E. H. Lupton

A blue green monster with axolotl ears and a forked tongue. It has three eyes and upper teeth.

Another view of the monster.

I finished this guy for the 8yo last week. He picked out all the yarn and the pattern. I...did all the crocheting.

The monster is from the Crochet Monsters book.

The 4yo is a big fan. (I mean, so are the rest of us. But arguably the ratio of fandom to body mass is the greatest with him.)

The 8yo is worried our remaining dog is sad now that Maya is gone. I suggested we could take him to the dog park.

4yo: There are no people allowed in the dog park.

Me: Uh, wh—

4yo: There are no people or dogs allowed in the dog park.

My husband, hearing about this later: this is your fault.

Word Suitcase is always a good read if you are an etymology nerd like me. You should subscribe!

Writing with resistance, imagining a better future. October 4–5, 2025. Rainbow Space Magic. Logo: A fountain pen draws a circle around the letters RSM, ending in a little flying dragon and a ringed planet. Background: An expansive starry sky.

Did you miss this year's #RainbowSpaceMagic this weekend?

No problem! Recordings of the keynote with @sammaggs.bsky.social, the panels, readings, & the chat with @othersidespec.bsky.social are all on our YouTube channel

youtube.com/playlist?lis...

I had it once get mad because I put "el caballo" when it wanted "la equina(?)," and then it switched every time we revisited my mistake.

I think it went well. I don't think I've ever read fresh, unedited work for a crowd, so this was an exciting and terrifying experience for me.

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Having decided to read from the new top secret project at @spacemagiccon.bsky.social tomorrow, I guess it would be super cool if I somehow came up with a title for it between now and then. So that's (checks clock) 14 hrs 15 min to figure it out.

Maya Angelou the Dog, DFA. A red Shiba Inu on a parquet floor looking at the photographer questioningly.

Thank you.

She was a good dog. I know I'm not alone in observing that it is the greatest unfairness that dogs don't live forever, but man. It has been a rough few days.

Decorative Gourd Season – PretenseSoup

In case you missed it, the October newsletter is up on my blog: ehlupton.com/2025/10/03/d...

Cooler stuff next month, I promise.

Tomorrow & Sunday! Two days talking about queer speculative fiction! Free & virtual, register at rainbowspacemagic.org 🌈🚀🪄

One is so mother when one illuminates the shadows.

But Lupton is also half my last name, so maybe it's different. I don't know how fully pseudonymous authors handle it. I guess it depends how secret you want to be.

I always sign myself E.H. Lupton (sometimes with Em in parentheses), and then if we need to exchange $$, I just put my full last name on the contract.

I think the problem is, some places are very finicky about MS format (probably as a way to weed people out) and some don't care. (Which makes sense to me—it's a word doc, just put it in the typeface you like.)

I think usually when you prepare your manuscript, you put your real name and email in the upper left corner, and then the title and your pen name are centered mid-first page.

www.shunn.net/format/story/ is the format usually referenced.

A lot of our neighbors are furloughed, and one is busy using a chainsaw to cut some tree trunks into boards to build a bookshelf. I don't understand how this is possible. I can barely cut slices of tofu of equal thickness.

For what it's worth, I was finally forced to upgrade when windows 10 updates started breaking my old laptop, and I have uninstalled all the genAI features and it's basically fine.

Join us this weekend for 2 days about queer speculative fiction!

(And my panel 👇 in particular :-) )

Seduced by the Sorcerer, by Lee Welch. Although it depends on what you think of "exploring" to mean--the POV character already knows he's dominant when he gets together with the other MC, although they explore the dynamic together. (But they're both over 40, which is nice.)

Are there people out there who need to pay $120 to have someone manage their ARC? Probably. Am I one of them? No.

I got an email for a firm offering services that include Social Media Content Creation for $275/month! I want you all to know I'm out here making up these random thoughts FOR FREE!

And so everyone makes a profit, because everyone owns a share.

I remember really enjoying Murakami's book, but I don't know how it plays for people who are not both runners and writers.

Also, to my darling newsletter subscribers, I thought today was Sept. 31st or something, so the newsletter will not be out until Friday.

I think my colleagues think I'm usually late for scrum because I'm a harried parent and mornings are the worst, which is true, but I also drove out of the way because the 4yo wanted to see as many skeleton yard decorations as he could.

During the great flood of 2018, our local Costco was noted for letting a bunch of people stay the night there.

If you're feeling very fancy, when you make your ginger simple syrup, throw some lemon or lime juice in there to get ginger citrus simple syrup. Very exciting stuff.

I refuse to give you any quantities. You can measure this shit with your heart.

A grocery store would be a great environment for a romance because there's so much gossip potential. I work from home as a code monkey and see my colleagues once a year. There's no gossip there. The best they get is an occasional pic of my cat on slack.