Tove Black
@toveblack.bsky.social
Writer and sometimes musician based in Vancouver (Canada). Pen name. https://toveblack.ca/about/
I am only gradually learning that some people really would rather just watch a video than read words -- even for basic info. To me it feels like an imposition to receive a youtube link with no context -- like someone is demanding my time -- but apparently for some folks this is a good thing?
February 1, 2026 at 1:24 AM
I am only gradually learning that some people really would rather just watch a video than read words -- even for basic info. To me it feels like an imposition to receive a youtube link with no context -- like someone is demanding my time -- but apparently for some folks this is a good thing?
Reposted by Tove Black
Reposted by Tove Black
Reposted by Tove Black
Hey cuties. Everything sucks ass. Get some valentines and send them to your friends.
I'm sad. You're sad. They're probably sad.
Send them a valentine.
It keeps Skype a Scientist running, which hey, is very good too.
squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...
I'm sad. You're sad. They're probably sad.
Send them a valentine.
It keeps Skype a Scientist running, which hey, is very good too.
squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...
January 28, 2026 at 3:58 PM
Hey cuties. Everything sucks ass. Get some valentines and send them to your friends.
I'm sad. You're sad. They're probably sad.
Send them a valentine.
It keeps Skype a Scientist running, which hey, is very good too.
squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...
I'm sad. You're sad. They're probably sad.
Send them a valentine.
It keeps Skype a Scientist running, which hey, is very good too.
squidfacts.bigcartel.com/product/deep...
Reposted by Tove Black
"A writing career is not a sprint. It is also not a marathon. A writing career is one of those wilderness survival challenges where they dump you in the woods without a map or a compass or food and whoever finds their way out wins."
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
How to Become a Professional Writer
Do you enjoy writing? Do you like the idea of taking the thing you love doing the most in the world and turning it into work? So that your access t...
www.mcsweeneys.net
January 20, 2026 at 2:20 AM
"A writing career is not a sprint. It is also not a marathon. A writing career is one of those wilderness survival challenges where they dump you in the woods without a map or a compass or food and whoever finds their way out wins."
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
Reposted by Tove Black
You know, there are three contemporary writers in Canada I cite when someone asks who will one day have a shot the Nobel, and they are all women: Madeleine Thien, Canisia Lubrin, and Karen Solie. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
Karen Solie’s Wellwater wins TS Eliot poetry prize
Poet’s sixth collection explores the destruction of the natural world, with a perspective shaped by her upbringing in rural Canada
www.theguardian.com
January 19, 2026 at 11:25 PM
You know, there are three contemporary writers in Canada I cite when someone asks who will one day have a shot the Nobel, and they are all women: Madeleine Thien, Canisia Lubrin, and Karen Solie. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
Reposted by Tove Black
who the fuck WANTS their posts to go viral, have you ever had that actually happen? it's like getting a winning pull on a slot machine if wasps started pouring out the bottom instead of quarters
January 19, 2026 at 11:48 PM
who the fuck WANTS their posts to go viral, have you ever had that actually happen? it's like getting a winning pull on a slot machine if wasps started pouring out the bottom instead of quarters
I’m finally reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, and in the last few pages I’m slowing down, luxuriating, looking up some of the locations. There are lots of things I don’t like about modern life but this ability to see the locations of a story, it’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
January 18, 2026 at 5:45 PM
I’m finally reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, and in the last few pages I’m slowing down, luxuriating, looking up some of the locations. There are lots of things I don’t like about modern life but this ability to see the locations of a story, it’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
The sun has come out in Vancouver after days of rain, and it’s illuminating the surface of the pages of the novel I’m reading. A book is just a combination of wood pulp and glue and ink, and yet it contains worlds. Thinking of these small wonders.
January 15, 2026 at 6:49 PM
The sun has come out in Vancouver after days of rain, and it’s illuminating the surface of the pages of the novel I’m reading. A book is just a combination of wood pulp and glue and ink, and yet it contains worlds. Thinking of these small wonders.
I really love these stories by Sarah Pinsker — one of those books where I have to pause after every story to process what I just read — a very good thing.
It’s also one of those books where first I get it from the library — and then I go out and buy a copy so I can keep coming back to it.
It’s also one of those books where first I get it from the library — and then I go out and buy a copy so I can keep coming back to it.
January 11, 2026 at 6:41 PM
I really love these stories by Sarah Pinsker — one of those books where I have to pause after every story to process what I just read — a very good thing.
It’s also one of those books where first I get it from the library — and then I go out and buy a copy so I can keep coming back to it.
It’s also one of those books where first I get it from the library — and then I go out and buy a copy so I can keep coming back to it.
"There’s this Chekhov quote that I’m kind of living by lately. He says a work of art doesn’t have to solve a problem — it just has to formulate it correctly.... You ratchet the question up, and you go, Yeah, that’s a tough one."
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/m...
GIFT ARTICLE I meant to skim this but was glued to it all the way through.
Saunders (2017 Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo) has a novel out this month, Vigil, about two angelic beings visiting the deathbed of an oil tycoon and climate-change-denial mastermind.
GIFT ARTICLE I meant to skim this but was glued to it all the way through.
Saunders (2017 Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo) has a novel out this month, Vigil, about two angelic beings visiting the deathbed of an oil tycoon and climate-change-denial mastermind.
George Saunders Says Ditching These Three Delusions Can Save You
www.nytimes.com
January 10, 2026 at 8:10 PM
"There’s this Chekhov quote that I’m kind of living by lately. He says a work of art doesn’t have to solve a problem — it just has to formulate it correctly.... You ratchet the question up, and you go, Yeah, that’s a tough one."
Reposted by Tove Black
Cannot emphasize enough studying whatever the heck you want in university.
I switched from journalism to women's studies and Canadian studies and people said I was nuts.
Fast forward to 2026 and every news story is Canadian sovereignty, toxic masculinity 🤝 fascism and TradWives.
I switched from journalism to women's studies and Canadian studies and people said I was nuts.
Fast forward to 2026 and every news story is Canadian sovereignty, toxic masculinity 🤝 fascism and TradWives.
January 9, 2026 at 11:36 PM
Cannot emphasize enough studying whatever the heck you want in university.
I switched from journalism to women's studies and Canadian studies and people said I was nuts.
Fast forward to 2026 and every news story is Canadian sovereignty, toxic masculinity 🤝 fascism and TradWives.
I switched from journalism to women's studies and Canadian studies and people said I was nuts.
Fast forward to 2026 and every news story is Canadian sovereignty, toxic masculinity 🤝 fascism and TradWives.
Reposted by Tove Black
Did you enjoy today's story? This Magazine is currently accepting short fiction submissions for publication in 2026! Email fiction editor H Felix Chau Bradley at [email protected] and attach your story (no more than 2500 words long) by January 31! Further details here:
this.org/contribute/
this.org/contribute/
January 9, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Did you enjoy today's story? This Magazine is currently accepting short fiction submissions for publication in 2026! Email fiction editor H Felix Chau Bradley at [email protected] and attach your story (no more than 2500 words long) by January 31! Further details here:
this.org/contribute/
this.org/contribute/
If you're like me and the Nuggets compilations are your desert island discs, you may also love The Creation.
No matter what is happening in the world, we have music.
(Sorry there's no video, but this is some glorious low-fi audio goodness.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSc8...
No matter what is happening in the world, we have music.
(Sorry there's no video, but this is some glorious low-fi audio goodness.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSc8...
THE CREATION - Through my eyes
YouTube video by MushroomMachineClub
www.youtube.com
January 7, 2026 at 5:40 AM
If you're like me and the Nuggets compilations are your desert island discs, you may also love The Creation.
No matter what is happening in the world, we have music.
(Sorry there's no video, but this is some glorious low-fi audio goodness.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSc8...
No matter what is happening in the world, we have music.
(Sorry there's no video, but this is some glorious low-fi audio goodness.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSc8...
The Creation - Making Time (1966)
YouTube video by Beat-Club
www.youtube.com
January 7, 2026 at 4:50 AM
Reposted by Tove Black
January 6, 2026 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by Tove Black
Announcing a new blog post: in which I admit that I often don't finish books I start (and that it's not always for bad reasons), and talk about getting my mind blown by John Darnielle's This Year.
toveblack.ca/year-of-dnf-...
toveblack.ca/year-of-dnf-...
A writer reads: A year of a lot of DNFs | My Blog
Some very good books I haven’t finished, at least not yet (and why not), including John Darnielle’s This Year Why wouldn’t a person finish a book? (How can we account for a DNF?) I guess it’s often fo...
toveblack.ca
January 2, 2026 at 4:52 AM
Announcing a new blog post: in which I admit that I often don't finish books I start (and that it's not always for bad reasons), and talk about getting my mind blown by John Darnielle's This Year.
toveblack.ca/year-of-dnf-...
toveblack.ca/year-of-dnf-...
HOW CAN ANYONE CHOOSE?
The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees
🧵
🧵
December 31, 2025 at 9:16 PM
HOW CAN ANYONE CHOOSE?
Reposted by Tove Black
🎇The First 2025 Headline of the Year Finalist🎇
Pretty Obvious
Pretty Obvious
December 31, 2025 at 12:52 AM
🎇The First 2025 Headline of the Year Finalist🎇
Pretty Obvious
Pretty Obvious
Reposted by Tove Black
This will forever be my favorite way to explain why I don’t get competitive as an artist.
December 28, 2025 at 5:34 PM
This will forever be my favorite way to explain why I don’t get competitive as an artist.
Reposted by Tove Black
“An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet, the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour”
- Eric Maisel
- Eric Maisel
December 20, 2025 at 6:15 AM
“An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet, the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour”
- Eric Maisel
- Eric Maisel
Reposted by Tove Black
“The Writers’ Union of Canada invites submissions to its 33rd annual Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers. Unpublished works of fiction and nonfiction up to 2,500 words in English are eligible, and writers may submit multiple entries.”
writersunion.ca/short-prose-...
writersunion.ca/short-prose-...
Short Prose Competition | The Writers' Union of Canada
writersunion.ca
December 19, 2025 at 11:53 PM
“The Writers’ Union of Canada invites submissions to its 33rd annual Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers. Unpublished works of fiction and nonfiction up to 2,500 words in English are eligible, and writers may submit multiple entries.”
writersunion.ca/short-prose-...
writersunion.ca/short-prose-...
Hung over as a kid with my friends at the Dairy Queen, drinking over-sweet milky coffee and butting out our cigarettes in the flimsy pressed-metal ashtrays, one step up from foil. Smoking in offices. Cigarette machines in restaurants. Never went anywhere without a Bic lighter. Imagine.
this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will
December 20, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Hung over as a kid with my friends at the Dairy Queen, drinking over-sweet milky coffee and butting out our cigarettes in the flimsy pressed-metal ashtrays, one step up from foil. Smoking in offices. Cigarette machines in restaurants. Never went anywhere without a Bic lighter. Imagine.