ClareJGold 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🤟

Sorry, not sorry.

I did a fun interview for Write Mentor, which is an amazing support system and source of information for anyone aspiring to write for kids (I was almost a published YA author). A great group of folks. substack.com/@stuartwhite...

Can’t tell you how for real this message is. I have friends near Glencoe and they see the helicopters as well as experience the closed roads for fools who often end up dead. My friend says: Do they think no one cares if they die from stupidity? It’s so much worse.

Spent 3 days in Copenhagen and here are my conclusions. Thank god the Danes bike a lot because otherwise they couldn’t enjoy their baked goods. Apparently, they’ve agreed as a country that umbrellas are only for tourists. The kids dress like fashion models. Chill is the national identity.

It annoys me that certain European countries cafes won’t do decaf. Once upon a time, a lot of decaf was garbage, I get it. But there’s so much good stuff now. Rolling your eyes at six in the evening because I like coffee but don’t want to be awake until midnight is just performative snobbery.

Man: I’d like an americano with room for milk. Barista: how much room ? Man: give me three fingers Barista: ok *small smile* Man: *oblivous* Me: *wow* The barista and I make eye contact and I know he knows and he knows I know and we agree to look away.

Hey kids, I finally wrote that Epilogue to NDA's be Damned, my HR fanfic. archiveofourown.org/works/861814...

I'd prefer it come for your charming website :D

I have another ace #buyastrangerabook day offer to share. @clarewrites.bsky.social is offering to buy someone the book of their choice, up to £20! Any book at all, not just what's on my charming website. So, if there's a book you're after, just ask! UK only.

The Society of Authors has withdrawn from the ill-conceived concession to the dark side that was the "ethical GenAI" charter because of the mass and vocal outrage of authors. Publishers need to be made afraid of this level of anger too.

Happy National Apple Day! Speaking of apples, the most brutal Irish curse I’ve ever come across is go ndéana an diabhal dréimire de chnámh do dhroma is é ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn. It means “may the Devil make a ladder of your backbone while he picks apples in the garden of Hell.”

Breakthrough Novel-Writing Scholarship for Writers with Low Income. This scholarship will award one talented writer with limited financial means a place on our three-month online Writing Your Novel course, starting 16 Nov 2026. Apply by 2 Nov: www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/break...

Help us spread the word. Applications are currently open for two Breakthrough Writers’ Programme opportunities. Details below!

So: never got confirmation my ballot had been received so I checked. For whatever reason they never got it. After helpful emails w military/overseas voter support, I re-sent my ballot (YES on 40, NO on 41 & 42). In any case, make sure your ballot arrives & is counted! www.vote.org/ballot-track...

IT'S WEDNESDAY! It's #buyastrangerabook day. A groovy kind of day all round. I'll give out TWO books. FOR FREE. If you'd like one, let me know. Also, if you'd like to #BuyAStrangerABook too, let me know. UK only It's a thing! Look. www.biggreenbookshop.com/stuff-you-mi...

Very relevant to today.

If you feel you're not enough of a socialist, this is the book for you. Certainly radicalised my family.

Out on KU today- one of the best bookish smut scenes ever! Full disclosure, this is a friend, but when I tell you this scene will improve your life I say it with my full chest. cishet, romcom, the MCs agree to try the tropes in a 2-month relationship. There's a smut book club🤣🐙 amzn.eu/d/042eoF5u

It's a new week, Bluesky. Trust no poll. Trust no pundit. Vote early if you can. Vote in person if you can.

Public schools in Utah banned a best-selling Jodi Picoult novel and ordered all copies destroyed. So ... Picoult arrived at a Salt Lake City high school this weekend with 600 copies of the book. And she gave them all away, for free. "Applause and cheers erupted." www.sltrib.com/news/educati...

Got my IDLR!!

It would be the dumbest way to loose my visa but I kinda want to start my own illegal Rooney sales network. I’ll send her wire transfers from Talin. We’ll keep her books in our car boots, wrapped in brown paper and the password for sales will be ‘mescal.’

I saw a post that once upon a time would've had me jumping in with advice and support (not rage stuff, genuine poster and problem), but I stopped because the mental health issue in question, if I engaged with it, is very likely to start my own stuff. Other people were there. So I let them. Yay me

On that note, I highly recommend the following BIPOC authors: Jasper Hyde Victor LaValle Malka Older DeVaun Sanders Cassandra Khaw Mikki Kendall LD Lewis Nalo Hopkinson Ken Liu Silvia Moreno-Garcia Dr. Nnedi Okorafor Kwame Mbalia Tahereh Mafi

The music is incredible. The use of sound across the whole thing is huge admirable. And there is an absolutely GORGEOUS reflection shot wherein I actually whispered ’damn.’

So I didn’t hate Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth. Enormously helped by Pedro just being a sympathetic human as well as an excellent actor, but dear god was it a man being a big dumb man a lot. I literally thought to myself no less than a dozen times: Baby, why are you doing that?

This was a response to a post I made about my visa appointment, expressing anxiety and frustration . So i think we’ve got the SM companies trying to keep their users by tasking AI bots to engage with content. I had a comment that n substack with almost the exact same formula.

‘Since the birth of the American film industry, directors have invoked Hollywood’s risk-aversion, their own misunderstood genius and their defiance of commercialism to explain the failure of their movies.’ Malin Hay on what makes a film flop. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Was watching Buffy’s Anya backstory episode. Friend asked why I sighed. “She’s not of a sufficiently high social class to have domesticated rabbits that far north in Europe in that century, but the writers couldn’t know, the paper was only presented at a conference yesterday.” Accuracy is fleeting.

ZARJAZ! Directordroid @manmademoon.bsky.social has delivered a movie of much Thrill-Power with Rogue Trooper, definitely one to watch out for when it gets released next year. Splundig vur Thrigg! boxd.it/gLhsqB

This week I’ll be interviewing Sunday Times & New York Times bestselling author Sophie Hannah at the iconic Keats Library in Hampstead, London! If you’re in or around London on Thursday evening, don’t miss this! @sophiehannah.bsky.social

In about five months time, I need you to remember that @manmademoon.bsky.social ‘Rogue Trooper’ is great. Fun. Funny. Looks fantastic. It reminded me of seeing ’Toy Story’ (wait for it) for the first time and just thinking ’they have nailed this style.’ Go see it in a theater!

Fantastic evening at the Prince Charles Cinema watching @manmademoon.bsky.social 's brilliant adaptation of Rogue Trooper. It is funny, exciting, thrilling and a rip roaring adventure. Go see it when it gets a cinema release! Great to hear there's a script ready to go for his next project 🤞🏻

Saw a group outside the theater I’m heading into trying to do a group photo. I offered to take one of everyone. After I hand the phone back, I realize one of the group is the director of the film I am about to see. It’s like it’s 1998 and I am a PA again @manmademoon.bsky.social Hope they’re usable

When I tell you that everyone needs to watch Ava Duvernay’s documentaries, 13th and soon to be released 14th. They are factual. They are frightening. They will also make you feel proud to have a written Constitution.

I kind of want to push into their (loud) convo and ask.

Listening to a group of uni kids, mixed nationalities, discussing variations of:you can stay alive forever as long as you press a button every week that kills a person. Also ‘would you do it if every button press gave you a million dollars?’ Dear reader, I can tell none of them have felt a death

I get to see it tonight! Excited.

The most fun thing ever to randomly see

No one tells you how hard it is to get people to post reviews of your book. No wait. Every author I know says this. Y’all, posting reviews is the most helpful thing you can do for authors (after reading the book, of course), especially small press and indie folks.

“Have you chosen a cool name for our super swish spy car?” “Sure have boss, may I present the

Being a special needs parent is a lot. I fail a lot. But tonight we had a tearful convo about body image images issues. I think, we started down the road of letting go of some ideas that aren't serving him. He went away and then came back to me, crying again. But this time it was to say thank you.

Went to my 1st London Film Festival screening today. LFF is my happy place. I always come away inspired and thoughtful. Today was a Georgian film, ‘Supporting Actor.’ Imperfect but with Georgian humor, always sprinkled w/morbid introspection, and absurd balanced with metaphysical fascination.

If you qualify for Tickets for Good you can get £2.95 tickets (up to 4) for the Being Heumann Gala charities.ticketsforgood.co.uk/events/38804...

Ok, I take back my snark. She’s asked more than the usual folks to come and several people haven’t answered or confirmed, so she sent the invite as encouragement and also so she didn’t have to call anyone, something I absolutely identify with!

My mom sent me an evite to Christmas dinner. Dear reader, I am staying in her house. I thought maybe it was so other family would know my lil fam will be there, but I can't see the invite list. Imma just assume she's just super excited and will resist the urge to ask: are there other options???

If a child, in earnest, tells you they believe some celebrity you have no connection to is a bad person, even if you disagree, like respect their feelings about it.

Update: have now made to speak to this parent directly because her kid has started telling my kid about all the ways he and people he knows buy HP stuff. This kid is ND (mine is asd, they go to a specialist school together), so I have tried to approach it like he doesn’t know he’s being mean🤔

According to MIT News, Margaret Hamilton died at the age of 90. "A profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program". This famous photo 🔽 inspired the For All Mankind character Margo Madison.