences. I picked up techniques writing as an academic, for newspapers, and eventually as a fiction writer, and blended them together into a method that works for me.
Recently, I was excavating a closet and discovered a long row of binders containing the many, many articles I wrote as a freelancer for various newspapers. They covered 13 years of work and took up far too much space. Following the advice of assorted downsizing experts, I scanned them and only kept a few clippings for scrapbook memories. This was the least painful way I could think of to let go of a body of work that defined me until the papers I worked for stopped paying for freelance arts coverage.
Going through the lot piece by piece reminded me of many fabulous people and performances, old friends and teachers, and my own musical experiments. It also reminded me (yes, I’m getting to a point) how much that work informed my fiction career.
First, I learned to write to particular specifications in terms of content, length, style, and anything else the editor asked for, including deadlines and revisions. In other words, I was far better prepared to navigate traditional publishing houses.
Second, I learned how to ask questions and, better yet, listen. The art of the interview is essentially digging for gold while under a time pressure. It’s getting beyond the obvious to the emotional truth that’s not in the press release. The right question may reveal the mainspring of an artistic genius, and sometimes it results in a good shared laugh. I’m thinking about (among many others) the internationally-acclaimed instrumental soloist who invited me over to look at his train set, and the opera singer who confessed that performing is better than sex. Those were very human and entirely unpredictable moments.
Interviews are handy in terms of research, and they’re also incredible grounding for characterization. People are layered, complex, contradictory, brilliant, and breathtaking. They contain the gloriously unexpected, and so should characters in fiction. In other words, create far, far beyond the archetype and write the character no one else could duplicate.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, I learned to pick through a mountain of information and tell a story in a set number of words. The obvious thread is usually not the right one. The process is all about sifting, connecting, and bringing the most impactful narrative to life. Also, the writer must make it hooky, snappy, and exciting for an audience who will quickly move on to something else with more pizzazz. This is exactly what commercial fiction requires.
In short, I learned a ton of transferrable skills as a newspaper writer. Even though the industry changed dramatically, and I moved on to greener pastures, it served as a kind of apprenticeship. Of course, fiction writing requires more in the toolbox than what I’ve mentioned here, but I had an excellent starter kit when I got serious about constructing novels. I’m absolutely grateful to those editors who put me through my paces back in the day. It was humbling and occasionally frustrating, but I learned by doing, which is how I learn best. Call it artisanal intelligence—entirely from scratch.
Dead Mice Tell No Tales, or, the Supernatural Cat
July 12, 2026 • No Comments
I recently browsed through a book that celebrated the relationship between felines and literature. Many famous writers enjoyed whiskered companions—Hemingway, for instance—and I personally agree that furry company makes the long hours of word-wrangling more pleasant.
Likewise, cats feature in the history of painting and music. Perhaps it is because of their sleek beauty and unmatched grace. Or perhaps it is because they are touched by a sense of the uncanny. The magical. I would go so far as to say supernatural, for how else can a tiny kitten barf hairballs with the prowess of a demon from The Exorcist?
Cats are the customary companion to witches, mostly because witches have a warm hearth, interesting leftovers (yummy eye of newt, anyone?), and the kind of free-wheeling lifestyle that doesn’t include vets or rules about scratching furniture. Witches aren’t bothered by a fey sprite of a pussycat prancing on the rooftop and yowling with spine-shuddering volume at 3:00 am. Or, maybe they are but the cat doesn’t care.
The feline’s reputation as a familiar comes from their ability to mediate between the realms of the living and the dead. This can be seen in the most domesticated of the species, who stare at empty corners with luminous, lamp-like eyes. They see what we don’t. They also walk between worlds, disappearing and reappearing at random moments, typically where they’re not supposed to be. They judge us and the ghosts equally.
The same applies to those who become companions to the undead. Most assume vampires do not keep pets, but a feline’s predatory and nocturnal nature makes them good companions. Besides, a creature with nine lives pairs better with an immortal, who appreciates the more enduring bond.
Cats are indifferent to the histrionic highs and lows of the vampire lifestyle. Their disgust is unmatched when the vampire (like a child licking the icing off a cupcake) takes the juicy bits of its prey and leaves the rest. Cats enjoy the silk and velvet lining of the coffins—just another box to sit in—while they deplore the undeads’ lack of a warm lap. No sense of supernatural dread ever ruffles their fur. Despising all two-legged pretenders, cats consider themselves the best hunter in the room and will occasionally bring their vampire a mouse treat to prove it.
Felines are nowhere as enthusiastic about shifters. Any creature who would voluntarily assume human shape is suspect at best. Werewolves are far better off sharing a bowl of kibble with their doggy companions while watching the game. As for selkies, merfolk, and such watery individuals, no cat will deign to consider that much damp.
Requiem for a Mall Rat
June 21, 2026 • No Comments
I grew up during the era of mall rats. My high school was across the street from the local mall, which boasted two major department stores and scores of boutiques—including the cool places that appealed to teens. I snuck out of more than one gym class with my friends to window-gaze beneath the glare of shop clerks. I had no money, so it was the thrill alone that drew me.
These days, alas, department stores are giving the dinosaurs a run for their money in extinction’s greatest hits. Mall rats have jumped ship for online shopping, and their elders worship at the altar of Big Box. The reasons for this change are complex—wages, price points, the problem of retailing all things to all people—but the result is clear: the mall belongs to the past.
It makes me sad, and not just in a nostalgic way. Department stores were an important third space—not home, nor the office, but a place to go and gossip with friends. Designed to attract middle-class women, they once had tea rooms, fashion shows, and elegant change rooms with obsequious attendants. More importantly, visiting them was an occasion shared with other females in one’s community. They had a societal role as much as a commercial one.
When they first came into existence in the Victorian era, they were a natural descendant of the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, where eye-catching goods from everywhere in the world were displayed under one roof. Within a generation, “universal providers” came into being and, from them, the department store as we know it.
They were one of the first places women could legitimately go without a chaperone. With the advent of the railway, those resident in the newly established suburbs of London could easily hop a train and go for a day of shopping. Women quickly took advantage of this unaccustomed ease of movement that gave them time away from the restrictions of the home.
Naturally, there was initial moral panic. The Victorian ideal of womanhood, that innocent angel of the hearth, was mobile, in public, and engaging in commerce unattended! Where was the modesty? The critics deemed this new practice immoral. Society was doomed.
Perhaps, but there was money to be made. Cash won over fears of moral turpitude, and the phenomenon of women in public spaces flourished. We can thank these early consumers for claiming space and the right to enjoy it for pleasure. It’s no coincidence that many women’s clubs—hotbeds of outrageous notions such as female suffrage—were situated in London’s West End shopping district. So were other amenities, like comfortable eating establishments and the advent of decent public restrooms. The fairer sex was no longer confined to the home—they had won their place in the city’s teeming streets.
Of course, women now have rights and privileges our historical sisters barely dreamed of. We don’t need shopping malls to enjoy ourselves in public. Nevertheless, I feel a pang when I see another shuttered store. Once upon a time, they gave us a playground—and public freedoms—that we badly needed. This should not be forgotten as we retire to our couch to spend time with shopping apps.
For a deeper dive into this subject, I recommend Erika Diane Rappaport’s Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End, Princeton University Press, 2000.
Celery with Attitude
June 7, 2026 • No Comments
‘Tis the season of rhubarb. That means rhubarb pies, jams, crisps, and all kinds of baked goods until, for those of us that grow it, we’re tossing bagsful into the freezer because we can’t face one more mouth-puckering stalk.
Some call it celery with attitude. It is insanely resilient once established, barely needing humans to do more than turn the hose on it once in a while. Where entire settlements have vanished, patches of garden rhubarb have gone wild, providing archaeologists with reliable clues where to start looking for signs of forgotten habitations. More than one Gold Rush ghost town in the Pacific Northwest can be identified via a trail of the plants. When humanity ends, it will still be thrusting its plate-sized leaves into the apocalyptic light.
It’s been used for medicinal purposes since time immemorial, starting in China and traveling the Silk Road to eastern Europe, where it rapidly marched westward all the way to North America. The only limitation on its spread is that it likes cool winters, so it’s most prolific in the north. It is still used medicinally for digestive issues, essentially as a purgative (note: the leaves contain oxalic acid, which can be poisonous, so only the stalks are used). It also makes frequent appearances in “spring tonic” recipes as it’s one of the first fresh vegetables (yes, it’s a vegetable) to show up after the snow melts. It’s high in Vitamin K, C, and calcium.
Sometimes called the pie plant, it frequently co-stars in the kitchen with strawberries. I like it with ginger. In any event, rhubarb wasn’t regarded as a culinary option until the advent of the sugar trade in the eighteenth century, when there was sufficient sweetness available to balance out its acid personality.
Paradoxically, rhubarb is associated with the goddess of love, Venus, and her son Cupid, presumably because it’s a Valentine-y red. Or maybe the link is the sharp sting of arrows? In other folklore, it features in cleansing spells, for getting rid of whatever has outlived its usefulness. That, at least, makes sense to me. Rhubarb is all about the pleasant pucker that chases away any other lingering flavors.
Here is a recipe that makes the most of rhubarb’s tartness.
Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins
Yields 1 dozen
Sift dry ingredients:
2 cups of flour*
1 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup of brown sugar (packed)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
*The type of flour is flexible. 1 for 1 gluten free, half white/half whole wheat, or spelt all work
Whisk together:
2 eggs
½ cup melted butter
½ cup kefir or buttermilk
Tablespoon lemon juice
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in wet mixture. Mix lightly and fold in:
½ cup chopped strawberries
½ cup chopped rhubarb
Divide into greased muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes
Enjoy!
Come to the Arcadian Delights
April 26, 2026 • No Comments
Spending a night on the tiles is an old reference to cats prowling the neighborhood roofs and getting up to no good. When a human
spends a night on the tiles, we don’t think of them as literally prancing from rooftop to rooftop, unless one lives in the Hellion House universe. There, anything can and probably does happen, sometimes with unexpected consequences.
In the walled city of Londria, space is limited and wandering beyond the city gates is likely to get one eaten by monsters. Rooftop gardens connected by aqueducts that supply the domestic needs of many citizens. In turn, the aqueducts supply the needs of characters in need of high stakes acrobatics, but more on that later.
Gardens can be for more than food production. There are those dedicated to medicines (and poisons), those that cultivate the rare and the beautiful, and there is plenty of historical precedent for pleasure gardens.
Readers of historical romance will know all about Vauxhall Gardens, which was established before the Restoration and reached its commercial peak in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It offered music, entertainment, food, and endless rambling pathways where one could see and be seen in the latest fashions. There was a whiff of scandal, too, as it was the perfect setting for secret assignations amongst the shrubberies, especially since it was famed for its nighttime displays.
Londria has its own version of Vauxhall, the Arcadian Delights. As an outdoor entertainment, it has many of the same features, with the added hazard that those shrubberies end in a very long drop to the pavement below. This adds a soupcon of excitement to any heated disputes that arise between rivals, not to mention a cautionary tale for those who like their wine a little too much.
Naturally, without hundreds of acres to work with, the architects of Londria’s garden had to get creative. It spreads over numerous rooftops in the prime shopping districts, spanned by ornamental foot bridges. The irregular rooftop levels are thoughtfully harnessed into the design, providing a platform for aerial acrobats, exotic aviaries, and artfully framed spreads of flowering trees. Platforms of ornamental ironwork are worked with jewel-like lights, the better to enjoy night vistas of the city.
Of course, gardeners can’t just replicate a regular garden. This is essentially container gardening on a grand scale. And, although most species could flourish many stories up, not all pollinators fly so high. Nature has adapted for such issues before—magnolias have existed longer than bees and butterflies and developed thick petals to accommodate beetles as their primary pollinator. However, given a much shorter historical timeline, species adaptable to heights are selected. The gardeners keep bees and bats as well as vivariums for the butterflies, thus establishing an entire ecosystem far above street level.
Given the views, and the safety of the rooftops, the Arcadian Delights are particularly popular at night. Besides the entertainment and lighting displays, night blooming plants are on display—moonflower vines, night phlox, and a variety of succulents brought by airship from far-off lands.
It might seem odd to think of such an extravagant pleasure garden in a city constantly battling for survival. And yet, there are those who always put their own enjoyment first, and ensure that they are seen doing it. Historically, such places were made by and for kings—think of the Sun King and Versailles. For all their loveliness, ornamental gardens have a meaning beyond beauty. Their very existence is a symbol of ascendancy, of creating a playground for those who can afford power.
And where there is power there is implicit danger for the unwary. Not just anyone takes the steam-powered lift to reach the Arcadian Delights. There are gatekeepers, and there are rules one is wise to obey. Putting a foot wrong could mean a long and literally fatal fall from grace.