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Kieren Alderling

@alderling.com

89 followers 310 following 100 posts

Canadian writer and artist. Lover of weird fiction, horror, gothic romance, and SFF. Ghosts and demons; magic and cyberpunk. He/him.

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 11d

For the #AugurMicros2025 contest, some thoughts about the net. @augursociety.bsky.social

The microfiction piece "Reprise" appears against a background of a photo looking up a limestone cliff at the trees above. The piece reads: "*Not enough*, we hold, the round hulls of our wings casting oars into the dark, the splash echoing to spill into distant coves. The land will not sustain us; its rocky shores cast a soaring cry over the waves, defiant and daring, but rocks repelling teeth bear little fruit. Our voices swell, songs replete with the ken that magnates always outpace kings: weighing anchor, trading empire, casting out the net. Industry and worship. Reassurance and rapine. One calamitous scramble after another and then: devoured. Reprising, splashing, throats forming the chorus behind bloody teeth. Not enough. Never enough." by Kieren Alderling

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 40m

Perpetually. I see masks as a way that people interact with the world; one puts on a different mask for appropriate situations. It's also easy to get lost behind.

They're especially fun for genderfluid characters to use.

#QueerWritersChat

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 51m

I'm Kieren Alderling and I'm currently working on a dark fantasy novel with cosmic horror elements:

A changeling assassin who serves a noble house is drawn into a mystery in the dock district when they come upon a series of murders that it looks like they committed. #QueerWritersChat

Theo Transcendragons @theodoresnapdragon.bsky.social · 7d

Welcome to #QueerWritersChat!

To start things off, introduce yourself and tell us what you're working on!

Feel free to mention what you’re looking forward to in October, too :)

Next question at :10!

@amaralynn.bsky.social #QueerWriters #writesky #writers #writingq

#QueerWritersChat
Question One: Introduce yourself and your current project
Hosts: @amaralynn and @theodoresnapdragon Every Friday 8pm EST
All LGBTQIAP writers and allies welcome Background: gray wood with multicolor art supplies around the border.

Reposted by Kieren Alderling

David A. Rozansky @davidrozansky.bsky.social · 4h

#SciFiChat ends its broadcast day, but tune in again next week, same time, same hashtag. Oct. 17. Social Chat at 3pET, Discussion Questions at 4pET. Topic will be: A Future of No Kings, or, Fall of Empire in #SciFI and #Fantasy.

#Horror #Books #TV #Movies #Comics #Games #NoKings

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 3h

Hi David, looking forward to the next chat! I enjoy writing about monsters of many kinds, chasing terror and longing to look at visceral experiences of what makes us differently human.

I have a sci-fi horror in the works, set on a penal space station where an infection begins to form a hive mind.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 4h

As it turns out, getting caught is pretty irrelevant.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 4h

Someone You Can Build A Nest In was great fun! These are often great examples of flipping the fear of the Other into fear of the Authority that considers itself the default; often a rejection of other stories that position people like Us as the monster. Sympathy for the devil and all. #scifichat

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 5h

I enjoyed that The Shape of Water preamble described the story as "a tale of love and loss" and "the monster who tried to destroy it all."

You know it's going to be good when they're playing with "who's the real monster" from the start.

Reposted by Kieren Alderling

🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈 @haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 1d

The most important art advice possible

DannyAraya @dannyaraya.bsky.social · 1d

Creators, be less tasteful and more indulgent.

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 2d

Very excited for the new book from @hironennes.bsky.social (I adored Leech)!

I picked up A Murder of Prose by local author Scott Charlton Paul while I was at Owl's Nest Books in #yyc, because I love crows and also puns.

Two books side by side: The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, with an oroborus-style centipede eating its own tail, and A Murder of Prose by Scott Charlton Paul. Brown leather backdrop.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 2d

I LOVE that. I'm terrible at watching TV, but it's been bumped up my list now.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 2d

But you're going to be now! Enjoy your fun trip!!

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 2d

That happened to me for the first time recently, and even for someone with chronic migraines, it felt bizarre.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 2d

That IS a real word; autocorrect just hates onomatopoeias.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 3d

Someday, I will watch this show.

I love that delineation, though. The surfacing dream, carrying the pieces that you need to continue on (with those jagged edges of truth you've hidden from yourself), versus the lure of the fantasy.

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 4d

I have absoluuuutley been there. Start with what's shiny and convince yourself that you'll have enough free time to get through the whole pile?

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 4d

Bodies really are a scam. They're ridiculous. I hope you manage to get an earlier time slot for the MRI though, seriously.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

Petitions sometimes have done a bit of the groundwork and note taking for me, although it's hit or miss obviously.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

You bet. I'm mulling over the wording for a Conservative MP.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

All good!

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

Thank you! I really appreciate the thorough breakdown. There's a related petition here as well: www.change.org/p/stop-bill-...

Sign the Petition

Stop Bill S-209’s De-Anonymization of Every Canadian Adult

www.change.org

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

Do you have anything on the current fight in Canada? I'm having a hard time keeping track of what's going on; I'm more read up on the UK Online Safety Act.

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 6d

There are two ways I look at "grounding" horror in reality:

- The best description is written with the vivid imagining (especially based on memory) of being grounded in a particular moment
- The audience needs the illusion of familiarity to be carried away in the world

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 8d

I think this is one of the things that bugs me about the conclusion that a horror novel being described as "atmospheric" should be taken to mean that it is inherently "tame".

Nameless Evil @simpleimple.bsky.social · 8d

I continue to think that the trend, and it's one that's been building up for more than a decade but it's still a trend of the current era, of style over substance in the chasing of aesthetic without ever comprehending that aesthetic is the philosophical merging of the two. That you get incredibly

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Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 9d

"I've been Alberta bound for all my life" but make it cosmic horror. 🤔

Kieren Alderling @alderling.com · 9d

I got caught up in things and forgot about Horror Writers Chat! Oh well, next week.