šØš¦š³ļøāšš³ļøāā§ļø They/Them | Author & Graphic Novel Editor | Kjipuktuk/Halifax Upcoming: Ellis On Guard (February 2026), The Meadow (2027)
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I wrote this in May: "Here in Canada, we are not immune to the influence of our neighbors to the south... As we watch what is happening in the US, I hope we will continue to speak up for the freedom to read." As Alberta bans books, I'm glad to see people pushing back! macleans.ca/society/how-...
Anyone recognize this work? #halisky
I will remind folks those images of Nazi book burnings aren't burning just any books. They're burning the library of Magnus Hirschfeld; a gay, Jewish doctor who created an institute dedicated to LGBTQ sex education and healthcare. And a man who pioneered gender affirming care surgeries.
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I love this view of Halifax from Georges Island
We use bell internet. Might call and threaten to switch over more of this. Telus has some pretty good promos.
I didnāt know I could do that! Thanks!
Oh Angela, I didnāt know you were so close! I hope youāre holding up okay! Iām close to where the Tantallon fire was, and it was awful. Sending hugs.
I kept accidentally ending up in the Discover feed! Thatās when it was the worst.
I love that guy.
For me, itās helped to realized that if I overwhelm myself with things I canāt control, Iāll be too mentally burnt out to help in areas where I CAN make a difference. Itās about conserving energy so I can still be effective, I guess.
Thatās it for me. Itās just the sheer volume of it. Weāre not meant to absorb all this at once, all the time.
Sharing this because I think itās important to talk about. I feel like I canāt be the only one feeling this way, and so maybe itāll help someone else feel ok about drawing that line too.
Iām really trying to learn where the line is in terms of paying attention because I can actually help with something, and paying attention because I feel guilty about looking away, but thereās actually nothing I can do, so I just end up feeling anxious and helpless.
Is this app totally annihilating anyone elseās nervous system right now? I think I have to unfollow a few people (probably not you) because my nervous system just canāt handle the constant horror. I know itās a privilege to be able to do that butā¦ wow. Itās really feeling necessary.
Sounds good!
Thanks Patricia! Iād love to hear more about your library sometime.
Boosting this! But also, Iām proud to say that Quiet Crossings is an EMANATA book, so Iām handling the marketing for it! If anyone in my circle sees this and knows of an opportunity, youāre welcome to reach out to me by DM, or go directly to Vivi. Trust me, this is a GREAT book. #kidlit #booksky
Wow! Youāre gonna be busyābut youāll be such a fun Granny!
Thanks Charlene! And ooh! So exciting! Congrats! Whenās the due date?
Thanks Kate!
Also, I left Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for obvious reasons, but if you want to share a link to the video on any of those platforms you are absolutely welcome and I would be very grateful!
Thanks for sharing!
Oops, shoulda hashtagged this. It might be too late but #canlit #kidlit #halisky #booksky
PS: if youāre a book reviewer with an established platform and youād like a review copy, DM me.
Now that Iām in a separate thread that wonāt be pinned to my account for the foreseeable futureā¦ that was like 7 takes! I can talk in front of a live audience for days (apologies to the audience) but filming a video of myself talking to no one is still hard. I donāt know how TikTokers do it.
I'm so super thrilled to be working with Second Story, by the way. I've had two stellar editors and I'm working with an amazing marketing team. Also... they're publishing the book in French as Ellis prend garde (my first translation - thanks Isabelle Montagnier!). www.amazon.ca/Ellis-prend-... 3/3
It's up for preorder, and preorders really can give a book a boost, so please consider ordering now if you think you're going to want to buy it later. But no pressure, ever! I'm sharing the Amazon link for stuff-you-have-to-do reasons, but pls consider ordering from an indie store instead. 2/3
Behold! It's me, talking about my upcoming picture book, Ellis on Guard, illustrated by the immensely talented Nandita Ratan! It's not out til February, but my publisher, @secondstory.bsky.social, sent me an ARC, so I decided to show it off a bit, cause I'm SO EXCITED about this character. 1/3
I have something exciting to show you later todayā¦ but first I have to take the 13yo to camp. (And maybe drop in on @blockshopbooks.bsky.social and @lunenburgbound.bsky.social while Iām at it.) cc @secondstory.bsky.social
Yes!! So glad to read thisāthat really upset me today.
After all, I canāt control what happens in the whole world. But I can control my own actions, and those actions can make a small difference in my little slice of the world. And if we all focus on what we could do with our own little parts of the world, maybe we can turn this thing around.
But itās the thing that made me realize how hard I need to lean into the analog world, and routines, and the concrete work of helping people who need meāfamily, students, artists, etc.
This article made me feel more seen than anything else Iāve read this summer. But only read it if you need the reassurance that you arenāt alone in feeling overwhelmed-on-the-way-to-numb by our current reality. Itās also a hard read. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Right?! Maybe Iāll post a whole thread of pet pics tomorrow in protest.
I mean, itās still messed up that they did it because of environmental concerns and not concern for humans. But still. A normal thing happened, and I can hope that they were also concerned about humans and this is the only way they could do it.
Omg something normal happened!
That was a WILD story
Maybe āfeistyā should be in quotes.
I realize my social media feed has been feisty lately but Iām a reasonably nice person, I swear. But hoo boy am I ever frustrated by a lot of things right now.
ā> Understanding that your posts have to be clear enough to stand alone if shared alone is basic social media best practice. The fact that youāre a media outlet makes that even more important. This is stuff thatās taught in journalism school.
The issue is that you didnāt provide ANY of that context in your post. No oneās looking at your entire feed every time you post something. They may also not bother to read your actual articleājust the caption, or the headlineā¦. ā>
Honestly. I donāt have an issue with Cult MTL, but I suggest you take a second away from being on the defensive and think this one through.
I think sheās asking about where you got the data on how many Canadians are currently prepared to vote Conservative, not how many voted for Andrew Scheer. It feels like youāre being deliberately obtuse. The issue is not your quote about Andrew Scheer. Itās literally everything else.
Iāve caught myself doing it a few times lately too. I think thatās why I called this outābecause WE have to be careful, but also that only goes so far if the sources arenāt helping us out.
To be clear, thereās plenty of be legitimately outraged and anxious about. But stirring those feelings up over old news without putting it in current context is harmful.
Yep, exactly! In fact, I think thatās exactly the approach we need. But doing it the other way provokes unnecessary outrage/anxiety among progressives in the current climate. Which is great for clicks, but not for mental health when the world is already such a mess (and weāre already anxious).
Yeah, thatās how I see it. If the article was dated Oct 2024, and they posted it in Dec 2024, sure. But itās now definitely out of context.
No. The date of the article is most definitely relevant.
This article is from January 2025. We need to be vigilant but reposting articles from when the context was VERY different and letting people assume theyāre recent isnāt helping.
As the parent of teens and a teacherā¦. Iāve given up trying to keep track, haha.
Just speculation but it sounds like maybe they caught wind of the backlash and are trying to undo it real quick. Taking down a banner is just a click, they just might not have gotten to the nav yet.
Iām pretty sure the artists of any given era are never who we think they are. āArtists are not making the visual avant-garde anymore,ā Dean Kissick, the cultural critic, said, referring to the traditional fine-art world. Instead, the avant-garde comes from the basement levels of the internet.
How Horror authors really look VS how they be tryinā to look in the back a their books.š¤£š
People really donāt understand that ChatGPT is trained on stolen literature. Literature is about being human. Of course it can give ChatGPT the patterns it needs to sound āvulnerable.ā But no oneās sitting around chatting with their paperback copy of Anna Karenina like itās Wilson from Castaway.
Iād concede to that. Barred from active missions is huge. What benefit is there to potentially sacrificing our youth (aka the future of our country)?
These kids canāt even get summer jobs anymoreāmandatory unpaid work while still being expected to fully front the costs of their post-secondary education will set them back even more than they already are. And once again, everyone will benefit but them.
Absolute no to mandatory military service. Civic service, sureāhowever, it needs to be noted that countries who do this provide free post-secondary education in exchange š
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I try to avoid most of that stuff too, but itās getting harder and harder to root it out.
Iām as guilty as the next personāI mean Iām here, arenāt I? But change wonāt start unless we really assess it all.
If youāve set up you own local hosting, thatās great. But helpx.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/w...
With that said, cryto and AI have significantly accelerated the impact.
I should add that AI isnāt the only thing driving data centres. Crypto mining and cloud computing (all those subscription based services like Google Workspace, Grammarly, Photoshop, online accounting software, video games, etc) need data centres. We need to dramatically reassess our digital habits.
Just a reminder, in this age of wildfires and the NS Health CEO breathlessly advocating for NS to become an āAI centre of excellenceā that healthcare ā and indeed, people ā need water.
Everything is stress and chaos and honestly, cool animal facts are really getting me through this.
I just learned that otters have a built-in pocket where they keep special rocks. Maybe everyone else knows this already, but in case you didnāt: youāre welcome.
Sealion. Just ignore them and theyāll find someone else to bark at.
Tigers with a frozen milk brick on a hot day.
Oh itās raining hard here in Saint Margaretās Bay! I have all the windows open so I can listen and itās one of the best sounds Iāve ever heard.
ITāS RAINING š§ļø
Great tip on opting out on AI-driven Google searches, thanks @ardathjean.bsky.social
Yep. Thatās the bottom line. But also: taking good care of the people who are keeping things orderly WHILE WE ARE IN THE SKY is a safety consideration.
Does anyone know of illustrators on Bluesky who post photos of their physical (non-digital) art, whose photos ALSO incl: - art tools (eg photo of a partly-finished painting surrounded by evidence of tools they used, like paints, messy palette etc) - alt-text - minimal hashtags #CreatedWithoutAI
Thanks!
Ok that helps. Weāre currently with Bell, and it works well, but willing to switch to Telus is the service is the same and we can bundle it with our phones for less $$
Is anyone using Telus home Internet? Theyāre pushing it hardāis it good?
centuries of fairy tales & folklore about not trusting glittering, deceptive entities that flatter our vanity and look at us. eating the fae food, mesmerized by the mirror, etc. clown behavior.
My son saw a police officer do it yesterday.
HALIFAX: if you live near Bayers Lake and/or Susies Lake area, pack a go bag NOW. If you have pets, this includes all of their medical records, food, medicines (if applicable), water, and bedding. You need your own medication, passports, important irreplaceable paperwork, clothes for at least 7 days
I know :)
In an incredible overreach, the province is rejecting the municipality's Regional Plan. A municipal press release:
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I write a lot of letters and emails to politicians and news outlets, yes. I often post them here so that people who donāt have time to write theirs from scratch can borrow from what Iāve written. But thanks for checking in?
This family does not deserve to be subjected to all the armchair detective speculation this Globe & Mail article will inspire. Journalists ā and everyone else ā need to leave the family alone unless police bring something new to light, or we discover police have mishandled something.
It bothers me a lot. The public deserves to know if they are in danger. It deserves to know of the children were found, and/or what happened to them, if we ever find out. This family does not deserve to have every vulnerable detail of their lives made public across the country āā>
Just read the Globe & Mail article by Lindsay Jones and Greg Mercer, about the missing children in Pictou and I have Strong Feelings. Iām not going to post a link, but it reeks of poverty shaming and contains no actual new informationājust sensationalizes the lives of people in this rural area.
The āturn off commentsā feature is vastly underused on Facebook. If you are an NS park and youāre posting a PSA about the fire ban, for the love of all that is holy TURN OFF COMMENTS.
Think I just saw #criticalmass go by at Hydrostone and it made me happy. #halisky
The Life of Chuck is a beautiful wistful movie and everyone should watch it.
This makes me want to go back to pens and notebooks and play with paint and ink and paper and never ever touch a computer again.
Sunscreen!!
Thatās rude.
What a scary house of mirrors this world has become.
This feels like a very extreme extension of three toxic trends: -the both sides thing weāre seeing in journalism -thinking āeveryone has a right to an opinionā means that everyoneās opinion counts as a fact -ppl trying to use their own trauma as an excuse for hurting others
Itās a manual bookmark. A way for us to easily find posts we might want to refer to later.
Heās not being subjective either. Using the word āvictimā implies thereās an abuser. Otherwise they wouldnāt be a victim. Itās like saying, āSorry Judge. Weāre going to have to ask you to step aside from this particular case because you have a long history of siding with the victims.ā
I mean, letās look at what heās saying here: institutions that donāt take the side of a perpetrator are somehow wrong because of it? That a good society would take the side of the abuser at least SOMETIMES? What is the argument here?
Wow this is wild. Iām not going to unpack the rest of this, or comment on Christianity etc, but I just want to say that anyone who criticizes something by saying, āYou know, it always takes the side of the victim,ā is not a society minded person people in power should be allowed to listen to. š§µ
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