Auden was a lover of strays. She fed crows, crafted bat homes, made nests for foxes & cats. Even coyotes came to Auden’s blue door when injured. The blue paint is chipped, & Auden’s body rots, but her love remains. Needful creatures come to my blue door, & Auden teaches me to care for them.

Any Little Rock / Central Arkansas poets looking for community? The Apple Blossom Poets are a newly-formed community meeting monthly to share poems and give feedback. We’d love to have you!

Molting was a great read— @acaffeinatedkat.bsky.social knocked it out of the park with her horror debut!

So many excellent poems came out in 2025, and Brian provides a great list here. Some of these are new to me, and I’m excited to read them!

Don’t know who needs to hear this, but finish that first draft. Seriously.

Spent Sunday the best way I know how: met up with a friend for coffee and a turn around a bookstore, after which we went to my house and read for the rest of the day. A moment of peace before the work week begins.

My phone has started flagging every number not saved into my contacts as “possible spam,” and I have gotten two calls today that were very much not spam and that I needed to answer 🫠

I need one of those red Starfleet Academy hoodies with the division stripes and the badge on the back. Need.

first false spring available, corner of ne skidmore and 33rd

Apropos of nothing: The speculative fiction community is especially protective and supportive of writers as professionals, and some practices normalized in academic/lit fic are viewed as predatory in spec. Seeing a practice as “normal” in lit journals doesn’t mean it will go over well in spec.

this is who runs this account

Let’s take a breath and start the week off the best way we can 💜 My Sunday will be filled with laundry and poetry.

Submissions are open! Please send us your senryu and show us what it means to be human ❤️

Yes, crying to the new Noah Kahan single in the dentist’s parking lot is what I needed now, why?

Art feels so frivolous right now, but art feels so necessary right now.

I had the honor of judging the senryu category in the 2025 San Francisco International Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka Contest run by Haiku Poets of Northern California. You can read the winning senryu and the winning poems in the other genres here: www.hpnc.org/2025

This could be fun! 1 like = 1 random line from one of my WIPs or published works

The house is curled under a blanket of snow. I have a cup of coffee, a plate of toast and jam. I’m going to spend the day doing anything but doomscroll.

This might be the year when I have to accept the truth. I might be a real poet.

There’s a book club I’ve been trying to join for months now, but my plans keep getting thwarted. The next meeting is tomorrow. If this snowstorm hits early and prevents me from going, I’m giving up. Clearly it’s not meant to be.

My girl scout cookies arrived in the mail yesterday, so whatever this snowstorm brings, I am ready.

Update: It went so well! We had ~18 poets of a variety of backgrounds and places on their poetry journey, and it was a promising first meeting for a monthly critique group! ☺️

Wish me luck—I’m trying to organize a local poetry group, and the first meeting is today. I have no idea how many people will show. Lowkey terrified.

Only seventeen days until Only Human opens for submissions! In the meantime, check out our guidelines and select what poems to send us:

For a moment, I thought Sweethearts had gotten much more risqué since my youth.

Good morning. I'd like to invite anyone who is interested to make a small gesture of kindness today. It's up to you to decide what that can be. The key is for you to act on the idea. With so much out of our control, we can choose how to be with each other today and every day.

i know we're all busy but i just overheard a plumber say "parlez-vous français ? non ? you motherfuckers don't even speak french, do you" to a pair of french bulldogs

And so the tree comes down, ending yet another Christmas season.

Bloggers / reviewers/ media outlets: If anyone is interested in I'M BUSY, please let me know? My publicist at Simon & Schuster has asked me for suggestions. Pls reply or use my Contact form (debbieohi.com/contact/) w/your details, and I'll forward the info. Thanks so much! #KidLit

First submission for 2026 logged!

It’s a whiskey kind of evening

I have nothing but expletives this morning

It's time! The nomination window is open for the Rhysling awards! Nominate your favorite 2025 poems.

I told you I had more tricks up my sleeve! I’m excited to be working with David Oates to launch Only Human, a journal for senryu and other related forms. Let’s make 2026 a year of poetry ✨❤️✨

Necessities aside, let’s start the year the way we intend to spend it. I intend to spend the day reading, writing, going on walks, and checking in with friends.

Starting the new year by cleaning up cat vomit 🫠

Happy new year, friends. May 2026 be kind to you 🥂

I blew my discretionary budget on the Barnes & Noble post-Christmas sale, and now I have to miss the pre-order sale 😭

those end-of-year rejections are trickling in

Some reflections on my first year of publishing Love Letters: Reasons to Be Alive. What an incredible year it has been. How very, very lucky I am. (Unsurprisingly, content notes here for frank discussions of grief and suicidality.)

The temperature dropped 40°+ yesterday, and my sinuses are furious 🥶🤧

I’m not saying that all nice behavior is pretending. But acting nice when we don’t FEEL nice is one of the primary things that holds a society together. Voicing or acting on our cruelest thoughts isn’t some laudable form of “honesty,” it’s an act of social corrosion.

Love it when my reading list accidentally resonates. Reading two books back-to-back about an unnamed female protagonist exploring a swampy wilderness with three other people where the lines of sanity and logic are blurred.

Toyotathon started as a pagan holiday

Happy Christmas, friends! Whether you celebrate or not, I hope today is good to you.

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones Hands down the best book I’ve read this year, if not this decade. I read it in October, and I’m just now coming out of the book hangover.

Take the survey to tell SFWA your thoughts on AI’s place in SFF. You don’t have to be a member to take the survey!

I just want to see cute planner layout inspiration for the girlies with day jobs 😩