When your fire shines too brightly… Sigh.

Our charity anthology authors share the love! "The Memory of Water is an elegy for a dying pond. Memories of fishing, damp leaves, otters and ducks. Now the farmer poisons the pond with slurry. Little is left but memories. But a small hope remains." Paperback £7.50: mybook.to/WhatComesToL... 1/2

Seldom-used floor lamp converted into a reading light over the couch. Perfect. #reading #booklovers

2025 Year in Review

This new iPhone update really takes me back to the release of Windows Vista. Similar experience. Sigh. #iphone #nostalgia

Our December pop-up submissions are OPEN 🦝 Get your feline flashes out the litter box, polished and ready for the 14th. Please make sure to read the guidelines before you sub - our guest judges are the judgiest. trashcatlit.com/call-for-cat...

Just one more sleep until the felines declare ownership of the bin and demand your treasures 😺 They want your cat flash between 100 and 1000 words, any genre by 14th December. Full details: trashcatlit.com/call-for-cat...

🚨 Woop woop 🚨. Pleased this is out in the world - thanks to fine folk at @literarygarage.bsky.social !!!

Chuffed to bits that my story, “Latibule,” was nominated by Midway Journal for inclusion in the 2026 Best Small Fictions Anthology! Couldn’t be more honored and grateful. 😊 Check out “Latibule” here: midwayjournal.com/latibule/ #fiction #shortstory #writersofsky #literature #authorsofsky

Super thrilled to have helped lead the launch of Cuyahoga Community College's Esports Team, serving as Head Coach. Looking forward to NJCAAE Div. III play this Spring with more Div. I & II competition next academic year! We're also in the process of creating our Tri-C Esports Center! #esports

Define #love: Coming home at 9 pm after a long day at work to find this waiting in your office. #kingofthehill

This has been a project long in the making, and evolving from several years of conversations with good friends and colleagues. I'm beyond proud to have worked with everyone to help bring these to life.

Excited about some new writing I've begun. More soon.

This was me this week. LOVE higher ed politics. 🙃 Need to get out of meetings and back to my writing. #bollocks #borderlands #highered

If you've had a great experience with our wee magazine - as a subber, reader or anything else - we'd love you to consider nominating us for @chillsubs.bsky.social Community Favourites awards. Takes just a mo and deadline is 5th December 🦝💜 www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

Just submitted my nominations for the 3rd Annual Chill Subs Community Favorites Best Lit Mag Awards. Nominations are due by Dec 5 and winners will be announced on Dec 15. Great way to celebrate the stalwart work, passion, and support our outstanding editors out in! www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag...

We're so excited to share our first print anthology, available to purchase for only £9/ $11.50 🦝 Please consider grabbing a copy - we're raising money for @WildlifeTrusts and have 27 truly exceptional short fictions for you to enjoy on actual paper 💜 mybook.to/WhatComesToL...

Today's teases from our gorgeous charity print anthology are from stories exploring family loss and uncovered family secrets. Stunning work from @joycebingham.bsky.social @mikepiero.org @clareobrien.bsky.social Get a copy and enjoy all 27 short fictions: mybook.to/WhatComesToL... 🦝

I need this. #mtg

Haven’t posted #cat pics in a while—here’s a festive one for our favorite holiday! Lyra doesn’t mind the body costume but isn’t a big fan of the hat. 🎃👻💀 Also, happy National Coming Out Day! Special shout out to my fellow Bi+ peeps! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 #lgbtq #pride #catsofbluesky #catlovers #cats #felinefriends

A lovely treat arrived from Bonny Doon Vineyards yesterday, their Grenache-based Le Cigare Volant, which I ordered after watching too many #Frasier episodes (Le Cigare Volant is the of Frasier and Niles’ favorite restaurant). Check out the wine here: www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/product/2023...

What a shitty day. I need a vacation.

Very proud of this beautiful baby! 🦝 If you love short fiction and want to read 27 amazing writers' interpretation of "treasure in unexpected places", then please do grab a copy and help raise money for UK wildlife 🦡🦊🦢🦌

Amazing anthology raising money for a great cause! Pick up your copy today! I ordered a few myself today. Honored to have a story included in it. Grab WHAT COMES TO LIGHT here: mybook.to/WhatComesToL... #fiction #charity #writersky #writingcommunity #publishing #literature #fictionwriters

My story in this anthology (Happy Birthday, You Geriatric POS) will change your life, and the other 26 are somehow MORE vital. Even if you hate yourself, it's for charity... do you hate animals? Why? Get it at mybook.to/WhatComesToL...

So very honored. 💗💜💙 Thank you, @trashcatlit.bsky.social!

Pleased to share that my book review of @mchristinebd.bsky.social's brilliant debut novel, The Height of Land, just dropped in Rain Taxi. Check it out through the link below! Also be sure to pick up The Height of Land: www.orisonbooks.com/product-page... #bookreview raintaxi.com/rain-taxi-re...

Universities must be bastions of open inquiry, not battlegrounds for partisan intimidation. Please sign & share.

Working on a new short story, "Lawn Jesus," along with drafting an autobiographically-driven op-ed about the existential dangers of evangelical Christian nationalism. My debut novel, ROGUE BURNOUT, also addresses this theme in the context of an esports tournament: mikepiero.org/index.php/ro...

Each week, I engage in the work of deep mourning at the loss of time not spent writing. Another day gone, evaporated into the heavens. Sometimes the melancholy drives me back to the writing, and sometimes it drives me elsewhere. Only a writer or an artist knows this burden we carry. #writerslife

Great response so far—we’d love to see more flash (fiction and non) and prose poems, but we’ll read whatever you’ve got ready!

Nothing like a hot buttered rum once the weather cools down.

Finally made it to the Murakami exhibit in Cleveland! Incredible and insightful, especially with how catastrophe has shaped his art (particularly post-2011 Japan). #art #murakami #painting

Every night and every morn, Some to misery are born. Every morn and every night, Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to endless night. —William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” #poetry #resist

Every serious word, story, article, and book I write will be written against fascism, tyranny, and extremist evangelical Christian nationalism. What else is there to write right now? #writing #fascism #resist

Plotting out a new novel today—a sequel to my debut novel, Rogue Burnout. Excited to be working on it & looking forward to see where these characters—and some new ones—go. Rogue Burnout—available to publishers. Rep’d by Mark Gottlieb @ @tridentmediagroup.bsky.social. mikepiero.org/index.php/ro...

New Substack #blog post on #writingtips and reflections as I plot my second #novel, ACACIA. It's a good time to reflect on what I've learned from my first novel, Rogue Burnout (mikepiero.org/index.php/ro...), and what I'm doing differently this time. Check it out: open.substack.com/pub/mikepier...

We are open for submissions for Issue Ten! Send us 3-5 pieces of previously unpublished work. There's no submission fee and we aim to respond to submitters within 30 days. Go ahead and devastate us 🌊🧊🪓 vist.ly/43m3k

Plotting out a new novel today—a sequel to my debut novel, Rogue Burnout. Excited to be working on it & looking forward to see where these characters—and some new ones—go. Rogue Burnout—available to publishers. Rep’d by Mark Gottlieb @ @tridentmediagroup.bsky.social. mikepiero.org/index.php/ro...

Fresh from the garden and blackberry bushes for this coming week! #gardening #cleaneating #food

On August 3, we issued a statement in response to OSU President Ted Carter's interview with "Face the Nation" in late July. The full statement is here: www.ohiostateaaup.org/uploads/1/3/... See our webpage for more www.ohiostateaaup.org

American higher ed is facing the gravest menace to its mission in our history. Never, not even in the McCarthy era, have colleges & universities experienced such direct federal attacks on academic freedom & institutional autonomy. — Nancy MacLean, AAUP Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom

Thrilled to start reading Michael Jerome Plunkett’s debut novel, ZONE ROUGE! If you’re into WWI fiction, check this out and order a copy from the publisher’s site or wherever you buy your books! www.unnamedpress.com/all-books/p/... Happy reading!

The more I (over)work, the more I need to write--for a challenge, for its beautiful process, for thinking & art. The goal one day is simply to write, though I fear I'll be long since dead before that happens. No matter. No matter. I'll just keep crafting. #writerslife #writing #writingcommunity

The upcoming challenge for this academic year: maintaining an unyielding spring of perspective. To what degree do lies help us maintain the illusion(s) of perspective in daily life, all towards pressing on? Where does art fit in to help? Perhaps the key lies in this pic of Lyra and the sunflower.

The musical Annie is such ugly American ideology—glorifying oligarchy, wealthy elites, and capitalism as a source of hope for those in abject poverty, as though they weren’t poverty’s very cause, as though bootstrap-pulling billionaire lowlifes haven’t caused unspeakable suffering to most of us.

Excited to receive my copy of @drkeigraves.bsky.social's book, BEYOND BEAUTY: AESTHETIC PHILOSOPHY AS A TOOL FOR LIBERATORY EDUCATION. Highly recommended to all teachers and educators. Check out my full review here: mikepiero.substack.com/p/brief-revi... #education #highered #bookrelease #DEI

80 years ago, the world changed forever 🌏 We are thankful for the brave truth-telling of the survivors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, & nuclear testing. Disarmament is not simply a goal, it is our responsibility to those who paid the highest price. Join us: #HumanRaceNotArmsRace