Catherynne M. Valente

Queen of Lasers and NYT/USAT Bestselling author of Fairyland, Space Opera, Deathless, The Past Is Red, & more. Any/All 

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Catvalente_at_wandering.shop@mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2024-09-11 00:25:19

I can’t stand watching That Creature talk and I sure as fuck can’t stand the way the media snuggles and soothes him and tells us he’s victorious & the Democrat is weak no matter what either says or does, so I can’t watch the debate live tonight.
I just can’t.
I’ll follow commentary and watch it tomorrow. His voice makes me fucking sick.

2024-09-10 19:56:30

The only reason MAGA got so happy and excited over the story about Haitian migrants eating pets, which turned out to be a total fabrication surrounding a Reddit photo of a man clearing roadkill, was because they thought it might be a racist bandage over their fucking weird candidates’ distaste for pets and/or “childless cat ladies.”

2024-09-09 17:18:04

I think most geographers would agree that New Hampshire and Vermont are Maine’s pants.
Right leg and left leg.
It’s just science.

2024-09-07 13:08:43

Post-Eurovision, my child continues to be obsessed with Luxembourg and Luxembourgish.
By some chance, does anyone who follows me live in, hail from, or otherwise are Luxembourg-connected?

2024-09-03 16:12:09

Carpal tunnel surgery update! (Public post)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/111349839

2024-08-30 15:21:47

While I’m still recovering from surgery…did you know there’s only 27 days left until Space Oddity comes out and the Space Opera adventures of Decibel Jones and gang continue?
And you haven’t pre-ordered it yet?
https://amzn.to/473Cz01

2024-08-24 15:41:06

For the first time in his life, he’s experiencing what is normal people shoulder all the time.
Desperately needing something from an entity so much more powerful than one person. For us, it’s a raise, a break, a leg up, an approved loan, just some kind of yes from the world.
For him, it’s this, and he can’t handle a no. From a woman or a country.
https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/113014625258174006

2024-08-24 03:41:47

Please understand that when Republicans bleat about the Democratic candidate not getting deep enough into “policy,” it’s because they know good & goddamned well Democrats fucking LOVE policy, but average Americans hate it
Dems who get deep into policy details as an electoral strategy don’t excite anyone & lose every time. Clinton, Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, on & on.
The GOP just wants to run against an upstanding but boring policy wonk again. It’s the only thing that’s dependably worked.

2024-08-24 02:18:44

That people are so shocked about recent unedited photos of what Trump actually looks like really puts a fucking pin in how much the media has been airbrushing him literally and figuratively to be appealing, to seem even semi-normal.
Stop photoshopping his shit, guys. He wouldn’t lift a finger for you

2024-08-23 01:10:39

For about 8 months now, my 5 year old has been steadfastly insisting he wants to go by Draco instead of Bastian at school, after the constellation.
I said “Hey that’s cool & you get to choose how people address you but like…okay just so you know, there’s a crazy famous book series where one of the bad guys is named Draco.”
This child deadass looked me in the eye & stone cold replied:
“But I’m not a bad guy. So why should I care?”

2024-08-14 17:45:35

- reply

@npub1fgl…4jl4 there’s an infinite variety of stories to be told. I’m literally an author, if I believed new stories were impossible I’d starve.
Fine, gimme the franchise! I’ll do it!

2024-08-14 15:31:35

The problem with the Alien franchise at this point is that no one is willing to progress the story or the lore into the timeline’s future
Much like Star Wars & Star Trek, it’s all prequels, requels & cliffhangers whose tension depends on fan knowledge of the originals
Every Alien movie is trying to be Alien/Aliens—this time with a new toy! Not even Prometheus really breaks new ground beyond dragging Jesus into it
The promised climax is always cryo’d into the next film. It never truly arrives.

2024-08-13 23:26:15

What happened with Musk’s Trump “interview” is the whole conservative ambition writ small.
Gut infrastructure, get rid of anyone with experience or expertise, ban voices that disagree, then try to do the same big things the long-standing, oft-tested system you just broke took decades to develop and thousands of people to pull off.
All without anything or anyone that actually understands it or makes it work.
Then blame someone else.

2024-08-11 15:52:40

I planted a lisianthus in May and it’s very finicky & bare survival has been touch and go at times, but I’ve been waiting and waiting for it to bloom AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING SHE’S SO PERFECT
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/944/189/061/104/562/original/e50252c8362cb980.jpeg

2024-08-11 00:03:28

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?
On their worst day, approximately zero American leftists actively planned the dissolution of America & the installation of dictatorship the way rank & file GOP did AND STILL DO.
Yet we (and the media) act like this is normal, reasonable, & just how politics are on both sides.
IT’S FUCKING NOT NORMAL
https://www.rawstory.com/michele-morrow-2668938237/

2024-08-08 14:26:50

- reply

@npub1wlu…q294 more like this

2024-08-07 14:31:07

Help me out, Mastodon, you smart beautiful pachyderm
What do you call that typo where it looks like a word has been printed twice, one on top of the other, slightly offset, like one behind the other and a little above or below?

2024-08-05 23:32:08

Can you imagine how cold and dark it feels for Trump to be raging & ranting the same as always, but the media is paying attention to a WOMAN OF COLOR instead & every broadcast is about her when three weeks ago they were all about you?
Trump is sobbing into the void. He wants his mummy back.

2024-08-02 14:28:29

Eeeee you guys!
Ok so my chosen family niece lives with me during summers off from college & she’s 19 & HAD NEVER HEARD OF URSULA LEGUIN BEFORE.
I gave her Left Hand of Darkness & she just looked up from it all aglow & said “Cat, this is DELIGHTFUL! I’ve never read anything so brutal and gentle before!”
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT.

2024-08-01 13:57:53

It’s been 10 days since Biden dropped & Harris stepped in.
That’s usually plenty of time for new talking points.
To recap the new GOP strategy:
-Harris is only VP because she’s black
-But she isn’t black
-She laughs
-She’s dumb
-She doesn’t have kids bc stepkids don’t count
-Antisemitic!
-But her husband is a “horrible Jew”
-She likes cats maybe?
-She dated people so she’s a slut
-She did nothing as VP
-She did everything as VP
-Biden was too old
-Biden shouldn’t have dropped out
Amazing.

2024-07-31 16:13:48

Reminder! Today is the last day of July, so it is ALSO your last day to get the Space Opera ebook for only $1.99!
GIRL YOU CAN'T EVEN GET A BOTTLE OF WATER FOR $1.99 ANYMORE. THIS IS A WHOLE NOVEL OF ANTI-FASCIST SPACE GLITTER AND SURPRISINGLY DEEP JOKES ABOUT CLIPPY!
(And a great way to get caught up before the sequel, Space Oddity, comes out 9/24! Available for pre-order now. NBD, just saying...that you should pre-order it)
https://www.amazon.com/Space-Opera-Catherynne-M-Valente-ebook/dp/B074ZJQT6P/

2024-07-29 01:48:36

5 year old found a kids’ book about Alexander Hamilton in the library last week.
Child: “Remember how Alexander Hamilton was in the fight between America & England?”
“Yes. I might know some songs about it.”
“Are we part of England now?”
“No.”
“Ok and when did that happen?”
“1776.”
“Oh! A long time ago! So you saw that right? What was it like?”
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/867/260/018/301/097/original/f997d43d9b4d01df.mp4

2024-07-26 21:37:18

Whatever staffer came up with “We’re Not Going Back” as a slogan should never pay for a drink again. #uspol #kamalaharris

2024-07-22 15:16:34

I was talking to a dear friend of mine in her 80s when the Biden news came in. She’s a Dem but had been wavering on voting at all, disgusted by the last few months
She instantly snapped “Well don’t expect me to vote now.”
I stared at her & nearly started crying. I begged: “You HAVE to. It’s so important. If not for you, for me, for us. For my sweet kid who doesn’t know people can be hated for who they are yet.”
She went pale. “Ok ok you’re right. I will. I promise.”
Talk to people. Everyone.

2024-07-21 18:41:54

God dammit, media, internet, America: you screeched for this. I don’t want to hear ONE fucking word about how stupid this was from you now, and you better support the new ticket like nobody’s business.
Congratulations, you got what you wanted. Now PAY IT BACK.

2024-07-21 18:30:25

I feel fucking terrible about this.
This nation has only gotten more radioactively misogynist and supremacist since 2016; Harris could be the greatest candidate of our era & I just don’t believe America will allow it.
I’ll be drinking tonight.

2024-07-16 23:05:50

Any call to tone down the rhetoric aimed at Democrats and not Republicans is a cynical demand for silence, holding the future as a hostage to force that silence.

2024-07-16 19:03:09

New Substack essay about the last 72 hours' TOTAL GODDAMNED IDIOCY and the radical concept of not PREEMPTIVELY GIVING UP:
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/keep-calm-and-fing-stop-this-s

2024-07-14 19:59:39

Literally nothing has changed.
Except that fascists think they have it in the bag now.
They can’t stop themselves from gloating less than 24 hours later.
But nothing has fucking changed. Are we really gonna just lie down for this because a guy who says his enemies should be shot every single day got a minor wound from one of his own supporters?

2024-07-09 03:04:13

Being single for the first time…uh…this century…is both a revelation and deeply, deeply sub-optimal. It’s a weird fucking vibe.

2024-06-30 19:33:23

I seriously can’t believe people are lining up and DEMANDING the Democrats serve up the optics of Trump being so powerful and dominant he could take down a sitting president with one debate.
Great plan, should work out awesome.

2024-06-30 03:49:53

- reply

If Joe Biden staying in the race ACTUALLY meant Trump would win, Fox & their ilk, overt & covert, would be praising the President’s performance non-stop & preaching to the rafters that Biden dropping out would be a disaster
Yet they all seem to agree he has to go…
FUNNY THAT.

2024-06-30 03:38:08

Trump convicted of 34 felonies, babbles to the clouds about sharks & electricity?
GOP: THAT’S OUR DADDY WE LOVE YOU DADDY CRUSH US UNDER YOUR DELICIOUS BOOT DADDY UNFFFF
Biden has half a bad debate: you zombie fuck, just kill yourself in favor of some imaginary fucking candidate no two of us can agree on
The media is in LOCKSTEP about this, instead of Trump’s nightmare future, but no one thinks maybe there’s an agenda being pushed here that’s super favorable to the fascists’ chances?
COOL

2024-06-25 21:18:49

Hey everyone!
I’m interviewing Christopher Buehlman about his new book The Daughters War this Saturday 6/29 at @printbookstore in #Portland #Maine!
Come and hear about goblins and see us both!

2024-06-24 20:10:15

New Substack essay about parenting, politics, gender, and whether or not we could actually tolerate the reality of "the village" so many of us long for:
https://open.substack.com/pub/catvalente/p/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about

2024-06-20 20:33:49

They are going to conveyor-belt so many drugs into Trump for the debate next week he’ll be legally definable as a pharmacy.
If he shows at all.
It’s so stupidly sad that years of Republicans screeching DEMENTIA! STAMINA! DRUG TEST! wasn’t obvious to everyone as projection. Like everything else.

2024-06-16 02:12:33

It probably says a lot that I’m forty-five years old and I only now realized “I want someone who makes me laugh” isn’t really about comedy skills, it’s about wanting someone who makes you so happy you laugh easily and often.

2024-06-14 17:22:09

Having so much trouble processing that my tiny baby just graduated kindergarten and is off to first grade.
*sniffle* Stupid linear progression of time. Worse than onions, I tell ya.
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/616/126/854/358/178/original/200bcc3c8b065477.jpeg

2024-06-12 13:48:51

A friend of mine’s mother is coming to visit soon; she gently explained to my 5 year old that her mom has something called Alzheimer’s & gets confused & mixed-up easily.
Bastian shrugged.
“Well, geez, I get confused & mixed-up all the time! I’ll be her friend!”
Oh, my *heart*

2024-06-12 00:27:39

All right, olds:
The college freshmen who live with me during the summers just uttered the phrase:
“Built like a PDF!”
What do they mean? Best answer wins a Space Oddity ARC.

2024-05-31 11:27:00

Stop calling it a hush money case, you craven complicit media ghouls.
It’s an election interference case.

2024-05-31 09:11:00

Every once in awhile, something from the culture of your childhood hits you like a bus to the face
Like the fact that there had to be a nationwide commercial campaign begging parents to care where their kids were at night for YEARS
Today, it’s that threatening to MURDER YOUR CHILD because they annoyed you was SO COMMON it’s now a stock phrase we all recognize
I brought you into this world & I can take you out of it.
HA HA COOL DEATH THREAT MOM GUESS I WON’T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH AGAIN

2024-05-30 21:33:50

Please tell me Donald Fucking Trump being guilty on 34 COUNTS will mean some kind of punishment…
lol come on you know I’m not stupid he’ll probably get a fruit basket and a lifetime subscription to The Wall Street Journal at sentencing.

2024-05-29 21:11:09

My dad just endearingly dadded up & wants me to be safe in #Denmark.
I replied with the following image.
Too bad about that one singular crime knocking Denmark down a spot.
Probably mermaid or open-faced sandwich-related.
Or both. Very grim with that smørrebrød menu, Denmark. Very grim.
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/526/430/259/711/302/original/79a8689c463e48c5.jpeg

2024-05-29 21:02:18

So my iPhone won’t email photos anymore and hasn’t for a good minute. Can airdrop fine, nothing wrong with phone or account.
Any idea how to fix this, kindly internet helpers?

2024-05-21 13:50:24

You know, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve been saying the word “right” my whole life and never once have I even come close to saying “reich” instead.
Maybe because I’m not a Nazi? It’s a mystery!

2024-05-15 22:43:44

How it started: “Mama, I don’t want to be afraid of dogs anymore. I really want to work on getting over my fear.” -One and a half years ago
How it’s going:
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/447/522/095/173/068/original/f472b3eb1b6527f4.jpeg

2024-05-15 22:21:13

My five year old came home begging to watch Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Obviously I put on the ‘71 version because I’m not a MONSTER.
Just finished the scary boat ride that made me cry as a kid.
B: “WOW. That was really INCREDIBLE. That was my MOST favorite part so far!!"

2024-05-15 20:27:14

No big deal, I just filled a weird novelty claw machine that says BEAR MEAT on the front with original handwritten fortunes/mini-stories for guests to play with & was so pleased with the results I wrote a whole thing about it & made it public (fortunes, too) on Patreon for all to raise several eyebrows at...https://www.patreon.com/posts/magical-future-104310092

2024-05-15 16:49:15

OMG OMG LOOK WHO JUST KNOCKED ON MY DOOR?
(This sweet baby is out September 24th!)
https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/446/128/192/323/941/original/f1940d23ad565523.jpeg

2023-08-26 15:55:23

Why is the Fulton County seal so much smaller on Trump’s mugshot than everyone else’s?
Hoping it’s less noticeable that it IS a mugshot?
The special treatment for this radioactive toad will never end.

2023-08-21 19:02:58

I don’t know how to explain to these throwback slime molds that if they manage to take away women’s reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, birth control, and no-fault divorce, the result won’t be some kind of heteronormative propaganda poster new world order, especially since pulling women out of the workforce now would just faceplant the whole economy into the asphalt.
A lot of women will just stop having straight sex or getting married at all.

2023-08-05 23:24:37

- reply

@npub1lup…jra8 Comfort Me With Apples, no contest. Maaaaybe Deathless if you like that

2023-08-05 01:22:23

An old guy bought me & my friend a shot at the bar because my friend told him I was a writer.
“How many books have you written?”
“46. #47 is out next year.”
“WOW. What? How? How many did Hemingway have, 10 in his whole life?”
“…mate, Hemigway’s rent was $10 a month in Key West. I gotta hustle a little more than my man Ernie.”

2023-08-03 21:50:39

“What do you want to be for Halloween this year, love? Any thoughts?”
4 year old: “YOU!”
“Me?!”
“Yeah, I just need a black wig, a black dress, a BIG necklace, and some books!”
“Okay…but why is that scary?”
4: “Because then *I* would make the rules!” *literal villain cackle*
“…you’re right. That’s the most terrifying costume I’ve ever heard of.”