Catherynne M. Valente

Hello everyone! It's been an insanely busy month as summer (and thus all summer childcare options) dwindles down toward the waiting maw of the school year--and I'm about to depart for Worldcon in Los Angeles and the Hugos. I'll be posting rewards over the remaining days of the month, but I wanted to

Words cannot begin to express how much I hate making these kinds of posts. I'm sure you hate reading them too! LET'S GET THROUGH IT TOGETHER. Most of you likely already know, but in case you do not, I was an am incredibly honored to be nominated for the Hugo Award for my spooky queer summer gothic n

I have been quiet, I know. Mainly because in my dotage I have found myself suddenly faculty at the USM Stonecoast MFA program and it is currently summer residency! So I am teaching the children to walk in nature…only they’re not children and we’re in a big university building. It’s very inspiring an

I am so beyond thrilled to announce that my spooky summer gothic story (with a twist we don't tell others about so they can enjoy the reveal!), When He Calls Your Name, has been nominated for a Hugo Award! And god DAMN what an absolutely stacked category and overall ballot! Thank you to anyone and e

Hello everyone! This March marks the ninth anniversary of this Patreon, which is, quite frankly, rude of Time, and a bit implausible. But I thought to celebrate the occasion, for the first time, I would initiate a new tier for the Laboratory! See, I live in a 124-year old house on an island in Maine

Many times at conventions, people have asked me to post my con schedule on Patreon so it's easy to know where to find me, and I ALWAYS say "Oh that's such a good idea, I totally will next time!" And then I fully ADHD that into the sun and forget next time. BUT HUMANS CAN GROW. I AM DOING THE THING.

WELP. In addition to literally everything being on fire on every level, Patreon has chosen to not delay their marvelous billing changes and plow on ahead with them as of this month. Many changes took effect at Patreon today, with more to come in November--pretty much all devastating to creators' inc

Hello, everyone! Welp, if you follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon or X, you probably already know all this, but if you missed it...my work, of all and any kinds, has been severely curtailed by my child acquiring a movie-monster version of the flu that’s been going on for almost two weeks now. Tried sch

Note: I am still recovering from left-hand (of darkness) carpal tunnel surgery, with stitches scheduled out on Friday. But work and Halloween wait on no primate, so I'm going to try to get all the October rewards up before pain takes over. Thank you all for your patience and support while I invest i

Well, obviously it came out yesterday, but YESTERDAY, Bastian was creating and distributing a wide variety of colorful fluids every ten minutes all over everything, and thus...well, as launch days go, it was a struggle. TODAY IS THEIR 6TH BIRTHDAY (WHAT) and they're back in school...but it's their b

Well, that hurt. It says something about just how much pain I have been in for the last seven years or so, how high my baseline of “normal” became, that my yet-to-be-fixed left hand hurts more than the repaired right hand that got cut open palm to wrist and has been healing with zero pain management

This is sort of a denizen of the month post, but accessible to everyone because I’m about to get CUT ON! My dumb wrist is definitely the MVP this month. I have carpal tunnel to an extent that made my doctor’s eyes get REAL BIG when she saw the ultrasound. She kept looking at me like I should also be

Hi everyone! I covered this a few months ago when Patreon changed everything all around for whimsy, as they are wont to do, but I wanted to make sure the new new folk are aware: If you clicked the free tier button thinking that was sort of…the whole of it…as Patreon led you to believe so, you know,

Hullo loves. I have so many things ready to post for all the paid tiers, but after the eclipse I was absolutely bludgeoned by my 4th bout with covid. I’m finally testing negative now but I’m still not quite right in head or body; everything hurts all the time. And an inflammatory disease turns out t

It's a bit late for this but I was crumbling under a deadline, so...now for the most awkward post of the year! You have about a week left to get your Nebula nominations in, the Locus Recommended Reading List is out, then Hugos to follow that (god willing and the fraud don't rise) and World Fantasy a

Hello my darlings. This week has been a roller coaster and I can't really talk about any of it but it's very high and very low. I apologize again for stumbling in my vain attempts to balance life and work and parenting on any level, and like Boxer, will work harder now that my schedule is a little l

Before we get to the rest of this month's rewards, I want to make a public post explaining a few things from the Patreon creator backend (ha ha). Recently, Patreon added a "subscribe for free!" button to all creators' front pages. Great idea, right? Easy click button to get people onto the free feed

Hey everyone You've probably noticed I haven't posted this month! That's because many exciting things are all crushing my shoulders beneath their weight just now. I have a really tight, everyone-will-yell-at-me-and-not-the-firm-taskmaster-kind-the-super-mad-kind deadline next week, I mad the DAMN FO

Good afternoon, cozy folk. So here in this, the Year of Our Last Fuck Given (and Last Pipe Burst!)2023, I want to get a little more organized with Patreon and my schedule so that I can feel less like I live in a constant tsunami of failing. Thus! Some changes! All beneficial and aiming toward gettin

Hi, darlings. I just wanted to apologize for rewards being late this month. Life is just not being very nice to me right now. More sick family, more family passed on, more COVID on our island, and my wonderful, beloved cat, Lord Byron Stormageddon (pictured), is so very sick. As we speak he’s gettin

Hello, everyone! I hope this Thursday is treating you as well as a Thursday in 2020, the Nurse Ratched of years, can be expected to treat anyone. Two notes of interest to some or all of you before I disappear into the last chapters of this bloody stubborn book! One, the annoying PBS/NPR pledge-drive

Hello, everyone! In what was really the most wonderful birthday present, we reached a new funding goal! I can't begin to tell you what this means to our household and our anxious artist hearts--thank you so much, and thank you for sticking with me in such a horrid time for us all. I will try to be w