Does every line serve the book? I stumbled across this vintage @dintywmoore.bsky.social post while researching @brendanomeara.bsky.social's podcast and it's every bit as fresh today brevity.wordpress.com/2021/10/22/w... #writinglife #cnf #authorlife #WritingCommnunity

You know what? Not everything scales. And that’s okay. Better than okay. Write poems that reach a few people, maybe. Then write some more poems.

This Langston Hughes poem is relevant af.

“What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?…We still and always want waking.” - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life #quotes #writing

All of this. And I find I particularly recognise the 'vanquish insecurity'. Ursula K. LeGuin pinpointed the 'unmeasured desire' for unassailable safety as one of the chief drivers of evil in the world. And Christ, yes, I'm seeing it so much. In my personal life and in politics too.

Friends, we are back and officially open for submissions today! We will be reading for our Feb issue with a deadline of Jan 30th. Please take a moment to review our guidelines as we have made some changes. We very much look forward to reading your work! heroinchic.weebly.com

Have something weird and unusual? It might be right at home at JMWW journal. Send us your writing via Submittable.

I love this flash essay by Jamie Etheridge (@lescribbler.bsky.social) via @short-reads.org. bsky.app/profile/lesc...

"But right now all I want is a story about human kindness" From Ada Limón's book, The Hurting Kind: bit.ly/hurtingkind #poem #books #writing

From W.S. Merwin's The Solstice, THE RAIN IN THE TREES

Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

Happy to have an essay from my forthcoming collection up @literaryhub.bsky.social today! "The time a library lends, I suspect, is a little like love: the more it gives away, the more comes back to it in kind."

@bendinggenres.bsky.social Issue 48 is now live!!! Our Nov/ Dec 2025 issue is filled with hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue! Congratulations to all BG editors and talented writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity bendinggenres.com

I love personal essays with work settings. They are rare and rarely done well but wow did this one by Heather Bursch knock me flat. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/12...

Submission fees waived. Today only! I'd love to read your work on a Para/Social theme!

Got my reading list for 2026! What an incredible lineup.

oh they gave me a blue check now I can say how I REALLY feel!!! trans rights free Palestine housing is a human right universal health care for all six hour day for eight hours pay mandatory minimum wage raises that track to rent & cost of living protect the oceans & the rivers and bring back Jujubes

“We’re all just swapping stories at the bar on a slowly sinking ship. The goal, then, is not to conquer time, but to enjoy the telling before the water reaches our feet.” - Luciano Murano on writing. (Quoted in Beyond Craft substack newsletter today). #onwriting #quotes2liveby

There was a long long time when many many powerful people refused to stand up to Joe McCarthy. And then McCarthy got weak, and people found their spines. People finding their spines is always good news, not least because it's a sign of Trump's weakness.

"it is in the shelter of each other that the people live" ~ Pádraig Ó Tuama

A judge has permanently blocked Trump's destruction of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Really good news for libraries (and those like me, who love them! www.ala.org/news/2025/11...

🎯🎯

Senate update: Republicans are now trying to sneak a backdoor national abortion ban into their government funding bill. Republicans will stop at nothing to control women's health care decisions.

"Lotteries and ritual stoning are integral parts of American life. Whether or not the lottery actually increases the yearly harvest, rural working-class Americans think it does. Let me be blunt: liberals who want to abolish ritual murder are the reason that Donald Trump won."

The GOP-drawn map shifts more Republican voters into a Democratic-held battleground district, positioning the party to potentially gain another U.S. House seat in 2026.

Not exactly unheard of food stamps for example have a 76% return frac.org/programs/sup... It's almost as if giving people money to spend on goods rather than tax cuts for billionaires is very good for the economy

History repeats.

Max Ritvo – my favorite from The Final Voicemails

Every GOP accusation is a confession

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

I did nothing but walk & read this weekend. Walked several miles, exploring the green belt and nearby neighborhoods & then bought 2 books from my local bookstore. The world is a horroshow right now and some days I need just to escape #weekendgoals

"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."

„Divine previously left little doubt, referr[ed] to abortion providers as killers of “pre-born babies” and railing against insurers for covering what he falsely calls “abortifacients,” like hormonal birth control.“

That demon tried to leap out of him

Today marks 4 years since poet Galal El-Behairy should have been released from prison. Despite finishing an unjust 3-year sentence for his writing in 2021, he remains unlawfully detained in Egypt. Our joint letter urging Egypt’s Ambassador to the U.S. Motaz Zahran to act: pen.org/joint-letter...

New fiction today from Jen Conley. Head over to Reckon to read: "The First True Love of Eddie Callahan" @jenconley45.bsky.social

1. We interrupt this programming for some LEGITIMATELY GOOD NEWS Violent crime in Baltimore has PLUMMETED to historic lows How did the city do it? Baltimore adopted a comprehensive set of "woke" policies, treating violence as a public health issue

THEM: What do you do? ME: I'm a writer. THEM: Have you written anything I might have read? ME: I don't know. What kind of books do you read? THEM: Oh, I don't read. ME: Well, then I guess the answer to your question is no.

We are in the middle of it.

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." ~ James Baldwin

Some people are working on gathering at the Capitol steps to show support for Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York. If you can’t be there in person, you can still show your support from wherever you are.

Currently reading BAD COMPANY by Megan Greenwell and it is as good a read as you may have seen or heard. The sections about private equity killing local journalism and news is related---and a through line-–to our public education and public library destabilization and dismantling.

“I think the hardest part about writing is writing." ~ Nora Ephron

The American Academy of Pediatricians bluntly telling us the current CDC can't be trusted, and of course they are absolutely correct publications.aap.org/aapnews/news...

'Who are these people?' Masked immigration agents challenge local police, sow fear in L.A. -- Really good piece from @tarantulaarms.bsky.social & @lacrimes.bsky.social www.latimes.com/california/s...

"The real artistry comes in revision: the writer striving to make everything count. Working the lines over and over to bring the work into shapeliness, while also seeking to make the whole thing seem effortless. As if it was all just breathed out in a sigh." ~ Richard Bausch