Ghost Post: February 2026

It’s February, and as your local Valentine’s Day apologist, you know I always want to write about love in February. I wrote in a February Ghost Post past about my friend who changed my tune on Valentine’s: how her joyful and fervent celebration of the day as a time to recognise all the people— friends, partners, family, and community members—in her life that she loved helped me find a way to celebrate that felt genuine. I’m not going to sit here and tell you romantic love isn’t important and meaningful if it’s something you want in your life, but I do want to focus today on another kind of love that I’m seeing in the world right now, that I think is important to notice and value and practise.

Since quitting my day job, I ride the metro far less frequently, but a few weeks back I was heading into town for my silent book club. “Platform 1,” I told myself, knowing that without thinking I would instinctively head for platform 2, from whence I got the usual train to work. I looked at the board announcing a train in 20 minutes where there should be one in 5, and sighed. Typical metro. Not even reporting delays.

It wasn’t until I heard the train approaching that I realised I’d somehow still walked myself to platform 2, and my train was about to pull up on platform 1.

I stood up and bolted, up the approximately 8000 steps to ground level, and as I climbed, a group of older men huddled together on the stairs cheered me on. “No, pet, were you on the wrong platform?” Panting miserably, I said as I approached them, “I’m not gonna make it!” In response, they cheered harder. “Go on, lass, you can do it!” Two of them tried to wave to the driver to get him to hold the train for me, despite being absolutely not visible from the front of the train.

Miraculously, unbelievably, I made it. I couldn’t see their hidden corner at the top of the stairs from the train, but I waved back anyway, hoping they could see my gratitude.

My book club meeting was lovely. No one made fun of my accent, a few people wanted to talk to me about the book I’m reading, we all had mediocre cakes. The host insisted on giving me a hug at the metro station as we parted to our different platforms.

Now, I don’t mean to give away local secrets, but there is a trick. The main stop in the city centre is one stop away from the end of the line, and across from the platform I normally take home is the last stop before the end. If the wait on my normal side is too long, people in the know will hop over to the other side, get a seat on the train that’s about to turn around, and sit instead of standing on the platform waiting to depart. (You can use that tip. You can tell them I told you. I don’t want you to have to stand longer than you need to.)

So instead of waiting 12 minutes for my train home, I hopped on the other side, sat down, and opened a book. The driver was walking from one end of the train to the other, and stopped to let me know the train on the other platform would actually depart before he did. “You can catch it if you hurry!” I thanked him and bolted, for the second time that day, up the stairs and down the stairs and around to the other platform.

As we continue to await the verdict of the new immigration laws which may or may not ruin my life, as I continue to hear about the weekly protests against people like me, as we continue to get flyers through the door about political parties dedicated to our eradication, it’s nice to be reminded that that isn’t my whole community. Sometimes love is hoping that stranger makes their train. Sometimes love is hoping your neighbour gets home safe.

I’ve been thinking about that as I watch Minnesota. Reading the news with a stone in my stomach, being horrified, grateful I can still be horrified, knowing we cannot be numb to this, sitting on the floor and sobbing, getting up and reading some more, passing on what I read.

The best things I read are about love. It is inexcusable, indefensible that this is necessary, but there was an alternate world where people didn’t stand up to take their neighbours’ children to school. There was a world where people looked the other way as people are abducted in the streets. There was a world where communities didn’t band together and communicate, didn’t work together, didn’t arm and defend each other, didn’t stand between the fascists and their neighbours. That world isn’t this one. My gods, how lucky we are that world isn’t this one.

I believe that when it comes down to it, we love each other. We love the people around us. We do. We want to be kind to them. We want them to make their train. We want their children to come home to their families, safe and warm. We want our neighbours not to have to carry their papers. I don’t believe this is fundamentally a world of hatred. I believe those who want you to believe that it is have an agenda, and that agenda doesn’t have our best interests at heart.

For approximately the 8 millionth time, I’m recommending Devin Kelly’s Ordinary Plots Substack; I wanted to reiterate some of Essex Hemphill’s poetry Kelly quoted in last week’s essay:

We must keep on loving each other

through the killings,

the secret meetings,

the skin-bleaching commercials,

the charts and graphs

we cannot see.

And:

Out of this confusion

I bring my heart

It would be easy to despair, to give up, to let what the fascists tell us about our world become true. But it isn’t true, and we won’t let it be true. We must keep on loving each other. I believe we will.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone standing outside daycare centres in snow boots. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone blowing whistles when someone is pulled out of their car. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone helping a stranger make their train. Happy Valentine’s Day to the Signal groups, to the organisers, to the information-keepers, to the helpers. Keep on loving each other.

Firstly, I’ve finally put all my short stories and essays up on my website!

I wrote about using folklore and mythology in TTRPG writing, and shared a fake myth I made up for one of my current campaigns. Supporters can read it here on Patreon or here on Ko-fi.

Phantoms got progress updates on a couple of projects, including a first draft snippet from the Hollywood Gods WIP. It's here on Patreon or here on Ko-fi.

I’m running a February special on Ko-fi similar to the Trick or Treat special I did in October. Check it out if you'd like a sweet little drabble!

I came across some poetry I wrote a while back that I meant to post and never did, so that’ll be going up for supporters this month.

The aforementioned TTRPG myth post will go public this month.

There will be a behind the scenes post for Phantoms, as always.

Nothing was coming to me for Author Avengers’ January prompts, but I’m hoping February will shake the cobwebs loose.

My dear friend Kay is a queer children’s librarian who lost their librarian job this summer. She was recently offered and accepted a children’s librarian role across the country, and is seeking mutual aid to cover moving costs. Anything at all helps! Kay also offers a Book Match service on Ko-fi, if you’re looking for some librarian-endorsed reading.

I love Emily’s podcast Art Astra, about the intersections of space studies and the humanities, and the most recent episode with Herb Baker was really cool. I think my great-grandmother’s time at the Johnson Space Center overlapped with his, and I can’t hear about it from her, so it’s nice to hear it from someone who was there!

Lix is offering commissions for logo design and TTRPG-related editing, if you’re in the market for either!

Naomi Kritzer’s guide to helping Minnesota includes ways to help other than financial, if you don’t have funds to spare. It also has tips for preparing for ICE raids in your city.

Some restaurants providing meals to the community are Picnic Linden Hills and Modern Times Cafe.

The reports that inspired this month’s essay are Margaret Killjoy’s report from Minneapolis and this oral history collection.

On the other end of the spectrum from the child who ate Maurice Sendak’s illustration is this hero.

Looney Tunes real!! (Knick Pnack hates the roadrunner sound.)

“Indiana Jones Learns About the Holocaust,” by Joseph Fink.

Jenna Stoeber’s investigation of every game released on Steam in the first week of 2026 was really fascinating.

Caitlin Doughty discusses the Boston Molasses Flood. Hatred of immigrants really is timeless, huh?

Hey. It was a rough January. And January is always rough, but this was a special case. I think we need something delightful. Watch Rachel Maksy and her adorable dogs make some Borrowers-inspired furniture.

Currently Reading: Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

We are all soooooo lucky I didn’t read this in my 20s because I would’ve been sooooooo insufferable about it.

Currently Watching: Dimension 20: Gladlands

I did a mental catalogue of everything I’m watching right now and I truly don’t have anything to say about any of them. Um Actually and Make Some Noise are great decompression shows, Gladlands is delightful (Jacob Wysocki in everything forever please), I’m enjoying Critical Role more than I expected to and I’m very excited to be at a new table in the West Marshes rotation, and I have nothing coherent to say about Goblin/Guardian: The Lonely and Great God except that it’s so good and I’m having such a good time and also crying a lot.

Currently Playing: Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Playing my favourite meta game, “Is it depression, or do I want to tear everything on my island down and re-do it again?” For what it’s worth, the new update is great, and I’m spending more time in the game than I expected to be. Thanks to the hotel’s new DIY thing for helping me clear out my storage! Thanks also to Resetti for refilling my storage with flowers. Net zero.

Currently Listening: I Can Build A Fire by Autoheart

I decided I don’t want to listen to music through streaming services any more and I’m going back to listening to mp3s on my laptop like it’s 2007. I’ve been shuffling my whole music library and rediscovering a lot of older favourites. Far and away, the most songs people go, “Ooh, what’s this?” in response to while my library’s shuffling are Autoheart. This must be the high that real hipsters get from telling people about bands they’ve never heard of. Anyway, “Possibility” is the rhythm Gloria Estefan warned you about, “Before You Came” makes me reconsider another Mass Effect Andromeda playthrough every time I hear it, and you know how sometimes your shuffle just gets stuck on a particular song? I keep getting “Joseph” and I’m not mad about it.

We went through a bit of a roller coaster with Major Knick Pnack this past month, but he’s settled down and back to his usual sweet, brainless self. Working on the theory that part of the problem was he wanted a space that just belongs to him, I got him this bed. He was wholly unsure about it at first – the final boss in his cosy arc – but as you can see, he’s warmed up to it.

Keep in touch on Discord and Revolt, and I’ll see you soon.

29/08/24: I'm Pulling My Books From Draft2Digital

Short version: I am pulling my books from Draft2Digital’s distribution. Ebooks are still available through my Ko-fi shop and paperbacks are available through the end of August. I want to have print copies available again sometime in the future, but I don’t know how long that will be.

Long version:

Apparently generative AI companies have been approaching my book distributor, Draft2Digital, seeking to acquire books distributed through them on which to train their AI. Some authors (not me; I was alerted to this by December on Pillowfort) received an email with a survey link asking how we feel about receiving 1/10 of a cent per word for our work in exchange for training an algorithm to write stories we’ll then have to compete with in the publishing market. For context, bare minimum industry standard is 5 cents a word. We’re being asked to take a fraction of what our work is worth in order to put ourselves out of jobs in the future.

Y’all? I’m miserable about this. I’m angry, I’m exhausted, I’m devastated. It feels like this is happening at every turn and now my fucking book distributor is salivating at selling my work out from under me for pennies so that AI can write stories instead of me.

Right now it’s just a survey. But the fact that they’re even considering it tells me they aren’t trustworthy with my work. I suspect no matter how much pushback they get in the survey, they’re going to do it if they want to do it. I’m not giving them the opportunity to do this to my books.

When I was unemployed and writing was my only income, I resisted wider distribution for so long. Nearly every channel I could find required me to go through Amazon, and I wanted to stick to my guns on not letting Jeff Bezos make one red cent off me as long as I could. But I needed money, and people wanted to buy my books in Real Bookshops (and also Amazon), so I caved. And it was nice! I was grumpy about Amazon making money off me but people bought my books and I could buy groceries. If you bought books from me back then, you cannot know how grateful I was and am, and how much that helped me.

I mention this because there isn’t a mass exodus from D2D brewing. You’re not gonna see every author you know who distributes through them pulling their books. I want to be clear that I’m not making a moral judgment on everyone else. I depended on that book money and so do tons of other authors. We’re all weighing the factors in our lives and figuring out what we can bear to do. Some people are going to take that shitty deal because no money doesn’t pay the bills, and some money, even if it’s insultingly little, does. It isn’t our fault that we’re being put in the position of trading our futures for short-term cash; it is these AI companies and everyone who funds them, it is CEOs who hoard wealth and refuse to adequately compensate the people on whose labour they profit, it is capitalism, full stop. It is the system that’s been created to stop us from doing anything that isn’t making money for the man at the top.

I’m incredibly lucky in many ways, not least of which is that I start a permanent position next week which will allow me not to depend on book income as much. It still certainly helps (especially because I haven’t been paid since July and have had a broken bed and a broken laptop to replace ha ha ha) but I can afford to keep my books safe from exploitative entities.

I hate this. I really do. I wish I could just keep them available. But I really believe in doing the good I’m able to do. One person keeping their books out of the AI training buffet isn’t going to make a huge difference, but it’s four fewer books in the matrix. And if everyone who can afford to pull their books does, that’s even more of a difference. And if they don’t, at least I did what I could.

I had actually been looking vaguely at switching to a different print distributor, so at least that was already on my radar. They charge upfront, and as mentioned previously, I’ve had some financial hits between paychecks, so it’s not going to be an immediate switch. I’m also going to have to talk to them about AI now apparently!! I’ll keep you posted on how that goes. For now, I’m leaving the print books listed through the end of August, which I know isn’t much time. If you want a print copy but can’t afford it right now, let me know and I’ll be happy to get you a copy if you can cover shipping from the UK.

Ebooks are still available through my Ko-fi shop.

As a final note, in case you hadn’t picked up on this, it’s an incredibly demoralising time to be a professional author. If you’re looking for ways to help, genuinely the best advice I can give is to support your favourite authors in the ways they say help them the most. For some people it might be Patreon, for some it might be liking and commenting on YouTube videos. For me, it’s Ko-fi. And if you like someone’s work, it’s always worth saying something. Tell a friend you think might like it, or let the author know what it meant to you.

And don’t fucking use AI.

10/06/24: Authors for Palestine: Free Books for a Good Cause

I've joined over 50 other authors supporting Palestinian families in need through a fundraising giveaway! Here's how it works:

1. Donate to one of the families we've chosen through Operation Olive Branch

2. Fill in the form on our website and attach a screenshot of your donation

3. Receive free books and discount codes as thanks for your help

AND

Be entered in our giveaway to potentially receive even more free books and extras!

All participants will receive a free copy of my queer gothic ghost story romance, The Hunt and the Haunting, plus a code for 50% off everything in my Ko-fi shop. There are also two ebook copies of my novella retelling the myth of Ariadne and Dionysus, Crown of Ivy, up for grabs in the giveaway.

Check out our website for all the details!

25/05/24: Generic Foundational Blog Post Title

Preserving my post about quitting Instagram here:

I grow weary of the internet being run by tech bros who never took an ethics class. Not that it's in the least surprising, but IG is the latest platform to be mined for 'AI' datasets, and so this is where I draw the line. Link for further reading here.

For those who don't understand why artists are upset about AI - which, tangentially, is not artificial intelligence, as it doesn't think for itself but runs an algorithm on aggregated data to find the mode - these bots are fed art and writing taken from artists without either consent or remuneration, then used to approximate our creative work. From a purely ethical standpoint, these bots are trained on stolen art and used to recreate that art without paying the people who made it. From a standpoint valuing human creativity, this is both unforgivably inane and gallingly dismissive. People create art to say things to each other about the world we experience and the things we value. Who cares what the algorithm values? Art is an inherently human endeavour, and the people who create it deserve the resources to live our lives in this capitalist hellscape. Attempts to create a world where art is manufactured by robots and humans are stuck with the menial labour are so backwards it blows my mind.

I'm not a visual artist but my writing has been scraped for AI use without my consent, without my receiving credit or compensation, and without my ability to remove it from that sphere. I don't want to be part of a machine meant to replace writing jobs! I want to GET those writing jobs! But those jobs are being eradicated so that robots can have them instead, and that's supremely uncool.

Please stand with your artist friends. Don't use AI generators and don't feed the bots.