Hands off Madison, Wisconsin

So happy and relieved, and so proud of our state!!! 🥳

This is so wonderful.

Damn, so good!! So thankful to have read this today.

Wow, this story! So stunning.

Dear friends: do whatever small things you can to guard your heart and keep doing your work. Keep writing and reading and thinking and caring and creating. All of it matters so much.

"Did Little Worm come from her womb, or was she also ripped apart from her body? Was Mother Worm’s grief now cut in half? Or was it doubled?" Love this gorgeous piece by @ezhang77.bsky.social in @honeyliterary.bsky.social!! ❤️

Just reread this beautiful (or Bluetiful???) piece by @joelhans.bsky.social at @flashfrog.bsky.social, in preparation for sharing it with a writing class this month. So good!! 😍 flash-frog.com/2023/12/25/t...

Super helpful edit suggestion, courtesy of Google Docs 😬

"No one saw how it happened but everyone knew it was The Mongoose." Love this so much!! @lumchanmfa.bsky.social in @hexliterary.bsky.social

"She needs her friends from preschool, who have taught her everything she knows about the world outside our home. The swing from the backyard, which we deliver with the olive tree still attached." This is so beautiful!! @joelhans.bsky.social in @flashfrog.bsky.social flash-frog.com/2023/12/25/t...

Each year, Christmas songs that are (maybe) supposed to be heartwarming become more and more melancholy. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in the pandemic era when no one could see each other. "White Christmas" as we approach a rainy, 50 degree Christmas in Wisconsin.

HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY! We're giving $100 to help boost your writing in 2024—workshop, comp/submission fees, membership, critiques, books, pens—anything you find helpful, anywhere. Like & share to enter. We'll also give $100 to one of the organisations we support—winner to choose. Ends midnight NYC Dec 23

What movie night looks like when your kids have very different favorites: spouse and 9yo are out seeing Godzilla at the theater, and 6y and I are cuddled up at home, watching the Winnie the Pooh movie 😍🍯🎈

"Last Christmas" by @linalau.bsky.social at @reckonreview.bsky.social Oh, this is so lovely. ❤️ I love the reverse chronology, the use of food, and the gentleness and tenderness throughout. reckonreview.com/last-christm...

IT'S LIVE! My @The_Rumpus story "Pulmonary" is 1300-words long, and contains lung houses, delusional girlfriends, and paper foldings 🫁 I would be honored if you gave it a read! therumpus.net/2023/12/18/p...

Hi all! We’re excited to announce our first book for 2024! Our January book club pick is The Anchored World by @sawers.bsky.social from Rose Metal Press. Join us on Tuesday, January 16th at 7:30 PM ET for a discussion followed by a Q&A with Jasmine! #flashfiction

6yo quote of the day: "I had a wonderful dream! I dreamed I got a thousand dollars from writing a hundred poems. And they were really long ones. I wish that were true! Don't worry, Mama, I'll share some of the dollars with you."

I did a workshop with Lindy once and it was so great! Highly recommend!

Update: made the cookies for my kids’ cultural fest tonight! Though I’m not sure how to explain them—“they’re popular in Lebanon, though they’re not quite Lebanese, and I thought they were a family recipe, but it turns out I might’ve made the whole thing up.” Either way, delicious. 🥰🍒

I'm so excited to be teaching one more class this year: a food-themed, generative workshop at @chestnutreview.bsky.social! Come experiment with writing about food as an exploration of memory, myth-making, identity, and inheritance. I'd love to see you there! www.chestnut-review.com/product/food...

I'm so excited to be teaching one more class this year: a food-themed, generative workshop at @chestnutreview.bsky.social! Come experiment with writing about food as an exploration of memory, myth-making, identity, and inheritance. I'd love to see you there! www.chestnut-review.com/product/food...

🎉🎉🎉

Memory is so strange. I was planning to make my grandma’s coconut cherry cookies for the kids’ cultural fest at school (I was convinced they were a Lebanese thing) and my parents are telling me these cookies don’t exist?? Did I dream them???

“Tita protects her sister, blocking the man’s approach, ready to swing her bag at him if he gets too close, his rancid breath covering their escape.” swamp-pink.cofc.edu/featured/cru...

"He stared at her as if she were something he’d accomplished. Help help help, she said. The water in her mouth made it sound foolish. This filthy river. She swallowed it. All of New York’s poison entered her." swamp-pink.cofc.edu/featured/the...

Would like to thank Gushers and microwave popcorn for making me feel like the Cool Mom for a minute 🥰

Hey friends, there are still a few spots open in my generative workshop with Crow Collective! Nov 11 and 18, 7PM EST. Get inspired by nature, experiment with different forms and techniques, and start some new story drafts. I'd love to see you there! 🐦 💕 crowcollectiveworkshops.com/2021/11/11/n...

AHH! 👻 Just found out a student from my Haunted Fiction workshop won the college's scary stories contest, with a story he wrote in class that was absolutely incredible. This is the best feeling!! 😍😍😍

I’ve wasted so many covid tests this week because I forgot that an ordinary cold could feel this unpleasant. 🥲

Thank you so much, @vicnogaywrites.bsky.social! And thank you to @aquietroot.bsky.social for sharing this story! ❤️

Flash Nano!! 🥰 One of my favorite things about November. Getting a writing prompt delivered to my inbox each morning feels like opening a little present every day.

Can't wait to read all my autumn acquisitions! @tommydeanwriter.bsky.social, @lindybiller.bsky.social, @katemcintyre.bsky.social

My 8yo, reflecting on the power of verb tenses: "Mary had a little lamb is a sad song. Mary HAD a little lamb. She doesn't have it anymore. Where did it go?" (long pause) "It probably got eaten."

Next month's #Mondettes will be published on Tuesday: ten wonderful #FlashFiction picks from @coffeeandpaneer.bsky.social If you've not caught September's choices yet, you can read them here (and also subscribe so they land directly in your inbox!):

Had the most amazing time teaching my "Ghosts and Memory" writing workshop here in Madison yesterday. We read two #flashfiction ghost stories that took everyone's breath away, and I wanted to share them here:

Thank you so much for sharing, Matt!! 🐟🍊🐌

Finally starting Only Murders in the Building season 3!!! 🔪 Ready for clues and mayhem and cute sweaters 🥰

"In the end, we become apricots. Soft, butter-sweet. At our center, a hard brown stone, and inside the stone, an almond-shaped kernel laced with cyanide, containing all the basic ingredients for life." Wow! This stunning #flash by @lindybiller.bsky.social 💙💙💙

"If you survive a massacre, you can eat whatever the fuck you want. The size ten frame that got her teased also kept her marginally safer when some deranged man decided she and her friends were worth murdering." So good!! @chelseastickle.bsky.social in Passages North!

So excited and grateful to have a story in the beautiful fall issue of The Citron Review 🍋🍊 I can't imagine a more perfect home for this piece. Thank you so much to the editors!! #flashfiction citronreview.com/2023/10/01/s...

I’m teaching a 2-day, generative workshop at Crow Collective on Nov 11th and 18th!! Come experiment with using nature in your prose—animal metaphors and motifs, braided narratives, surreal nature-inspired stories, and more. I’d love to see you there! 🌿🌸 crowcollectiveworkshops.com/2021/11/11/n...

I'm so honored to have a tiny story in the Harvest Moon issue of @gonelawn.bsky.social! What an incredible line-up--so excited to dive in and read. Thank you so much to Amy and Owen for allowing me to be part of this beautiful issue! 🌕✨ gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

Oh, this poor person who made apple cider donuts with 1.5 cups of apple cider VINEGAR. And that absolutely deadpan response 😭😭😭

"When our mothers called for us, we could hear the frantic in their voices rising like sirens." Love this piece by @sfreligh.bsky.social in Milk Candy Review!

My 5yo, on bodies: "Mommy, bodies are helpful. They hold all of our pieces together. Look! Head, attached to the body. Legs, attached to the body. All of our pieces are attached! If you don’t have a body, you would need to have two heads.” (I was tracking until the two-heads part??) 💀💀

Sitting in the almost-dark, drinking tea and planning a ghost stories writing workshop for October, while an owl hoots outside the window. Fall mode activated. 🦉🍂☕

Excited to chat about this stunning book! 😍

I'm so honored and excited to learn that my SmokeLong story, "In the First Draft, The Baby Dies," has been nominated for Best of the Net! Thank you so much to the incredible team at @smokelong.bsky.social for believing in this story. ❤️ www.smokelong.com/stories/in-t...

My 8yo this morning, apropos of nothing: "Mama, can I wake you up when September ends?" 💀