If you want to hear me read from THE GRIEF SHOP, you can do so at Poets & Writers Magazine. www.pw.org/content/the_...

You could be the best, most careful writer in the world, and there is no telling what will make a book catch on, so quantifying your worth as an artist in book sales is a really dumb thing to do.

I have been sick for 2 weeks. Urgent care said virus and UTI, primary care physician said tendonitis in my right arm with other tests pending. I feel like garbage & I’m not getting better.

In the last two weeks, I’ve had a virus, a UTI, and today my dr told me I have tendinitis in my right elbow. I work as a pastry sous chef. I literally can’t do my job without my right arm. My elbow hurts & my forearm is swollen & I’m on 600 mg of ibuprofen because they won’t give me good shit.

A couple days ago someone on here was whinging about writers not demanding fair pay because they think it’s a privilege just to get published. This person said she doesn’t write because she’s not a bestseller. I said, literally no one is making you write. There are jobs that pay much better.

"The Grief Shop and Other Stories from a Broken World takes place after 'the tragedy' kills ⅓ of the earth’s population, and renders the rest clinically emotionally numb." Alex DiFrancesco shared a playlist for their novel-in-stories The Grief Shop largeheartedboy.com/2026/06/16/a...

So even tho I busted my ass all week getting everything I needed to done at work while ill, even tho I have a virus AND a bacterial illness, my boss wants me to come in today because the dishwasher didn’t feel like showing up.

Right after I split up with my ex wife, I dated someone who was actually my intellectual and artistic equal, and who was so loving and kind. I fucked it up by being miserable; they fucked it up by making assumptions about my inability to settle down with someone I cared for.

If anyone's looking for something to do tomorrow night, Jane-Rebecca Cannarella & I are back to host Philly Writers Circle at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar! It's full of fun, friends, lit-ra-chure, and drinks! Come join us and chat with us about reading your stuff at a future event!

I think it’s funny that people are still engaging in “MFAs are elitist” thinking & talking. In this year of our lord 2026, practically anyone with an MFA can start an MFA. If you’re calling anyone with an MFA elitist without any consideration of where they went to school, you’re a bit deluded.

Happy Pride! Enjoy a pic of my fantastic ass in silver booty shorts!

Author copies have arrived!!!

I know I haven’t mentioned it lately, but I’m so grateful to every person who donated money to help me fight my rapist in court a few years ago. It makes my heart lighter to know so many people walk the walk instead of just talking the talk. I’m grateful to everyone who supported me at that time!

A truly lovely event last night at Strand Books! So grateful to all my loved ones who came out & some new friends, too!

“Xander had been dreaming up new businesses for years, since long before the tragedy, because Xander was loaded.” Read “The Shorthand of Emotion” from @alessandrostardust.bsky.social’s new collection, The Grief Shop.

NYC: Join us TONIGHT to launch @alessandrostardust.bsky.social's incredible new book THE GRIEF SHOP at @strandbooks.com with Paula Bomer! 7PM at The Strand Union Square.

A little sneak preview of THE GRIEF SHOP up at Literary Hub today! This short story, “The Shorthand of Emotion,” is about music, the choices we make to survive, being trapped in those choices, and The Montauk Monster. Link in comments. lithub.com/the-shorthan...

Boarding the Amtrak so I can go to NYC and launch my newest book at The Strand!

“America” by Simon & Garfunkel just came on shuffle and it’s a very good road trip song!

It's a random sale on all of our (e)books, until the end of the month! You can grab any title for one buck (or less), or the entire catalogue for $15 bucks. HAPPY QUEER READING! 🌈 traumbooks.itch.io

Yo, I hit the Grindr jackpot and found a regular partner who is conscientious about sexual health and great in bed and into trans guys but not a chaser, and now it’s blowing my mind that this particular combination has been so hard to find until now!

Years ago, the poet CAConrad told this story to assembled students from my MFA program, and I’ve never forgotten it. It inspired a character in my new book, THE GRIEF SHOP.

"The Grief Shop is nothing less than a triumph over the worst in and of us", says @wrefinnej.bsky.social in their new interview with @alessandrostardust.bsky.social for @bombmag.bsky.social bombmagazine.org/articles/202...

@alessandrostardust.bsky.social, interviewed by writer @wrefinnej.bsky.social, discusses their short story collection, “The Grief Shop” (@sevenstories.bsky.social, 2026), about numbness, labor, survival, and the radical act of imagining a better world.

A true honor to appear in the pages of @bombmag.bsky.social, which I have long admired, interviewed by the incredible writer @wrefinnej.bsky.social! bombmagazine.org/articles/202...

It’s always an honor to be in Karla Strand’s Reads for the Rest of Us column! msmagazine.com/2026/06/01/b...

Hoping the guy next to me stands up when I pull the bus stop cord so I don’t have to say “excuse me,” and other city introvert problems.

Roommate and I were talking about The Twilight Zone and I mentioned “Eye of the Beholder” and he called it “the one where everybody looks like Nick Cave” and then I died.

A poster you used to have in your room, apartment, or house.

Never again will my letter start sadly, or in the depths of winter.

Had an unexplained panic attack tonight! Not fun! Currently hoping my panic attack meds kick in soon.

I am not the most self-confident person, but no one, nobody, not one person has ever been able to convince me that my art doesn’t matter. And people have definitely tried.

Technically I should be grading or writing right now but I am enjoying being lazy. I miiiiiiiiiiiight even watch a movie.

Okay, look, I’ve sent my share of emails to Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files and he’s never answered, which is totally fine EXCEPT for the hilarious one I sent him asking if the O’Malley’s Bar on the Murder Ballads album was in the same universe as the O’Malley’s bar in “Escape (The Pina Colada Song).”

I, uh, randomly met a hot queer dude on the apps who's into trans dudes but clearly not a chaser. I feel like I hit the lottery. Queer dudes are often either like, "YUCK A TRANS MAN" or "ohhhhh let me fetishize you," and this dude has done neither.

Requesting rights for the trans Odyssey retelling. So far, I'm angling to quote Diane DiPrima's "Song for Baby-o, Unborn," David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure," and Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty."

It's a lovely spring day, and you know what that means? Neighbors blasting old R&B from their front porches. You really have to love South Philly, west of Broad St.

Only truly unhappy people would want to live forever while the rest of the world dies around them. If you have nothing you love, of course you lose nothing by lingering past your time. Even vampires know this. Vampires. You're worse than a vampire, Putin.

Is there anything more awkward than buying lube in a modern CVS? Pressing the button for service, lurking in front of the condoms, asking some 19 year old to unlock the lube cabinet?

The coworker who’s been bullying me & who’s completely up our boss’s ass, so gets away with it, came in with a playlist she made for him because he mentioned liking a movie the other day, and there was no official soundtrack.

Yo yo yo yo! It's one week away! My appearance at Strand Books with the amazing Paula Bomer! www.strandbooks.com/alex-difranc...

Lime yogurt mousse with raspberry caviar, raspberry sauce & tuille.

"Content" was minted & championed by the worst people on earth - not artists or creative people. To them, "content" is "widgets." Don't do this work for them by calling yr art "content." Art is special, and you are a specialist. So say so. Words matter. What you make - by its own name - matters.

Someone put me on the “BS transmasc” list years ago and, friends, I thought it meant “bullshit transmascs” for MONTHS.

This made it into my most recent book, but I once had a used copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther in which someone completely unmoved by his sorrows annotated, “Get a job!”

Years ago, after my first book came out, my dear, sweet, wonderful undergrad mentor told me that I should try to sell my next book for enough to buy a condo, because I had to plan for my future. God bless. If only!

💿🎠? I left her behind on Twitter.

Today, I ran some errands, cooked for myself, graded some discussion posts, and dicked around on social media for a few hours. I now have NO EXCUSE not to write for a while!

My dear friend a Philadelphia trans woman, recently escaped domestic violence, and she urgently needs community support as she finds herself out of funds! Memorial Day weekend is especially hard for her because of fireworks and her triggers. Please help and share!🙏🪷❤️‍🔥 www.gofundme.com/f/help-phila...

My life and relationships got better when I instituted two rules in my life: never give people more than you have, and never expect to get back what you give.