Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kate Heartfield

@kateheartfield.com

6.5K followers 2.5K following 2.1K posts

I write weird novels about weird history, plus games and stories. Next novel: MERCUTIO, May 2026. (Mostly) former journalist; currently teaching journalism. From Manitoba, now in Ottawa. She/her. Trans rights or gtfo 🏳️‍🌈 https://kateheartfield.com

kateheartfield.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · Apr 30

New pinned thread! I'm a writer in Ottawa, Canada. I write historical fantasy novels (see next posts), and other things. I used to be a newspaper journalist. My newsletter, which comes out every second Friday: buttondown.com/heartfield My website: www.kateheartfield.com My typical cat situation:

Kate's laptop, on Kate's lap, with a black cat snuggled alongside.

3 5 53

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 12h

onspec.ca/2025/10/09/t...

Thirty-Five Years

Editorial In On Spec VOL 35 No 3, Issue #133 Earlier this year, I announced that I’d be retiring and leaving On Spec at the end of December, and my final issue as Managing Editor would be VOL 35 No…

onspec.ca

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 12h

Big thanks to the On Spec team for 35 years of publishing speculative stories in Canada. I was a reader before I was published there, and the stories I published with them are extremely Canadian ones. We have some newer, also excellent specfic magazines in Canada now, but they still leave a big gap.

On Spec Magazine @onspecmag.bsky.social · 15h

With our new issue, we are making the sad announcement that this will be the final year for On Spec. See www.onspec.ca for details.

1 14

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 13h

Another upside of the inflatable costume: it creates a barrier against the "I'm not touching you" variety of reactionary asshole who walks around protests sticking phones in people's faces to film an inch from their noses (a familiar scourge in Ottawa). And might help with de-escalation in general.

C.A. Pinkham @eyepatchguy.bsky.social · 13h

I’m not kidding when I say these weird ass costumes and antics are actually an extremely effective tactic from a media standpoint bc when enough people do them, the media can’t fully scrub them out

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 14h

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

3 15

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Labor Notes @labornotes.bsky.social · 18h

Over two million people across Italy walked out this month in a one-day strike over the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The strike, called by the Italian General Confederation of Labour and grassroots unions, drew workers, students and several other groups labornotes.org/2025/10/mill...

Millions of Italians Join General Strike for Gaza

More than 2 million people filled public squares across Italy on October 3 during a one-day general strike in support of the people of Gaza and against the ongoing genocide there. The strike, called b...

labornotes.org

10 17

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19h

First canada.ca domains on here? 👀

Library Archives of Canada accounts in French and English shared by Verified Account Tracker

3 5 57

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 20h

Ha, classic. "The Parkway" and "The Driveway" are also somewhat baffling.

1 1

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Aimee Cozza Illustration @aimeecozza.com · 20h

Authors - need a cover artist? This pack has you covered (lol) and is a great starting point for getting human made arts for your writing!

3 97 190

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 22h

"a move they say would mirror the rules in peer countries" 😒

Bryan Based International Order 🇨🇦 @bryanpeeler.bsky.social · 22h

Oh. You don't say. I was told this sort of thing wouldn't happen in Canada.

Conservatives call for new limit on birthright citizenship

SARAH RITCHIEOTTAWA — The Conservatives are calling for a new limit

winnipeg-can.newsmemory.com

1 3 14

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Andromeda Yelton @thatandromeda.bsky.social · 22h

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u... Interesting obit of a tiny powerhouse lawyer who'd been active in progressive movements *all the way back to labor in the 1930s*.

Ann Fagan Ginger, Tireless Defender of Civil Liberties, Dies at 100

www.nytimes.com

5 18

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Yes! I was caught by that when I moved here in 95.

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Weirdly, the one I can't get my phone to recognize by voice is Almonte. Google maps cannot understand the Al as anything other than El. Aylmer it understands somehow, even if I just say it quickly as I would to a local.

1 2

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Dalhousie is the subject of many a bitter argument.

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Arguably in Ottawa it's Rideau (Street, Centre, River, Rapids). Anglophones here say REE-dough. Anglophones from elsewhere either try for a French pronunciation or they say "rid" for the first syllable or emphasize the second syllable or some combination thereof.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 1d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

6 1 12

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Stephen Kotowych 🇨🇦 @ourmankoto.bsky.social · 1d

Submissions are OPEN for Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume Four (the best of 2025). Send me your SFF published in 2025, you crazy Canucks! Details on my site at the link below. DON'T SELF REJECT! You can't win if you don't play ;) Subs close Feb 28, 2026. Pls share WIDELY.

Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction | Stephen Kotowych

kotowych.com

95 85

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

And here's my UK Bookshop shop:

Kate Heartfield Bookshop UK

Kate Heartfield is the author of several novels, including The Tapestry of Time (2024), about clairvoyant sisters in WWII; The Valkyrie (2023), a retelling of legends; and the Sunday Times bestseller ...

uk.bookshop.org

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Free shipping at Bookshop lasts until tonight. I have an affiliate shop there with a handy list of my available books:

Kate Heartfield Bookshop

bookshop.org

1 1 5

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

The end of this clip is extremely revealing about right wing populism in Canada. You go to a town hall, people there tell you that they're not making a decent living in their factory jobs, and what you latch onto is stoking resentment of people on social assistance. The cause of so much grief still.

TVO Today | The Agenda @tvotoday.bsky.social · 1d

"If you don't believe in what you're talking about, it shows." — Ontario's 22nd premier, Mike Harris, on campaigning on the Common Sense Revolution during the 1995 election. Watch The Premier Files, Oct. 10 at 8pm with @spaikin.bsky.social on @wearetvo.bsky.social | Producer: @carrletta.bsky.social

2 4 11

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Thank you for making it!

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

I have the tank top (wearing it to a union meeting tonight!) and it's great. Join me in orcanize merch club

Nicole Dornsife | Thornwolf @thornwolf.bsky.social · 16d

*CLEARANCE* #Orcanize merch is now at its lowest prices ever as I'm getting rid of my last of stock. Now's your chance to save on hoodies, tees, tanks, and totes!

Hoodie: Was $65 now $50
Tee: Was $35 now $25
Tank: Was $30 now $22
Tote: Was $25 now $19

thornwolf.com/orcanize
#BSNM #ArtShop #SciArt

A lineup of merchandise featuring my Orcanize design, a faux soviet style propaganda poster featuring orcas leaping out of the water. Lineup includes: posters (sold out), bumper stickers, vinyl stickers, tank tops, t-shirts, hoodies.

A jumbo canvas tote with my Orcanize design on it.

1 2 13

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 2d

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

55 1.4K 2.3K

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Ooh: Winnie l'Ourson

1 4

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

I second the Winnipeg idea. Or Wayne Gretzky. Proper nouns ftw.

1 1

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

I think it is good to try to see one's country objectively but a lot of people seem to be getting stuck there. You call it the same because it is the same, moving on

Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 1d

Constant "imagine what we would call this if it were happening in another country!" makes me think of blank looks I've gotten trying to explain to some Americans that "international" is not a synonym for "not the US"; as if they don't see the US as a country among countries but as centre-periphery.

2 3 27

Reposted by Kate Heartfield

Amanda Earl @amandaearl.bsky.social · 2d

BYWORDS.CA CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
We publish a monthly online magazine of poetry.
Call for unpublished poetry by current and former Ottawa students, residents & workers. Max 250 words and 45 lines, 5 poems.
Deadline: 15th of each month for next issue.
Payment is $40.
E-mail poems as one doc, docx or rtf file to submissions@bywords.ca
NO PDFS PLEASE or Google Docs please.
More info: amanda@bywords.ca or visit Bywords.ca and click on guidelines.

5 3