Ally Lester
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cogenthippo.bsky.social
Ally Lester
@cogenthippo.bsky.social
1.5K followers 2.3K following 2.7K posts
Writer and reader of fiction -- history, sff, romance, thrillers. Interested in sustainability, rewilding, growing things. Knitter, early tech adopter, parent, spouse, disabled.

They/them. Also writes as Frances Fox. https://lnk.bio/gjD5 🏳️‍🌈 ✒️ 🏳️‍⚧️
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cogenthippo.bsky.social
Ally Lester @cogenthippo.bsky.social · Jun 13
Please may I make a small self-promo thread for you? It's #Pride month and I'm a non-binary, pan author who writes #LGBTQ+ romance.

It often has screaming monsters from beyond the void, mysteries, sometimes time-travel and occasionally erotic hair-brushing, awkward sex, and dogs.

1

🌈📚💙
Reposted by Ally Lester
bookshop.org
Join us in supporting banned and challenged books this #BannedBooksWeek 📚

Use code BBW26 to get 15% off select banned and challenged titles now through October 18. See the full list: bookshop.org/info/banned-...

Expires 10/18/26. Discount off list prices, excludes ebooks.
bookshop.org
October 4, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
runalongwomble.bsky.social
Hello Lunchtime Crowd let’s meet some wolves…
October 5, 2026 at 12:16 PM
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aebrossbooks.com
If I get one more "We're including nonbinary folks in this WOMEN'S SUMMIT because clearly they are Women Lite™️ and not whole individuals who ARE NOT WOMEN" email, I think I'm going to scream. As an agender nonbinary person, no, I do not want to speak at your women's summit. That's not inclusion.
October 5, 2026 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
juliebozza.bsky.social
An excellent read!
catamaroon.bsky.social E. J. Swift @catamaroon.bsky.social · 10h
When There Are Wolves Again is on the UK Kindle Daily Deal today (5 October) for 99p. Bargainous! 😊🐺

amzn.eu/d/0en8hTOd
Cover of When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift displayed on a kindle, with a 0.99 price tag
October 5, 2026 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
danifinnwrites.bsky.social
Buy yourself a nice latte at the coffeeshop today

Or grab 3 queer fantasy novels & 8 short stories with horror themes for the same price 🖤
danifinnwrites.bsky.social Dani Finn 🐙 🏳️‍⚧️ 📚 @danifinnwrites.bsky.social · 4d
🖤HORROR WITH HEART🖤

8 stories & a fantasy trilogy

🎃ONLY $5 IN OCTOBER🎃

⚔️The Maer Cycle deluxe illustrated trilogy
🧟‍♀️Ghoul Girls: 5 stories of lesbian necromance
🌲First Light: a ghoul's solstice celebration
🪻Bog Flower: a swamp witch eggfic
🧙Griselda: witchy man-murder

itch.io/s/202717/hor...
Horror with Heart sale showing The Maer Cycle, Ghoul Girls, First Light, Bog Flower, and Griselda by Dani Finn for $5 on itch.io
October 5, 2026 at 12:23 PM
cogenthippo.bsky.social
We have a new toilet in place, but no-one is to sit on it until tomorrow so the sealant has time to dry. Thank you for your cooperation.
October 5, 2026 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
ingloriousgigi.bsky.social
I am hearing a lot of about Romance Reader's event (RARE) and this is my first time hearing about it but I am a homebound agoraphobic person so I don't do events. But I am listening to other BIPOC authors who apparently have been shouting how problematic this event has been for years.
October 5, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
kameronhurley.com
For those of you with day jobs where you're forced to use LLMs or be fired, good tip I gleaned this weekend, which is to tell the LLM to stop referring to itself using "I" pronouns and to eliminate the praise and other attempts to humanize itself. You get a much cleaner interaction w/o the marketing
October 5, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
foxglovefiction.com
Witchmark by C.L. Polk is $2.99! I cannot recommend this entire series more highly!! It's SO GOOD and book 3 is my favorite of them all so go get that far!

bookshop.org/a/1382/97807...

link.amazon/B02LNJUzg
Witchmark
WINNER of the 2019 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Lammy Award!One of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, according to Time Magazi...
bookshop.org
October 4, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
rachelahandley.com
I'll be running a free creative writing workshop on climate crisis fiction on Halloween in Kildare. Please do share the link around and come along if you can: kildare.spydus.ie/cgi-bin/spyd...
September 30, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
rigg.lgbt
This excellent thread reminded me of Pterry's initial resistance to, then love of mapping Discworld. He at first resisted because he thought it would constrain his imagination, then was delighted to discover that it FIRED it, showing him paths and relationships between places he wouldn't have got to
romgothsam.bsky.social Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 1d
Having seen the Joyce Carol Oates very bad, not good tweet about romance and AI, I can't help thinking about the way that romance has been treated as a punching bag for so long and always by people who are completely unwilling to engage with the genre and know little about it.
October 4, 2026 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
clhellisen.com
And this is just one of many reasons i use LibreOffice
October 4, 2026 at 1:36 PM
cogenthippo.bsky.social
My head is so full of all the things that I want to do that can't get started on anything!
October 4, 2026 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Ally Lester
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
'Storm light' by UK contemporary printmaker Mikki Bowers #WomensArt
Print featuring a flock of birds in silhouette flying over a hedgerow in a purple sky
October 4, 2026 at 5:26 AM
cogenthippo.bsky.social
This is so basic and bloody *sensible*.
snarkysteff.bsky.social Steffani Cameron 🇨🇦 @snarkysteff.bsky.social · 1d
MEANWHILE, in Canada, meet Brady Rogers, the reluctant politician who's fed up and thinks he can do better.

His sign says "I barely want to do this."

His website says, "I guess I'm running for Kelowna city council."

His business? Recycling plastic into cool things.
lawn sign with a grumpy man in a "DADLIFE" sweatshirt and the sign says "I barely want to do this" with his name and campaign Hi, I’m Brady. Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I’m doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no. I was born in Williams Lake and raised in Kelowna since I was 10. These are the streets I biked every day, the cars I threw crab apples at (sorry), and the parks I played in. Seeing this city grow has been cool, but with growth has come a whole new spectrum of challenges. Running for council is the last thing I saw myself doing this year. I don’t like meetings, I don’t like having to be certain places at certain times, and I’m allergic to stuffy offices. But unfortunately, I happen to like Kelowna, and think I can help do some good. I guess I’m running for Kelowna city council. Support the campaign I graduated from UBCO in 2015ish (long story) and worked for 4 years as a robotic automation engineer. As cool as the job was, it was soulless, and I wanted to use my abilities for more than just helping huge companies save money. Since 2019, I’ve been building The Rogerie. Starting as a farmers market booth beside the mall, my wife and I began turning plastic waste into new products in our laundry room. Seven painful years later, and we have a pretty awesome shop downtown by Sprout (come check it out!) where you’ll find me just about every day.
October 4, 2026 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Ally Lester
ianboudreau.com
Very terrible thing, changing the clocks, very dangerous. They have the pigs and a dog in the red fireman helmet, they're down on the ground holding the big round trampoline
October 4, 2026 at 5:28 AM
cogenthippo.bsky.social
Good morning, Bluesky.
#Sunrise #Quantocks #Somerset
Pink and gold sunrise over the Quantock Hills, Somerset, with dark tree silhouettes in the foreground.
October 4, 2026 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Ally Lester
tanukinomori.bsky.social
Early autumn morning in Kyoto 🍂
Soft light on quiet streets, ginkgo leaves just starting to turn, a willow by the canal, and the first red spider lilies. The air finally feels fresh again.
October 3, 2026 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
adeniro.bsky.social
Does anyone have any examples they like of collaboratively written poetry?
October 3, 2026 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
cogenthippo.bsky.social
Out today! Leap of Faith, a low-heat sapphic short story set in a Welsh animal sanctuary with a tall blonde, a curvy brunette and a recalcitrant pig. Pick up your copy for $1.99! 🐖

books2read.com/leapoffaithlester

#BookSky #LGBTQRomance #Sapphic #LesFic #LesbianRomance #QueerBooks
💙📚🌈📚
Green book cover with cream test. Silhouette of two leaping hares with text Leap of Faith by A L Lester, a sapphic short story.
October 1, 2026 at 5:48 AM
Reposted by Ally Lester
eastercon2027.org
Are you a merchant of fine wares looking to sell them to the discerning con-goer of taste? If so, we’ve got some good news: the application form to join our dealers room are now open! You can find it here:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#eastercon #fantable #dealerstable #merch #convention
An image with off-white text outlined in black which reads 'Dealers and Fantable applications open!'. Below is the Unconfined logo with a white glow around it, and a white silhouette of a rampant unicorn is behind the text. The background is a gradient which is light green at the top and light blue at the bottom.
October 3, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
implausibleblog.bsky.social
Rachel Millward calls for the re-nationalisation of water without compensation as water companies are insolvent and we ought to own our crucial water infrastructure.
October 3, 2026 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
cogenthippo.bsky.social
I have blogged! Yay me! (It's a free post, just me rambling about life, essentially).

www.patreon.com/ally_lester/...
Good morning! | A. L. Lester
This is just a catch-up post, a bit for myself so I can lay out what I've done and what I am planning. I have experienced an enormous kick
www.patreon.com
October 3, 2026 at 9:13 AM
cogenthippo.bsky.social
Look! Some good news!
adapalmer.bsky.social Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 2d
The global population of greater one-horned rhinos has hit a record 4,075. Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, shelters more than 2,600 of them. Poaching has fallen 86% since 2016; India, Nepal and Indonesia all recorded zero rhino killings in 2025. buff.ly/O4lKhqy
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Assam’s Kaziranga Leads Rhino Revival as Global Greater One-Horned Population Rises to 4,075
A CORRESPONDENTBOKAKHAT: The global population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros has now reached 4,075, with about 80 per cent of the population found i
buff.ly
October 3, 2026 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Ally Lester
vsholmes.com
Dig into everything creepy and dark: I joined 30 other speculative fiction authors for this LGBTQ+ Gothic, Horror, and Dark Fantasy Book Bundle. Get all these titles for less than filling up your tank, so stay home and read!

10/3 - 10/17

itch.io/b/3931/lgbtq...
#booksky #writesky #fantasy #horror
A promo image with a dark, foggy forest as the background. Text reads: LGBTQ+ Gothic, Dark Fantasy, and Horror Bundle! Get over thirty books for just $10! Oct 3 - 17
October 3, 2026 at 10:46 AM