Published story " Removal"

🌳 RemovalRae Pattersonfoofarawfoofaraw

Consumed anthology now available

One of my favorite short stories, so far, "The Night Menu," has been published. Available now at your favorite digital store!Consumed: a horror and dark fiction anthology by John WardUniversal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store!AUTHORS

New story published

Polar Borealis, the Canadian SFF and Horror zine, has a new free issue with a story of mine - Demon Liquor https://polarborealis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/POLAR-BOREALIS-36.pdf

Blood Golem

A serial killer and a spell gone wrong = weird revenge in Rae Patterson's "Blood Golem" in Dirty Magick 15. Buy the single story or the whole issue on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/posts/142513665?collection=1811580

Gender Ideology

Whenever I hear someone say they don’t want their children exposed to “gender ideology” in school, a very specific scenario plays out in my head. Some poor sap of a child, when students are talking about their families, mentions their uncle and his husband. The teacher raises a hand,

AI

What I really don’t like about the current AI craze is the fact that by its nature, AI in its current state is best used for confusing reality and make-believe. The predatory chatbots on employment search and dating sites, the glorious images of fruit platters and rustic cottages on

Upcoming Anthology Publication

A story of mine, "All the Way Down," will be published in the upcoming anthology "Malice" published by Dragon Soul Press. It it a Noir SF story that I enjoyed writing very much. It will be published 30 September 2024. https://dragonsoulpress.com/dsp-books/#jp-carousel-6321

Octavia Butler

Some writers have such a strong voice. I’m thinking Bradbury or Pratchett, say, where whichever work of theirs you are reading, it’s like you are sitting on the ground beside a campfire, listening to the author tell their own story. It may be funny or terrifying or heartbreaking,

I have been published for the first time

I am ridiculously excited :) https://www.spindlehousepress.com/dark-tales-from-the-tarot/sangre-del-diablo

Welcome to our self-checkout, valued customer!

For your convenience, you can now take a job away from an underpaid, non-unionized cashier and do their job with no training and for no pay. Despite the obvious conflict of interest this imposes on you, valued customer, we trust that you will ring everything in at the correct inflated

Affirmative Action

Imagine, if you will, that you are driving your 4X4 across the desert to the fabled city of Xanadu, out of view in the distance. You have set your course and have been driving for quite a while. You realize that your steering is out of alignment and that you

The Enshittification of Loblaws

The enshittification of Loblaws, easily the largest supermarket chain in Canada, is well into the “squeezing with both fists” portion of our program. We all owe Cory Doctorow a debt of gratitude for his development of the concept of enshittification. Amazon is, of course, the poster child for this business

Musings

Hypertension

I have high blood pressure which I have had since my twenties. I had pre-eclampsia when I was pregnant. Over the years I have been on every kind of hypertension meds, and on none at all. When I was drinking, back in the day, doctors told me that alcoholism was

Musings

I am so white

When I was child, I was told I had Native Canadian ancestry, that some great-great-grandfather on my father's side had married a "lady of the land." When my daughter got married and decided to have children, I took a DNA test to find out if I

Writing

Free Ride

Based on a Reedsy prompt "So, what's the catch?" https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts "So, what's the catch?" I asked. The sign said "Free Passage to Earth!" I had to admit I had never heard that one before. I'

Musings

Second Language

I remember walking into my third grade classroom for the first time.  We had just moved to a Northern Ontario mining town, well after the school year had already started. This was not unusual, even at this early age, and we would continue moving every year or so until I

Writing

Editor

I sent a short story to a professional editor and paid him 75$ to edit it and give me some feedback. My first reaction to the marked-up story was “Look how they massacred my boy.” It looked like every sentence was wrong. Then there were two long paragraphs that I

Musings

Solitaire

I play Freecell when I'm bored. It's a good solitaire game -- with distinct opening, middle, and end games -- and some of the hands are very challenging.  Only a few hands are actually unwinnable, and I don't think the computer will deal those

Musings

On Aging

I am afraid of becoming a monster—bloated and blind, with twisted limbs fumbling painfully towards remembered pleasures that cannot be seen and might not even exist anymore—like some kind of horror game mini-boss that must be put out of its misery before the game can progress. Everything hurts

Musings

Violent Media

I like violent media. I don't know what that says about me, but I like watching stylized fighting on the teevee. I like watching John Wick fight like it's a job that he is determined to get right. I like watching River Tam fight like it&

Musings

Reality

Things that you have to feel, that’s what you define as real. The time you were beaten up for being poor, or Black, or Protestant, or Catholic, that's real, because that’s what happened. The time that something like that happened to a parent or friend, that’