Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
@jonolfert.bsky.social
Stories in Analog, On Spec, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies. History's eighth or ninth most prolific writer of speculative paleofiction. Polling and policy by day. If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings. http://jonathan-olfert.carrd.co
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
Shiny Jets, New Subs, and Old Problems
Canada’s defence excitement doesn’t fix the fundamentals.
open.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
(sure would be a cool time to read a weird ghost story about a world where many disparate creatures were recognizably human and how that'd shake out huh? if there was such a thing)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Woman Like Stone Like Water by Malda Marlys
The stranger turned at the noise she was making and stared at her rather rudely. (Did plains people not train their children properly?) He didn’t quite seem able to stand, but he scooted away from her...
www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:55 AM
(sure would be a cool time to read a weird ghost story about a world where many disparate creatures were recognizably human and how that'd shake out huh? if there was such a thing)
A: Half the people I follow are American writers of some kind.
B: Profile images are tiny.
C: My concept of American geography is shaky.
D: Everyone born in the 80s starts with J.
A+B+C+D = I have no idea who anyone is beyond 'big on 2nd person' and 'likes writing weird swamps' and 'E...LLIP...SES.'
B: Profile images are tiny.
C: My concept of American geography is shaky.
D: Everyone born in the 80s starts with J.
A+B+C+D = I have no idea who anyone is beyond 'big on 2nd person' and 'likes writing weird swamps' and 'E...LLIP...SES.'
December 2, 2025 at 2:17 AM
A: Half the people I follow are American writers of some kind.
B: Profile images are tiny.
C: My concept of American geography is shaky.
D: Everyone born in the 80s starts with J.
A+B+C+D = I have no idea who anyone is beyond 'big on 2nd person' and 'likes writing weird swamps' and 'E...LLIP...SES.'
B: Profile images are tiny.
C: My concept of American geography is shaky.
D: Everyone born in the 80s starts with J.
A+B+C+D = I have no idea who anyone is beyond 'big on 2nd person' and 'likes writing weird swamps' and 'E...LLIP...SES.'
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
BCS parent co. is 501c3 nonprofit; donations are tax deductible. Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday! If you believe paying writers & First Readers a worthy cause, pls consider supporting us, recurring or one-time. THANK YOU. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/support-bcs/... 3/3
Get more from Beneath Ceaseless Skies on Patreon
creating an online fantasy magazine & podcast
www.patreon.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:08 PM
BCS parent co. is 501c3 nonprofit; donations are tax deductible. Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday! If you believe paying writers & First Readers a worthy cause, pls consider supporting us, recurring or one-time. THANK YOU. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/support-bcs/... 3/3
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
We publish many new & emerging authors; they deserve pro pay. Our First Readers write personalized comments in ALL replies; they deserve pay. If you read BCS & you're able to support, please consider it. If you have, THANK YOU. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... weightlessbooks.com/genre/fictio... 2/3
Get more from Beneath Ceaseless Skies on Patreon
creating an online fantasy magazine & podcast
www.patreon.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:08 PM
We publish many new & emerging authors; they deserve pro pay. Our First Readers write personalized comments in ALL replies; they deserve pay. If you read BCS & you're able to support, please consider it. If you have, THANK YOU. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... weightlessbooks.com/genre/fictio... 2/3
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
BCS Patreon has fallen below the monthly amount we need to pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers a worthy honorarium ($125/mo). Sometimes folks need to lower or pause their support; we understand. But less than 1% of BCS readership donates or supports. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... 1/3
Get more from Beneath Ceaseless Skies on Patreon
creating an online fantasy magazine & podcast
www.patreon.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:08 PM
BCS Patreon has fallen below the monthly amount we need to pay our authors a pro rate and our First Readers a worthy honorarium ($125/mo). Sometimes folks need to lower or pause their support; we understand. But less than 1% of BCS readership donates or supports. www.patreon.com/beneath_ceas... 1/3
My latest Fivefold Church story, "Crickets in Lost Light," is out in Lightspeed 187. Free to read on the 11th but who'd wait that long for answers to the great questions? (How hard is it possible to fail as a Wife Guy? Is tithing theft? Can you fight with a saw?)
weightlessbooks.com/lightspeed-m...
weightlessbooks.com/lightspeed-m...
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 187 (December 2025)
LIGHTSPEED is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF-and fantasy: fro...
weightlessbooks.com
December 1, 2025 at 8:31 PM
My latest Fivefold Church story, "Crickets in Lost Light," is out in Lightspeed 187. Free to read on the 11th but who'd wait that long for answers to the great questions? (How hard is it possible to fail as a Wife Guy? Is tithing theft? Can you fight with a saw?)
weightlessbooks.com/lightspeed-m...
weightlessbooks.com/lightspeed-m...
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
It takes me 3x as long to grade assignments now, because I have to explain gently and effectively why ChatGPT style writing is boring -- they swim in this stuff now even when they don't use the tools. Maybe no one has even told them their own voice matters, so that is down to us. 3/
November 29, 2025 at 4:21 PM
It takes me 3x as long to grade assignments now, because I have to explain gently and effectively why ChatGPT style writing is boring -- they swim in this stuff now even when they don't use the tools. Maybe no one has even told them their own voice matters, so that is down to us. 3/
Early-career professionals are increasingly unsettled — I see it daily — about their prospects for bear skull mentorship. About to enter my forties, I admit I'm insecure about my own magic sword planning and the frequency of my malevolent fog vanishings. My moss layer, however, is ahead of schedule.
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Early-career professionals are increasingly unsettled — I see it daily — about their prospects for bear skull mentorship. About to enter my forties, I admit I'm insecure about my own magic sword planning and the frequency of my malevolent fog vanishings. My moss layer, however, is ahead of schedule.
Lot of possible factors re: What's Happening With The Students for sure.
This isn't an insight unique to me — a student affairs comms pro pointed it out — but my money's on the biggest actual driver being the launches of Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, & FB Reels. Timeline, total reach — it fits.
This isn't an insight unique to me — a student affairs comms pro pointed it out — but my money's on the biggest actual driver being the launches of Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, & FB Reels. Timeline, total reach — it fits.
November 29, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Lot of possible factors re: What's Happening With The Students for sure.
This isn't an insight unique to me — a student affairs comms pro pointed it out — but my money's on the biggest actual driver being the launches of Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, & FB Reels. Timeline, total reach — it fits.
This isn't an insight unique to me — a student affairs comms pro pointed it out — but my money's on the biggest actual driver being the launches of Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, & FB Reels. Timeline, total reach — it fits.
Missing my homeland of Alberta something fierce tonight. Picture's a little lake north of Rocky Mountain House, 2025.
November 29, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Missing my homeland of Alberta something fierce tonight. Picture's a little lake north of Rocky Mountain House, 2025.
Alberta <3
Slippery when wet. Partly frozen Bow river near Banff. December 2022.
#photography #landscape #snowscape #river #ice #Banff #Alberta #Canada
#photography #landscape #snowscape #river #ice #Banff #Alberta #Canada
November 29, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Alberta <3
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
In this week’s @strangehorizons.bsky.social, one of my favourite pieces I’ve edited this year — on orientalism from Star Trek to Game of Thrones.
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence
Dragon fire on white bodies is sad. Dragon fire on not-Muslim bodies is cheered on the screen. We ache when the scimitar prows of not-Muslim ships cleave through a white human captain’s ship. But b…
strangehorizons.com
November 28, 2025 at 9:24 AM
In this week’s @strangehorizons.bsky.social, one of my favourite pieces I’ve edited this year — on orientalism from Star Trek to Game of Thrones.
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Without exaggeration, one of the finest pieces of paleofiction I've found anywhere. Weird Stone Age horror as high art.
In Perfection’s Shape I Writhe. ~5k words. to be published by @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social. pleistocene paleohorror, ammonite worship, disapora feelings, ritual mutilation, comfort by any means; this one isn't out yet or free to read but NESS issues are so gorgeous i couldn't overlook it
New Edge Sword & Sorcery – Made with love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling!
newedgeswordandsorcery.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Without exaggeration, one of the finest pieces of paleofiction I've found anywhere. Weird Stone Age horror as high art.
"You have utterly breached your genre contract with me in my capacity as a reader! Your sword-and-sorcery stories don't have any gloopy monsters!"
And yours don't have any stakes, bub, settle down a bit.
And yours don't have any stakes, bub, settle down a bit.
a man with long hair is saying contemplate this on the tree of woe .
Alt: James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom saying 'contemplate this on the tree of woe' to Conan the Barbarian, offscreen.
media.tenor.com
November 23, 2025 at 2:54 PM
"You have utterly breached your genre contract with me in my capacity as a reader! Your sword-and-sorcery stories don't have any gloopy monsters!"
And yours don't have any stakes, bub, settle down a bit.
And yours don't have any stakes, bub, settle down a bit.
They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
November 23, 2025 at 2:43 AM
They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
Trying to get some more practice with bread-and-butter ggplot and didn't feel like trawling more government datasets today so-
November 22, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Trying to get some more practice with bread-and-butter ggplot and didn't feel like trawling more government datasets today so-
Paleofiction crew, it's a good morning, wake from the grasp of encroaching ice and come check this story out.
@carlc75.bsky.social @handiworkgames.bsky.social @sashabrown.bsky.social @ranylt.bsky.social @rkduncan.bsky.social @mimulus.bsky.social
@carlc75.bsky.social @handiworkgames.bsky.social @sashabrown.bsky.social @ranylt.bsky.social @rkduncan.bsky.social @mimulus.bsky.social
this one was the cover story for the issue, so read to find out what this is all about
Check out this COVER for Volume 5 by Kamille Rodriguez!!
November 22, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Paleofiction crew, it's a good morning, wake from the grasp of encroaching ice and come check this story out.
@carlc75.bsky.social @handiworkgames.bsky.social @sashabrown.bsky.social @ranylt.bsky.social @rkduncan.bsky.social @mimulus.bsky.social
@carlc75.bsky.social @handiworkgames.bsky.social @sashabrown.bsky.social @ranylt.bsky.social @rkduncan.bsky.social @mimulus.bsky.social
Snap up some ostraka for me but I've been saying it: the main way people are reading checks-every-box sword and sorcery these days, by an order of magnitude, is probably Scarlett St. Clair. It's like how one of the absolute juggernauts of science fiction is Nora Roberts.
This is the version of the post that everyone needs to see. And all you readers/authors despairing of non-comprehension, etc, we are gaining new fans of fantasy and SF. It might not be the fantasy or SF you personally read, but they're reading and buying where they weren't before.
It hits different reading this whole thread.
November 20, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Snap up some ostraka for me but I've been saying it: the main way people are reading checks-every-box sword and sorcery these days, by an order of magnitude, is probably Scarlett St. Clair. It's like how one of the absolute juggernauts of science fiction is Nora Roberts.
You can build yourself. You have the technology.
This International Men's Day I'd like to point out to my fellow guys that on average we don't do so hot at conscientiousness, which can have broad impacts on how we live and feel and what we achieve—but conscientiousness is learnable and trainable through setting goals, helping others, pitching in.
November 19, 2025 at 11:15 PM
You can build yourself. You have the technology.
This International Men's Day I'd like to point out to my fellow guys that on average we don't do so hot at conscientiousness, which can have broad impacts on how we live and feel and what we achieve—but conscientiousness is learnable and trainable through setting goals, helping others, pitching in.
November 19, 2025 at 11:13 PM
This International Men's Day I'd like to point out to my fellow guys that on average we don't do so hot at conscientiousness, which can have broad impacts on how we live and feel and what we achieve—but conscientiousness is learnable and trainable through setting goals, helping others, pitching in.
Starting to have some success explaining impact > intention by working through the tech aphorism "The purpose of a system is what it does."
November 18, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Starting to have some success explaining impact > intention by working through the tech aphorism "The purpose of a system is what it does."
In 2022, the LDS Church in Canada got public scrutiny for the amount of members' donations it redirected to the BYU system (effectively a taxpayer subsidy for US schools.) That outflow shrank — which maybe had more to do with the church quietly overhauling its financial practices in Canada 2022-24.
November 18, 2025 at 4:57 AM
In 2022, the LDS Church in Canada got public scrutiny for the amount of members' donations it redirected to the BYU system (effectively a taxpayer subsidy for US schools.) That outflow shrank — which maybe had more to do with the church quietly overhauling its financial practices in Canada 2022-24.
Reposted by Jon Olfert 🌾🍁
In the LDS church's new SEC filing they now have $288 million invested in Palantir, up from $13 million last year. That's a staggering investment. Unreal.
www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...
www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...
November 16, 2025 at 12:24 AM
In the LDS church's new SEC filing they now have $288 million invested in Palantir, up from $13 million last year. That's a staggering investment. Unreal.
www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...
www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...