Monica S. Kuebler

Return of the Nigerian Prince Redux: Beware Book Club and Book Review Scams - Writer Beware A few weeks ago, I wrote about a rising and extremely prolific marketing scam that I’ve been able to trace back to operators in Nigeria. Using highly personalized (AI-generated) email solicitations th...

Some very good (and up-to-date) writing scam info in here for those who may need it. Stay safe out there, folks. writerbeware.blog/2025/09/19/r...

Need a spooky read for Halloween? Follow @hwaontario.bsky.social for two weeks of free horror stories, poems, and podcast episodes in celebration of our favourite time of the year.

Mixed week.
On the fiction-writing front things are falling back into place nicely, and hey, I got another chapter uploaded to Patreon, so there's that.
As for posting more regularly to my social media... well, it's always the first thing I forget when my head gets all tangled up in my stories.

Who's going to Little Ghosts Fest this weekend?

I’m trying to be better about not ghosting my social media, but if I do, you can bet it’s because deadlines are trying to eat me.

Got to spend the afternoon writing about Elizabeth Engstrom's When Darkness Loves Us.

I must never forget how lucky I am that this is my life.

I see that Google search has now stuck "fiction writer" under my profile, however aspirational that title may currently be.
Apparently, my 20-plus years of being a professional editor and entertainment journalist are meaningless to whatever AI bot compiles this stuff. Weird.

Lovely time at Ai Jiang’s launch for A Palace Near the Wind at Little Ghosts. Perhaps a bit too much red wine at the social afterwards. 😊

Canada lost her Queen of Vampire Fiction this afternoon. R.I.P. Nancy Kilpatrick. I'm honoured and blessed to have known you for these past twenty years. You will be dearly missed.
Cancer sucks.

Let's talk elections...
In our recent provincial election, only the NDP candidate came to the door, though we did receive a flyer from the Liberal candidate. Conservatives were ghosts.
In the current federal election, first to the door was the Liberal. Big talking point: being tough against Trump.

Things I said to my editor this morning: "If it looks like fascism and smells like fascism, it's fascism." Just another day in our current modern dystopia.

Given the brutality of the American health care "system" and the millions of readily available guns in the country, I'm actually surprised no one has done/tried to do this sooner.

Today was so action-packed that it didn’t occur to me until about 8:30pm that I hadn’t bothered to eat anything all day. Food is optional, apparently.

Went to bed early, hoping to get a much-needed good night's sleep. Brain decided I needed a night of anxiety dreams instead. Thanks brain, very cool.

My ten-year-old daughter: "Mum, did you know you're on Google?! I Googled you!"

Me: Runs through every-not-appropriate-for-a-ten-year-old thing-I've-ever-done-professionally and tries to calculate the chances of any of that showing up on the first three pages of a Google search.

Who are these parents who teach their children that running up and touching strangers is a good and safe thing to do? Yikes.

Some days the words flow and it is glorious. This was not one of those days.

Must not stop writing. Deadlines will eat me.

Bring on the art!

Spent the afternoon teaching my ten-year-old daughter how to play Don’t Starve Together. Time well wasted.

Agreed.

Guess this means we’re serious now.

Finally put Bluesky on the phone.

Parent-teacher conferences at school tonight, wherein my big question will be: "Why are you only selectively following my daughter's IEP?" Ah yes, this should be fun...

It's become a special kind of hellscape that honestly makes me queasy. Yay for Bluesky and Substack, which don't.

The neat thing about spending less time on socials in the last two years is that I don't really feel much sadness about switching platforms. Feels like returning to a clean slate. Reborn!

Made a placeholder account here late last year. Now the time has come to finally put it to use. So, yeah, bring on two weeks of finding and adding everyone.

Heh. Look at that. I made it to Bluesky. Thank you kind friend with an extra invite.