Kate Heartfield

Mercutio NetGalley helps publishers and authors promote digital review copies to book advocates and industry professionals. Publishers make digital review copies and audiobooks available for the NetGalley comm...

Periodic reminder that my next novel, Mercutio, is available to request on Netgalley UK now, for those of you who are reviewers, bloggers, podcasters etc. An imagining of one possible origin for Shakespeare's Mercutio, set in the 13th century. And thanks for taking a look.

A life in pictures: Remembering Bruno Schlumberger Bruno Schlumberger's six National Newspaper Awards were the most any Canadian photographer received.

A lovely obit of Bruno Schlumberger, a photographer so many of us had the pleasure of working with as reporters. Thanks, Bruce Deachman. @ottawacitizen.com #ottnews ottawacitizen.com/news/local-n...

Same! I suppose it's a little odd that it resonates more for me in middle age, given that Richard himself only makes it to 33, but I feel as if it's been there this whole time waiting for me to be ready for it.

Ahh this is so cool! I love the peacock feathers!

Ooh yes definitely! It feels like we're only seeing the curtain pulled back a bit.

There's a dark places tax when you're writing in a tradition. Take a penny leave a penny.

I think any good retelling wanders into those dark places, but should also show us glimpses of other, new dark places beyond them too.

A lot of those glimpses (in that play and others) are vestiges from the older stories Shakespeare was drawing on, or even vestiges of other versions of his own work, but whether deliberate or not, they add a sense of human landscape and R&J in particular has always made me daydream new stories.

One of the things I like about R&J is one of the reasons I felt drawn to write a R&J novel: the glimpses of other stories in it. Like Capulet's lost children. Or "Mercutio and his brother Valentine." Or Benvolio: why does he have a troubled mind? How did he curb the hot temper Mercutio says he has?

Yes, really good points. We don't need to be praised! Just let us know what you want from us.

Probably unsurprisingly, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are the two I know most by heart, and that I've returned to many times over my life.
In recent years, though, Richard II is the one that fascinates me most.

Mercutio is the hardest one. No idea. We'll call it "The Moonshine's Wat'ry Beams" and let people guess what it's supposed to smell like.

There are a tonne of perfumes inspired by Marie Antoinette's actual perfumes, which usually include rose and jasmine. So I guess something like that for The Embroidered Book. Maybe walnuts because there's a nocino scene.

The Haus of Gloi Garden of Earthly Delights is my pick for The Chatelaine.

OK that's even more wild

House of Gloi had (has?) a perfume called Dragon's Heart, rosewood and vanilla, so obviously that's the body wash scent for The Valkyrie.

For the Tapestry of Time, I'm told plastic explosives smell like almonds. And maybe Bandit, a 1944 perfume "for the woman who dares to smoke in public."

Mechanics, both sides (army on one, Kmart auto shop on the other)

This sounds very cool!

My novel that was supposed to come out from ChiZine in 2019 and never did was called "The Humours of Grub Street" and it had a lot of 18th c gin and coffee in it, and I decided I wanted that in a soap, so I made one! Juniper and coffee; it was nice. I still have some bars around here somewhere.

(Irresistible, obvs, do not put me in charge of package design)

I do have some soap making supplies in the basement 🤔

Moonlit Meat
Irrestible Ichor

There is an unresolved tension between Carney’s desire to project a new, purely realist Canadian stance driven by pragmatic need, and his desire to create a break from the U.S. sphere and play a major role in the alliance of surviving liberal democracies, defending their values. Visible here.

A drugstore shelf with branded Bridgerton Dove body wash. Whispering Wisteria and Moonlit Masquerade.

I have a lot of author dreams, but I can honestly say branded body wash has not entered my wildest.

Ooh thanks! I just got my covid shot at the Mitch Owens Shoppers, but good to know for the future.

This week I have learned that the town of Kemptville has flu shots but no covid shots, and the town of Manotick has covid shots but no flu shots. (Through a series of unfortunate events I missed both in the fall.) Feels like the beginning of a nursery rhyme.

I also find it puzzling, but I was complaining to someone yesterday that a small but significant percentage of my stress comes from other people either not reading my emails to them at all, or apparently skimming them and responding in ways that make no sense. I don't know how to live like that.

Many coders are clearly very enthusiastic and coding is a field I know absolutely nothing about, so who am I to say, but I just don't see the benefits in any aspect of what I am trying to do in and with my own life. I mutter "enjoy your groceries" as I scroll here at least once a day

This thread is wild and illuminating and relates to many other areas where zero concern about user experience seems so baffling (like customer service.) It also relates to the people who tell me "I never have to write another email again, yay" about AI. They do not care whether their emails are good

Indefinite Book Club Hiatus Today in “Things that ‘AI’ has ruined”: No, I won’t be able to show up to your book club’s online/offline gathering, and the reason for this is simple: I, and li…

I get asked to show up to book clubs, online and offline. Here is why from now on the answer is always "no." If you think this might have something to do with "AI" ruining yet another thing for everyone, you're absolutely 100% correct.

whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/03/i...

He even beats Cary Elwes!