hi! i'm Kristen O'Neal, i wrote a book called LYCANTHROPY AND OTHER CHRONIC ILLNESSES, (Quirk Books, https://t.ly/QIgW), and i make a podcast called Thin Places Radio (call in! anchor.fm/thin-places-radio) she/any
hi! posting here about some gorgeous art i just bought from my friend, sara, who is an unbelievably talented painter and a very sweet, thoughtful person:
(from a video i sent to her when i got my painting)
sara is also from gaza and has evacuated to egypt with her mother, who is ill, and a few other siblings; her brother, ibrahim, who is disabled, is still back in gaza with their father and remaining siblings. disease is spreading rapidly right now because of living conditions there. we chat almost every day now, and she sends me updates and pictures that i'll try to include here.
anything at all you can donate to reunite them or to reblog this to spread awareness would be wonderful! if you can afford to buy a painting, you can reach out to her on instagram at @art.sara.sh0; i'm going to treasure mine forever.
hi! posting here about some gorgeous art i just bought from my friend, sara, who is an unbelievably talented painter and a very sweet, thoughtful person:
(from a video i sent to her when i got my painting)
sara is also from gaza and has evacuated to egypt with her mother, who is ill, and a few other siblings; her brother, ibrahim, who is disabled, is still back in gaza with their father and remaining siblings. disease is spreading rapidly right now because of living conditions there. we chat almost every day now, and she sends me updates and pictures that i'll try to include here.
anything at all you can donate to reunite them or to reblog this to spread awareness would be wonderful! if you can afford to buy a painting, you can reach out to her on instagram at @art.sara.sh0; i'm going to treasure mine forever.
are spencer and priya like lowkey a thing or did i make that up while reading
getting this question always cracks me up because i felt like brigid and priya were always more of a thing but, yeah kinda! a vibe definitely emerged! the only concrete thing that i like to think about post canon is that spencer brigid and priya all move into an apartment together and no one can tell which one of them priya is dating
anyway make up anything you want it's your book now!!
two million people starving to death because it's geopolitically convenient and we're all expected to go about our day normally like the casual cruelty on display for the past two years has been so insane to me like i'm not even trying to make a point it's just truly something i can't wrap my mind around
i'm really sick of people saying shit like "ai is the future!!" like by definition no it is not. ai is a plagiarism machine. ai is the blandest middle road you could imagine. ai is whatever has been said the most. "ai is the future" ai is the past. it's never going to be anything else
i've seen a few people worrying that since gen ai is being implemented everywhere they will eventually have to use it. i don't know how everything will shake out. but i just want to say that you have a superpower right now, in the present, and it's saying no. right now you can opt out.
this applies to a lot more than just ai, honestly - boycotting, enacting boundaries with people who try to pressure you, work, school, anything. don't stand for the pledge of allegiance. go out of your way to not buy from companies that are profiting off slave labor or genocide. cancel your amazon subscription. sacrifice your own convenience.
"i'm one person, so it won't make a difference" - sure. even if that's true, which i don't think it is, it's making a difference for you. it's practice for the bigger "no"s. it's gonna get easier the more you do it.
in the words of melville's bartleby the scrivener, as worn by zizek,
i'm really sick of people saying shit like "ai is the future!!" like by definition no it is not. ai is a plagiarism machine. ai is the blandest middle road you could imagine. ai is whatever has been said the most. "ai is the future" ai is the past. it's never going to be anything else
Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood bookworm/indie author
if you use kindle for the majority of your library, they will be shutting down the function that allows you to download your files and transfer them via USB on the 26th of February. Which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but this also means that if a book is taken off Amazon for any reason—like it being banned—they can scrape it off your kindle as well. So maybe backup your library?
How to Download Your Kindle Books (with screenshots)
From your Amazon homepage, click "Account & Lists" then click "Content Library"
Click "Books"
Find the book you want to download and click "More actions"
Click "Download & transfer via USB"
Click the button next to your device, then click "Download"
That's it! Your book file is now downloaded to your device. To my knowledge there isn't a way to bulk download everything, which means that your have to download books individually. (If anyone knows how to download multiple books at a time, please let me know!)
I use the free software Calibre to organize my ebook files. This video gives a good basic overview of how to download your ebooks from Amazon to Calibre, and also goes over how to use Calibre to transfer your ebooks to Kobo. I recently got a Kobo and have slowly been transferring my ebooks to it, and it is actually pretty easy!
If you're looking for ways to get ebooks without supporting Amazon, check out Smashwords, Bookshop.org, or see if your favorite author/publisher sells ebooks directly from their website.
Hello! I’m a chronically ill library assistant who just binged Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses in one evening. Loved it! I will definitely be recommending to my friends and library patrons.
Ah I also work at the library! Taking this opportunity to say, especially now, if you don't have a library card go sign up for one! You can get physical books, ebooks and audiobooks on apps like Libby, attend events and free resource training, and ask for research help. It's one of the last truly free spaces, and doing any one of those things will help your library continue to receive funding to keep doing these things for the community.
I just finished your book and I’m still wiping away tears. As someone who has been on this site too damn long, is chronically ill (hello fibro, endo, and hypermobility spectrum disorder), and has met some of their closest friends on this app, it was all just very good and hit home so hard. I’ve been diagnosed now for a little over a year, and I still don’t know how to handle it. But I think your book taught me a lesson about not being alone even when it feels like it, even when your body is betraying you. Thank you for this gem of a book, can’t wait to read everything you publish!
Thank you so much! I've got two of those three diagnoses as well so I definitely understand. I can't promise how things will end up with any of them, and some months or even years will be harder than others, but you will figure out your own coping mechanisms, and then when those need changing, you'll change them! I've been dealing with chronic illness in one way or another for almost 15 years now and I simultaneously have learned and grown so much and also have no idea how to handle it, and get angry about it, and frustrated. So it's definitely not just you! Feel your feelings, however they come to you, and good luck with everything!
I just finished your book 2 days after checking it out at my high school library and. Holy shit. As someone who is a Tumblr and discord user, and someone who probably has an undiagnosed chronic illness (getting blood tests done next week, hopefully! Wish me luck!) this has got to be the most relatable book I've ever written. When I got to the end and read the acknowledgements I was very glad that I had clocked the platonic partner vibes correctly, although I was expecting it to be a thing between the whole of team werewolf lol
Thanks for writing this, probably my all time favorite book now /gen
This book reminded me a lot of What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo, and I was wondering if you've read it before? If you haven't, you should! I really enjoyed it :D
Hey, good luck! I hope the tests are helpful in pointing you toward an answer.
I'm really glad you enjoyed the book! Just to clarify one point though, whatever interpretation you have of the relationships between the characters, regardless of my own intention, is valid! I do think Brigid and Priya exist in that space right in between platonic and romantic, so feel free to read their relationship in either direction. I do absolutely picture the three of them - Priya, Brigid, and Spencer - all sharing an apartment together a few years down the line from the narrative, and no one being able to figure out what their deal is haha.
Thanks again! And I haven't read that but I'll put it on my list.
I’m coming to you, I don’t know, from my studio. I don’t know how to feel. I’m at a diner. I went back and back and back. I let the road take me here. My memory doesn’t go this far back, but - I think this is what I’ve been looking for. I think it’s the last thing that I almost-remember. I wish I had something like my name, instead. But I guess this’ll have to do.
It looks really ordinary. ROADSIDE DINER, it says in neon, but both the Es are burned out. It’s painted orange, mirrors lining the inside to make it look bigger than it really is. It looks warm inside. Booths in a U along the edges, a counter in that half-ring in the middle, by the kitchen. A thousand places like this in the continental United States. But nowhere exactly like it. Not really.
So what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Have you been chosen for something you never meant to do?
Have you given a gift to a stranger?
Have you forgotten how you… came to this place?
[sigh] When - When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
You can hear me now, can’t you? Oh, you can finally hear me! Good. Good. It takes time for the planes to line up. Sometimes they never do, so.
Please don’t worry. I can’t give you your name. You don’t need it anymore. But I can give you a memory. I can give you the night we met.
You came into the Roadside Diner, just off of I-70. You had that look on your face - that driving-all-night look. That running-away look. Not like you were being hunted. Like you didn’t even know what you were running away from.
You sat in that booth by the back window, near the bathrooms - yes, yes, the one your eyes flicked over to just now. Remember? You ordered a coffee. I was at the counter, talking to the server, and I told her I didn’t have enough to pay for my meal. I said it quietly. There was no yelling. You just noticed. You were paying attention to every person in that diner. Even me. You said, I’ve got it, don’t worry. [huffed laugh] An act of kindness for a stranger.
I slid into your booth to thank you, and you said - and I’m not going to get this all right, because memory’s, y’know, tricky - you said, don’t mention it. You said, I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me. So much trust. How could I not honor it?
I asked you if you were alright, and you told me you weren’t sure. You got out of work that day and you got in your car and you just kept driving. You missed your exit. And you just kept driving, all the way into the night. Are you happy? I asked you. No, you told me.
You didn’t know what was missing from your life, but you knew it was missing. What do you want? I asked you. I wanted to give it to you. And this - this I remember, because this was the important part. “I don’t know,” you said. “I’m just so tired of being a person.”
[radio static]
I put my hands over yours, and I nodded. I knew how to fix it. I asked you if you wanted to be something else. I asked you if you wanted to stop worrying. I gave it to you for free. A deal is a deal. A gift is a gift.
Please don’t worry. I don’t know why you keep worrying. It doesn’t matter what came before. I made it so you never had to worry again. Food, clothes, money. Where to sleep, how to live, how to keep your heart from breaking. The road provides. The road will always provide. I freed you from entropy. I freed you from death.
[the radio shrieks and fuzzes]
I thought you’d stop running away. I thought you’d be happy with the way I repaid your kindness. I took your kindness and your curiosity and your interest in every little person and I turned it into something better. You were a person. [The voice changes from the distortion of a phone voicemail to clear speech.] So what? [They are now beside the host.] I made you a legend.
And I know it’s lonely, at first, to be like us. But you’re not the only one.
You’re not alone.
[click]
The host: It’s you.
The entity: Yes.
[click]
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the ROADSIDE diner just off I-70-] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides -] [The entity: the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. The voice of the entity is Omar Najam.
Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
I just finished your book (one of the best ones I've read in forever and I don't even like werewolves (normally) but I love the way you portrayed it and I was sobbing!!! So good) and while I can't relate to being friends with werewolves, or having a chronic illness - I can def relate to some of the feelings in the book - loneliness, not being believed for shit, "you don't look ADHD" is one I get a lot... And yet people call me autistic as an insult (they may be right honestly) this isn't really a question but I did wanna say thanks for writing that - honestly made me realise just how fsr I've come this year with my mental health and shit and how it's okay to ask for help, but its also okay to be scared to ask for help. Pushing people away sucks - but when they care even when you try to push them away you know they're good. I relate to that, a lot and this book honestly brought up a lot of feelings and made me feel okay in just surviving. I don't always have to be thriving to be okay. So thank you so much!!! I love your book and you're an incredible writer - that book was exactly what I needed so thanks random recommendations from my e-reader <33
Hey, thank you so much for this message! I'm glad the book resonated with you. I just wanted to say that you should be proud of yourself and your mental health journey, that autistic isn't an insult, and that there's nothing "just" about "just surviving." It's the most impressive thing in the world. Keep reaching out, kid.
I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.
dude.
$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.
