Author | Lightnews

Kate Hardie

@ilovecupkates.bsky.social

160 followers 100 following 110 posts

Bard of the juice box years. Occasionally funny, often tired. Science 🔬 sewing 🪡 momming ☕ laughing at memes 😂 television 📺 #IndieWriter #Romance #BluePit #Querying #Q

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 16

#PosterPit
#W #Q #R #C #A

🍁 After the End

A novel about grief, French toast, slow-burn healing, and intimacy that sneaks up on you, latte in hand.

Written by Kate Hardie, who is me.

In the meantime, please enjoy this totally legit movie poster.

#AmWriting

A mock movie poster for a novel titled _After the End_ by Kate Hardie. The top of the poster features autumn maple leaves and mock award badges reading “Best Debut Novel” and “Most Original Meet-Cute”. The central tagline says, “In the shadow of grief, love turns transformative.”

Below, two people sit at a counter, holding rustic ceramic mugs, hands reaching for each other. The tender moment suggests intimacy and connection.

The bottom includes satirical blurbs like “A triumph” —your mom, probably, and “Radiant” —me. The poster ends with “Querying Fall 2025”.

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 2h

Submitted to both the #CBCShortStory contest and my first ever @writingbattle.bsky.social this weekend! Celebrating with a bowl of ice cream and an episode of Slow Horses. #AmWriting #ShortStory #WritersOfBluesky

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 7d

Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?

Act 2, scene 1
Macbeth
#ShakespeareSunday #WritersOfBluesky

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 7d

I only want to brag a tiiiiny bit. My first submission to McSweeney's was rejected, but I got a personalized email response. So that's basically a win.

#Rejections #WritersOfBluesky #CelebrateFailing

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 10d

.....

Just leaving this here. No words.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10d

Leavitt: "At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president's main priority."

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 11d

What's worse, being cursed or the paperwork?

My three remaining brain cells have had about 8 hours of sleep over the last two nights. Somewhere in the blur of laundry, doctor's visits, and delusion, I wrote a short story.

open.substack.com/pub/katehard...

#ThingsTheMoonToldMe #ShortStory

Paperwork

We’ve been in the midst of a Week at my house.

open.substack.com

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · 14d

"Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?"
-Act 5, scene 1, Macbeth

Said by Lady M, in a sleepwalking episode. As she and the king come to terms with what they've done, sleep evades her.

They both need a nap and a hug.

#ShakespeareSunday #Macbeth #SpoookySeason

Reposted by Kate Hardie

Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 16d

🐸

300 5.4K 22K

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Oct 3

I wrote something. It’s weird. Hopefully at least a little funny.

“Iambic Pentameter” Was Not On The List of Essential Criteria in This Job Posting, a short story about a rather odd workplace.

#IambicPentameter #ThingsTheMoonToldMe

“Iambic Pentameter” Was Not On The List of Essential Criteria in This Job Posting

“Follow me, I’ll show you the printer room,” she says, her smile friendly, her tone polite.

open.substack.com

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 26

Ever been on a not-date that’s obviously a date? Gavin and Mel have, too. Come be a fly on the wall for their totally-not-a-date. #WIPSnips #AfterTheEnd 🍁☕️📖

On a background of autumn leaves, red and orange, blurred out against green, text in cream font.

After the End, Written by Kate Hardie

“So Mel, can you tell me more about the
store you work at?” I ask, genuinely curious.
I’m a scientist at heart, so I don’t know
a lot about metaphysical things.

She laughs. “Of course I can! It’s a shop that
sells various objects like… you know, crystals,
rocks, tarot cards, that kind of thing.
Vaguely witchy stuff, too.
Little cauldrons and bundles of sage.
It’s interesting.”

I sit, trying to absorb this.
That sounds a little like bullshit.

“I can see the wheels turning,” Mel laughs at me,
shaking her head. “I know, it sounds like a bunch
of woo-woo garbage. But the way I see it is—if it brings someone comfort, or helps someone to manage their worldview, who am I to stop them?”

Querying Fall 2025
#WIPSnips

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 11

Today’s #WIPSnips word is “outside”. This is a piece of a short story WIP, working title When the Moon is Heaviest.

#ShortStory #CanadaWrites #WriteSky #AmWriting #FromLuna

A deep purple background, with a crescent moon in the lower right corner. In cream coloured sans serif font, the quote from the short story When the Moon is Heaviest:

“It’s going to be okay, you know.
Where you see the moon, there is always hope.
And I should know, I’m an expert.

When is the moon heaviest?
When it’s full.

-Luna”

A tear wets my cheek, hot and uninvited.
Hope.
A foreign concept in these gloomy days. We go outside for a walk, feeling lonely but never alone.

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 10

Feeling very much not okay in the world today. Anyone feel up to sharing something good?

I can share something good: I saw a monarch butterfly in the wild. It was pretty 🦋

#screamintothevoid #fuuuuuuuu-

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 5

How could you resist? Lovely! It makes me nostalgic for the time I spent in Edinburgh in 2016. What a beautiful city!

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 3

This is well and truly worth the read. #WaitForIt

Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · Sep 3

It's seven years since we posted on Twitter about how kids kept coming into the library asking if we had any books about FORTNITE. We didn't back then, and we'd never heard of it so we tried asking what it was.

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Sep 2

#ADHD in real-time: using an electric toothbrush that vibrates every 30 seconds to tell me when to change quadrants, forgetting where I started and which direction I'm going.

#neurodivergence

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 31

You had me in the first half 😂

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 24

That writing doesn't have to be one big chunk to be useful. I now keep a notebook that I think of as "The Composter" wher I stash lines, paragraphs, half-baked plots. Sometimes bits need to ripen or find their friends before they make sense. #LateNightWrite

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 22

The House Ran Away

My house ran away
In a strange turning of the tables
Abandoned its contents
Left from the stables

My house ran away
What the actual fuck?
Where do we go now?
I am no longer stuck

#PoetSky #WriterSky #WordSky #HashtagSky #Comedy
2/2

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 22

Sometimes you write beautiful, sweeping prose that brings a scene to life or gives voice to the unspoken.

And sometimes you write this.

#PoetSky #WriterSky #WordSky #HashtagSky #Comedy #Maybe 1/2

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 16

Crowley most definitely would with Aziraphale, you nailed the vibe 😂😈

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 16

Thank you Nikki! I would love to send you my query materials, please send me a link 💕

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 16

Thanks so much! I'm nearing the end of writing and plan to query over the fall. I'll keep this in mind as I approach the later stages! 💕

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 16

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Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 15

We can hope, at least. Amen.

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 15

Reminds me of the Sushi Gloryhole Lonely Island song from SNL "hear us out, don't leave, where you going?"

two men in suits are dancing in a hallway with the words hear us out above them

ALT: two men in suits are dancing in a hallway with the words hear us out above them

media.tenor.com

Kate Hardie @ilovecupkates.bsky.social · Aug 13

Stuff my kids said:

2yo: my book!

4yo: that was MY book when I was a kid and now it's his.

2yo: my book!

Me: when you were a kid? You're not a kid now?

4yo: no, I'm a big boy.

#KidLogic