Jessica Peter

Thank you! 😊

I'm thrilled to join Haven Spec as Poetry Editor! Excited to dig into the beautiful mountain of spec poetry - the vivid, the emotional, the lyrical, the strange, the dark, the climate-conscious, the bittersweet, the idea-driven, the magical, the otherwordly, the weird. . . and everything else!

Congrats! It's going right onto my TBR! I loved A Haunted History of Invisible Women.

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Oh no, what!? That would be not great for my day job...

Grouchy writer rant: don’t put this in your guidelines if you want me to take you seriously “Simultaneous Submissions: Don’t. This is the fastest way to get on our list.” Especially from a token or nonpaying market. If. You dont want sim subs, fine, but sim subbing writers are not criminals 🙄

Sami Tamimi's 'Boustany' An excerpt, a recipe, and a giveaway

He also gives an excerpt (and bread recipe!) from Sami Tamimi's Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables From My Palestine, and there's an offer of a signed copy and tote bag if you donate to one of the Gaza relief organizations newsletter.wordloaf.org/sami-tamimis...

Bread, not as sustenance, but as leverage On Gaza right now

Seeing my favourite bread newsletter (@wordloaf.org) post about the starvation in Gaza made me tear up - important to see food writers as well advocating for Palestinians (also includes some links to where you can send financial support on-the-ground) newsletter.wordloaf.org/bread-not-as...

Enslaved Blacks invented blue jeans A few weeks ago, on Feb. 14 to be exact, I tweeted the following:

So I vaguely recalled in the wake of Sweeney jeans ad discourse (which I was genuinely trying to avoid) that at some point I thought I learned that Black people gave us jeans — I just couldn’t recall the source until today. There is a doc which this article summarizes, with sources cited. Cheers.

We need to teach people the difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe. Because the discomfort of the safest people is endangering the most vulnerable, all day every day.

I've seen 2 Hamilton Fringe shows & they were both bangers!

--> The Pole Shebang - touching, funny, interactive, IMPRESSIVELY athletic memoir via pole-dancing

--> Ugly Privilege - standup comedy that really hit for me. On autism, queerness, & being a weird little guy

Going through Sun! #HamOnt

Stop Pretending Chatbots Have Feelings: Media's Dangerous AI Anthropomorphism Problem When AI causes harm, headlines blame the bot instead of the billion-dollar companies that built them. This anthropomorphic coverage is tech journalism at its worst.

Today's newsletter: The Wall Street Journal says ChatGPT had a "stunning moment of self reflection." NBC says Grok "issued an apology." This lazy language isn't just bad writing — it's helping tech companies dodge responsibility for real harm. www.readtpa.com/p/stop-prete...

Very nice article on speculative poetry!

Unbound/Boundless who no longer have the rights to sell my book are still selling it for FUCKING $4 on Amazon. Talk about some shady fucking shit. Trying to burn through the inventory THEY NO LONGER HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO SELL before they are forced to send me the remaining stock. Weasels.

Mmeory: A genre spanning anthology of memory manipulation An anthology of memory manipulation stories: magic spells, cyborg memory edits, very unreliable narrators, time travel gone wrong.

“Mmeory” is a multi genre anthology of memory manipulation stories on KS. Cheering for a surge this week - 87% base funded ($727 to go). Our recent updates are about choosing authors and designing covers - www.kickstarter.com/projects/526... #sff #fantasy #book #ks #booksky

Diet, hydration best way to get electrolytes My husband was given a small jar of an electrolyte powder by a friend and has decided to take it on a daily basis. He is 76 years old, sedentary, a bit overweight and has high blood pressure. Might ta...

Electrolyte supplements are generally not necessary! Just a good balanced diet should do it ("vegetables, leafy greens, fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes, dairy products, certain fish and seafood, and lean meats") -here's a good answer from some docs at UCLA www.uclahealth.org/news/article...

Woo hoo, congrats!

One of the reasons I think “defund the police” is a great slogan is that you get to repeatedly tell people that studies show that police don’t actually solve murders, and in fact one-third of stranger-murders are committed by police.

Screenshot from The Hamilton Spectator. Man painting a mural of the back of Shai-Gilgeous Alexander as he gets a basket in a net (text says "Updated May 12, 2025; Work continued on a mural of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the north wall of Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School Friday)

Oh awesome! Yep, that's us too. I heard he was a favourite to win MVP so it's exciting that he landed it - and that a hometown guy got it! I think his mural should be done by now but I haven't been down that way...

Congrats Chris! Happy book birthday!

5 Non-Fiction Medical Horror Books from Howl Society Book Club. Image of 5 book covers. Taste for Poison, Black Death and the Golden Gate, Crisis in the Red Zone, The Butchering Art and Still Life with Bones.

Here is a list of 5 dark medical non-fiction books from our very own @jessicapeter.bsky.social! Join our Discord for a lively discussion! howlsociety.com/2025/04/29/h...

Thanks to @paulinechow.bsky.social for the photo!

Jessica Peter sits in a conference room at GritLit

Had a lovely time moderating a panel on horror at @gritlitfestival.bsky.social last night with Cheryl Isaacs, Pasha Malla, and AGA Wilmot! Thanks to everyone who made it out to our later night session. #HamiltonReads2025

COURIER OF THE SKIES BY CAIT GORDON CAN BE NOMINATED IN THE PRIX AURORA AWARD BEST SHORT STORY CATEGORY! An undercover disabled pilot defies a eugenics governing system to courier much-needed cargo to the Network, but the Welliams are onto her. Vote to nominate this and other works at csffa.ca until April 5, 2025! First published in SPRING INTO SCIFI 2024 EDITION! Also featured is the cover of the anthology on a tablet. The cover is a blue space background with a spaceship.

BEV THE HACKER DOES TIME BY CAIT GORDON, CAN BE NOMINATED IN THE PRIX AURORA AWARD BEST SHORT STORY CATEGORY! A teen girl begins her community service at a seniors residence after hacking the intragalactic network to route all sexy searches to display laxative commercials. But for some weird reason, there doesn't seem to be any "old people" anywhere! Vote to nominate this and other works at csffa.ca until April 5, 2025! Thanks so much for your consideration First published in LAUGHS IN SPACE! The image also shows the cover of the book within a tablet. On the cover is an egg cup with a planet on it. And dangling from the planet is a little happy face ornament.

LAST DAY to cast your votes to nominate works for the #2025PrixAuroraAwards! Learn more about how to vote at https://csffa.ca!

Voting closes TODAY at 11:59 EST on April 5, 2025.

As I’ve mentioned, I have two works eligible for Best Short Story! Enjoy nominating all your faves! Cheers! #SFF

screenshot from the auction. Character Name: select a name to be used in a horror short story by Hailey Piper. Beneath is a screenshot of Adrienne Barbeau in John Carpenter's The Fog, speaking into the radio mic "(Your name here), you're on the air, which is full of fog.)"

Today begins the Crime Writers for Trans Rights Auction! A couple hundred or so authors have donated items to be auctioned off in support of The Transgender Law Center from Kellye Garret, Gillian Flynn, Roxane Gay, S.A. Cosby, and more, including me with this:
www.32auctions.com/organization...

If you're in HWA and haven't voted on the Stoker preliminary ballot yet, you're running out of time! oh whoops I dropped this link to my short story that's on the list, my bad

True then. True now. Thank you, Willem Arondeus.

Clarkesworld Magazine is an American online science fiction and fantasy magazine known for publishing short stories by authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Kij Johnson, and Caitlín R. Kiernan. The magazine has been praised for its high-quality content and diverse range of stories, but has also faced criticism for publishing AI-generated stories. FALSE

Seriously Google? How does your "AI" get "but has also faced criticism for publishing AI-generated stories" from the countless news stories written about us NOT WANTING GENERATED STORIES and actively fighting against them. Oh wait, it's not actually intelligent, is it? Just bullshit all the way down

gritLIT After Dark: Horror — gritLIT In their three chilling new books, Cheryl Isaacs ( The Unfinished ), Pasha Malla ( All You Can Kill ), and AGA Wilmot ( Withered ) bring haunting narratives to life, each pulling readers into an...

I'm going to be hosting an event @gritlitfestival.bsky.social this year!

Join me for "gritLIT After Dark: Horror" with Cheryl Isaacs, @agawilmot.bsky.social, and @pas-mal.bsky.social on Sat April 26 #HamOnt

www.gritlit.ca/festival-eve...

Yes! Separated by genre, then alphabetical by title, with a special caveat for some size issues to make shelf space(e.g. all mass market paperback romances together and any rare hard covers or the new weirdly tall paperbacks are separated)