Jon Olfert 🌾🍁

And a lot of emphasis this year on 'we'll do what we can afford,' yeah

a black and white image of a rocky landscape Alt: a moon lander flies by to touch down

Just finished The Apollo Murders. Come for the lovingly detailed description of cosmonaut atmospheric valves and helicopter rotor architecture, stay for 'please let the Lunokhod rover survive this, he's been a really good boy.'

@ndarney.bsky.social - you hearing any ripples from the panel report on the BC side of things? What's making it across the border, if anything?

Curled up Friday with cold meds, hot cider, and the report of the Expert Panel on Post-Secondary Funding and Alberta's Competitiveness (Mintz panel). Spent a good chunk of spring on submissions for that; love to see what landed and what bits I predicted. Many questions. Many opinions on lazy takes.

Submissions Broadly defined, the type of fiction we are looking for is “fun”. [Go to Submissions]

Hope you are enjoying your Sunday, or if not at least working on a final polish of a speculative fiction story (5000 words or under) to submit to Translunar Travelers Lounge before the submissions portal closes on the 15th. Details at the link! translunartravelerslounge.com/submissions/

I'm fairly sure this describes three or four Galactic Empire superweapons

Now, that said, hitting their goal two years early means they've outpaced the federally/provincially-funded renovations set up for those years, so there's going to be growing pains - but having watched CSJ wade through external challenge after external challenge for ~6 years, this is pretty cool.

What puts a big smile on my face today: UAlberta's French-speaking Campus Saint-Jean, which has faced many challenges, has record enrolment this year and got to put out a release that leads with "des chiffres historiques et des objectifs pulvérisés." They did in fact PULVERIZE their goals. Go CSJ.

Submissions are OPEN for Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume Four (the best of 2025). Send me your SFF published in 2025, you crazy Canucks! Details on my site at the link below. DON'T SELF REJECT! You can't win if you don't play ;) Subs close Feb 28, 2026. Pls share WIDELY.

I keep hearing this one's worth a look!

I'm going to tell what my parents, raised in the USSR, taught me as a child and then re-taught it when Putin rose to power in Russia— build a small, trusted circle and never run your mouth outside of said circle. This circle will become the place you express your dissent.

A bearded man wearing a black shirt with white text that reads "I don't want to be in the loop or out of the loop. I want to be aware of the loop & its contents but free from any loop-related responsibilities."

The cover of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, with red and black antique lettering over a profile of a bison head.

Here it's the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. A piece at a time, I spent it reading THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER cover to cover. I grew up south of Calgary in Treaty 7 territory and the book hit disturbingly close to home. Probably the best from Stephen Graham Jones that I've read.

AI chatbots have no discernable effect on firm profitability or recorded hours of work.

This week after the kids finally concede to sleep I've been hammering doggedly at a nonfiction writing project that has a better than reasonable chance of changing our lives this year. If I clinch it. If.

So was that opportunity an Easy Apply or a link to somewhere...outside?

Typing 'king in yellow' into the LinkedIn job search to see what's out there for aspiring eldritch horrors

Sick day today, spent most of it nauseated and/or writing like my life depended on it. It's not a mode of writing I normally do but it's tied to a hell of an opportunity and I could really use a win.

a black and white photo of a man wearing a mask Alt: In black and white, a priest looks scared of a man in ornate Pope-style robes covering his face with armored hands

These days, bedtime for certain kids typically just involves sitting with them and humming familiar songs until they crash. Every once in a while I catch myself humming something else entirely. Tonight apparently it's 'Satanized'

Currently writing for higher practical stakes than I've written for in years. I got this. I got this...

Also, sold a poem this morning!

Cool cover!

Scribbles in a notebook

Just finished Finity's End by Cherryh. Scribbling notes on its really interesting structure while out rambling on paths with the kids. Emphasis on scribbling but may be of interest.

Man I just work here. And yes it is definitely Something Else.

A Book of Blades: Volume III (The Book of Blades) A Book of Blades: Volume III (The Book of Blades) eBook : Whitney, L.D., John, Matthew, Hocking, John, Fultz, John, Clarke, J., Quiogue, Dariel, Rowe, Christopher, Wilcox, Graham, Markitan, T., Clarke, Charles: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

"Sabertongue" in A Book of Blades volume 3
www.amazon.ca/Book-Blades-...

Tasteful: A Literary Cannibal Anthology Tasteful: A Literary Cannibal Anthology - Kindle edition by Voleur, Cat, Murphy, Iseult, Daucus, Cassandra. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Tasteful: A Literary Cannibal Anthology.

"Antecessor" in Tasteful: A Literary Cannibal Anthology (caution: paleolithic) www.amazon.com/Tasteful-Lit...

"Red-Autumn Seeks His Father's Bones" in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com?p=3885

The Eternal Torch, by Jonathan Olfert Vesha Bittertongue (or so the ungrateful called her) made her home in an old flint mine, too remote for casual visitors. Far enough, indeed, that visitors tended to disappear if they got casual abo…

I've done a few that might line up:

"The Eternal Torch' in @translunartl.bsky.social

translunartravelerslounge.com/2024/02/15/t...

If uncanny Stone Age is of interest start with "Pain Wins" by @sashabrown.bsky.social in @oldmoonquarterly.bsky.social

Where no-one has etc'd before!

They're working - this chart is with everyone who couldn't find paid employment this summer (by choice or not) chopped out.