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On September 15, 2026, we’ll be launching our first Kickstarter campaign in more than a decade, to fund Year 17 of Lightspeed and Year 15 of Nightmare. Join us for a year of new short fiction from som...

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It would make my life so much easier if more people in more sectors had a bare-bones basic understanding of how to get governments to consider doing things. Then again, if those skills were more common I wouldn't get to enjoy watching my greatest enemy publicly embarrass itself.

There's nothing quite like carving out 3/4 of the day to knock out the task that's been baffling and intimidating you for weeks. Better believe it is knocked.

Got asked for an updated author bio today and you know what I got to say? "Jonathan Olfert is the author of the Weird Ice Age novella SEERS IN A BROKEN SEASON and over fifty short stories and novelettes. His work has appeared in..." Yeah I did.

Couldn't be more excited for the artist they've brought on to do the map for my Weird Ice Age novella. Did a new sketch of the whole territory and sent it over with a mountain of notes that boil down to 'pick and choose what you like, I trust your take.' Here's a snippet:

So, big developments — 166% funded. Map happening. At 173% funded, right around the corner, a neat feature kicks in: a discount on shipping costs for all backers outside the United States ($5 off for Canadian backers, and $10 off for anyone outside of North America). Love campaigns that do this.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 2w ago

89% funded by the first night. 120% nets interior illustration. 140% means a MAP. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

Today half a gold crown is planted squarely on my head.

The Shadow (the pulp magazine version) is public domain next year and I have to think the concept of someone going after people who think they’re beyond justice is fertile ground right now.

Say what you will about Reacher but the 'what if a man was large' of it all was genuinely helpful a couple years ago when I started getting back to the gym.

I'M Coming In Either Way Jack Reacher

Alt: A large man wraps a jacket around his fist and largely punches through a car window

static.klipy.com

Wearing this pattern in floor-length wizard robes to defeat gait recognition software and pass unseen

Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 2w ago

The French took dazzle as far as it would go and another two meters farther. This is the cruiser, Gloire.

Woke up to 107% funded. 92 pre-orders for my genre-cannibalizing novella. Is it post-apocalyptic? Cli-fi? Sword and sorcery? Political theory? Western? New Weird? Parade of luridly painted vans circa 1973? Jared Wesley by way of Quest for Fire and The Meg? Walks-like-a-Rockslide does not care.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 2w ago

89% funded by the first night. 120% nets interior illustration. 140% means a MAP. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

Praise Yag-Kosha in style with a one-of-a-kind mammoth idol, called into being from fieldstone sourced out of the weird North (Canada) by our own Jonathan Olfert. Comes complete with our entire backlog (costs $) AND maddening knowledge from beyond the stars (free). www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

89% funded by the first night. 120% nets interior illustration. 140% means a MAP. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

Primal meets The Man with No Name in this Stone-Age fantasy tale. Walks-like-a-Rockslide, wandering warrior of the mammoth-people, seeks an end to the ice choking the world. Instead he finds war, whal...

backerkit.com

Where strides the behemoth? HERE! Our new campaign for Jonathan Olfert's stone and sorcery novella, Seers in a Broken Season, has begun! Backers in the first 48 hours receive an exclusive bookmark! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

Primal meets The Man with No Name in this Stone-Age fantasy tale. Walks-like-a-Rockslide, wandering warrior of the mammoth-people, seeks an end to the ice choking the world. Instead he finds war, whal...

backerkit.com

54% funded in two hours. Join the stampede. The stampede trumpets to you.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm profoundly moved to see the pre-orders rolling in for my first book. Nowhere else will you see a woolly mammoth go head-to-head with such an array of power and thought and cruelty, trampling the great questions of our age into the crevices of a Weird Ice Age. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

My favourite bit of the painting: the frozen-over palm trees, reproduced here in case the title obscures part of them on the final cover.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm profoundly moved to see the pre-orders rolling in for my first book. Nowhere else will you see a woolly mammoth go head-to-head with such an array of power and thought and cruelty, trampling the great questions of our age into the crevices of a Weird Ice Age. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

I'm profoundly moved to see the pre-orders rolling in for my first book. Nowhere else will you see a woolly mammoth go head-to-head with such an array of power and thought and cruelty, trampling the great questions of our age into the crevices of a Weird Ice Age. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o...

Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

Primal meets The Man with No Name in this Stone-Age fantasy tale. Walks-like-a-Rockslide, wandering warrior of the mammoth-people, seeks an end to the ice choking the world. Instead he finds war, whal...

backerkit.com

Hello many (many) new followers — perfect day for you to arrive, because we're four hours and 20 minutes away from the launch of Old Moon Publishing's very reasonable crowdfund campaign for my first book, a brutal weird Ice Age fantasy novella called SEERS IN A BROKEN SEASON. Handpainted cover!

Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

From Old Moon Publishing - Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

backerkit.com

Announcing Ichor Magazine, an amateur magazine of sword and sorcery touched by the sublime. A home for new authors dipping their pen into the violet ink of unknown horror. Not ready for a NESS submission yet? We may be your perfect intro market. Opening for subs September 1st 2026

-Grandmother, if you do not give me a sign I will know you are only memory and fear.

Old Moon Quarterly@oldmoonquarterly.bsky.social · 2w ago

Cover art reveal! This is the cover art for Jonathan Olfert's ( @jonolfert.bsky.social ) stone-and-sorcery novella, Seers in a Broken Season. The crowdfunding campaign for it goes live tomorrow! The art itself is hand-painted by Brian LeBlanc, and depicts Walks-like-a-Rockslide himself!

You can sign up for the Seers in a Broken Season campaign here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/o... Paperback-tier backers in the first 48 hours receive an exclusive bookmark!

Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

Get notified when Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella launches on BackerKit!

backerkit.com

Cover art reveal! This is the cover art for Jonathan Olfert's ( @jonolfert.bsky.social ) stone-and-sorcery novella, Seers in a Broken Season. The crowdfunding campaign for it goes live tomorrow! The art itself is hand-painted by Brian LeBlanc, and depicts Walks-like-a-Rockslide himself!

Started bailing floodwater with buckets at 6AM! Everything under control. Please join the mailing list for my first book's crowdfund, which starts in five days. In this story all floodwater would be frozen by a weird ice age, which sounds pretty great right now. www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

From Old Moon Publishing - Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

backerkit.com

And yes that is a first-ever preview of the actual handpainted cover art.

Old Moon Quarterly@oldmoonquarterly.bsky.social · 3w ago

132 mammoths have joined the Blue Ochre People! And thus, a portent appears! Sign up here to see more in the coming weeks regarding @jonolfert.bsky.social 's stone and sorcery novella, Seers in a Broken Season! www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

"...recognising the selective deployment of science fiction as a political tactic – seeing the militarised drone and the privatised city charter not as neutral tools but as crystallisations of specific, narrow stories about power." aeon.co/essays/silic...

Dug up my concept art for the first Walks-like-a-Rockslide story a few years back:

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 3w ago

The most likely reason for the miseries and agonies of the world today: woolly mammoths just aren't trampling enough people. Mammoth stampede fans, sign up to hear more. www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

The most likely reason for the miseries and agonies of the world today: woolly mammoths just aren't trampling enough people. Mammoth stampede fans, sign up to hear more. www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

From Old Moon Publishing - Get Ready for Seers in a Broken Season: A Stone And Sorcery Novella

backerkit.com

I'll say this much: if norms are being built, it's not tactically sustainable to expect deep handcrafted soul-searching reporting and responses when presses get fooled by something that took a relatively small amount of work. Build norms of simple clear reporting. Hell, put those norms in contracts.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 4w ago

Don't know if there's a right way or place to say this, but after reading the Bona report, the AI user who just sent shockwaves through a dozen-ish markets was clearly a hobbyist with limited resources and skills a couple of years out of date. Defenders need to skate where the puck is going to be.

Don't know if there's a right way or place to say this, but after reading the Bona report, the AI user who just sent shockwaves through a dozen-ish markets was clearly a hobbyist with limited resources and skills a couple of years out of date. Defenders need to skate where the puck is going to be.

Nailing this required about two months of facing up to my deepest-rooted, most personal, most insecure skill deficit as a writer, and stomping that skill deficit flat like a mammoth ought to. It is dead. The mammoth prevails.

Jon Olfert@jonolfert.bsky.social · 4w ago

Showed this novella to the most merciless reader I know and she loved it. She disliked exactly one thing, and it was a thing I did on purpose. All the painted-van-circa-1973 visuals did their job, and a painted van circa 1973 is the book I needed to write. Here's the mailing list to get notified.