It's publication day for The Patron Saint of Lost Girls! You can get your copy through my website or from your favorite #bookseller maureenaitken.com #survival #thepatronsaintoflostgirls #midwest #maureenaitken #domesticlife #shortstorycollection #readingcommunity #literaryfiction #availablenow

I’m thrilled that my collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, is available for preorder through the links below. Thank you to Wayne State University Press for this beautiful reissue! wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814352465/ www.amazon.com/Patron-Saint...

“I suppose you are scared too because you read poetry. Each of us decided to dig a hole in the ground to reach out to the other hand of our fate.” From The Rules of Blind Obedience by Amirah Al Wassif This reads like a memoir and poetry. Lovely.

Lucy Culliton, contemporary Australian artist, known for her paintings of landscapes and still lifes #WomensArt

It’s the Monday short you need from Gary Duncan in @fictivedream.bsky.social. #writingcommunity #flashfiction fictivedream.com/2025/07/07/m...

Many thanks to everyone at The Missouri Review for selecting my short story as a finalist for The Perkoff Prize! The story will be published in August. Congratulations to all of the winners! missourireview.com/contests/per... #writingcommunity #fiction #shortstory

“Stand, in the end, you'll still be you One that's done all the things you set out to do Stand, there's a cross for you to bear Things to go through if you're goin' anywhere.” RIP Sly Stone🥺 #slyandthefamilystone www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Wayne State University Press (@WSUpress) will release a new edition of my collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, this September. Many thanks to the Wayne State University Press team for the new cover. #shortstory #flashfiction #writingcommunity #fictionwriter #5amwritersclub

Day 4 of #1000wordsofsummer complete. I’m watching inspirational athlete interviews to stay limber. @jamiattenberg.bsky.social.

Somewhere between 60%-70% of those on Medicaid are actually working. So upwards of 140k of your own constituents are doing what you want, but you’ll strip them of healthcare anyway. Good news is, that will just make your state sicker and cost taxpayers more which is the Republican project so … yay!

Many thanks to @mczyzniejewski.bsky.social and @mooncityreview.bsky.social for publishing my retelling of Hopper’s “Summer Evening.” First of two pages below. #writingcommunity #writer #readersofbluesky

Wonderful piece by @megpokrass.bsky.social in @fictivedream.bsky.social. fictivedream.com/2025/05/12/m...

“Just calm down and let people enjoy chatgpt.” Sorry, no. I find it creepy that folks are treating a machine that mimics human speech as their friend / therapist. It is feeding you lies. It is destroying your thinking abilities. Shut it off. Talk to other humans. Go outside.

ICYMI - my May #CraftArticle - which I promise will be the last time I bang on about climbing stairs!!! (can't believe I was still in the midst of that this time last week 🤪)

Congrats to Ben Tanzer for the publication of After Hours, a fine book about his father, grief, and the power of film.

Here’s a gem resource for writers: @bradlisti.bsky.social of @otherpp.bsky.social podcast talks with @janefriedman.com about the business of writing. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h... #literaryfiction #flashfiction #writingcommunity #fiction

“SLY LIVES!” It just gutted me for the right reasons: yes, Sly Stone is the beautiful being I remembered and yes he made the music we believed in when we needed it most. Those incandescent sounds are more amazing now. Long live Sly Stone. #SlyStone #SlyandtheFamilyStone #Questlove #documentary

Looking forward to this reading!

You won!!! Congratulations, @spoutpress.bsky.social!

Now is a time of perceived powerlessness for many, of despair, when things feel truly hopeless and meaningless. It is in these moments when small kindnesses mean so much. Check on people. Help strangers. Tell people you care. It’s trite, but even little lights shine brightly in dark times.

A beautiful piece in @fracturedlit.bsky.social. fracturedlit.com/moon-rabbit/

No food or bathroom breaks: How Cory Booker is pulling off his incredible Senate talk-a-thon

Elon Musk takes $8 million a day from the federal government—your tax dollars—while doing zero philanthropic work. No giving back to society. FOCUS: gutting jobs in the most ruthless way possible. Hoarding wealth, boosting Nazis, and leaving folks terrified about their future.

Sarah Freleigh’s book looks amazing.

If you are at AWP LA this looks like a gem.

If this happens, what we know as Social Security is over. @amyklobuchar.com @timwalzparody.bsky.social @sanders.senate.gov m.youtube.com/shorts/BkqLa...

A delightful piece anytime, but an especially good Friday afternoon read, I think.

You got this. #FistBump

Bernie at 1:40 is everything. m.youtube.com/watch?v=39na...

Thanks to the hard-working judges and congratulations to everyone who made the final, short or long list!

550th bday for Michelangelo. @six18sfoundry.bsky.social

Are you seeking distraction from our current fucked-up-ness? Maybe you want to read SAD GROWNUPS? It's been categorized as both absurdist and metaphysical - make of that what you will! Anyway, I hope you'll consider reading/ordering/sharing. #booksky #writingcommunity bookshop.org/p/books/sad-...

Trump plans to kill more Ukrainians by sending them to his concentration camps or returning them to an active war zone. #3E #StandWithUkraine

What a much-needed boost to see my piece in the Longlist. Thank you @fracturedlit.bsky.social.

On the blog this week: SmokeLong Workshop Prize long-listee @jekwriter.bsky.social on the journey of her story “Would You Rather Freeze to Death or Burn to Death?” from its inception in the 2024 March Micro Marathon to publication in Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine www.smokelong.com/an-interview...

In Germany over 200,000 protestors in Munich gathered against the Musk backed far-right / neo-Nazi AfD ahead of the German election. Thousands chanted "Save Democracy" and "Oppose Nazis" #3E

We are extremely grateful to be named a grant recipient for the CLMP Small Press Future Fund! We are delighted to be named along with other presses that we admire. Please check out their books and support small presses.

"I’d run until I was alone and panting, feeling like I could squish the whole town between my fingertips, feeling like I was better than this place ..."

A gem from @sfreligh.bsky.social. I need more moon howling in 2025. Tucked and Flush brightflash1000.com/2025/01/03/t...

I love the intense pace of this story by @priyaele.bsky.social. “When the agency sent me away, when I tried to speak, I clung to her memory alone, no other extravagances or indulgences.” www.smokelong.com/stories/as-a...

A big thank you to James Tate Hill for publishing my one-sentence story in Monkeybicycle! monkeybicycle.net/the-wintering/ @jamestatehill.bsky.social

Congrats to @amymarques.bsky.social and all of the contributors for this beautiful anthology! The writing and art are so moving. 😊📖💥

Meow! (That’s the cat, out the bag… 🐈 😉) I couldn’t be more excited about judging @natflashfictionday.bsky.social’s sensational 2025 Microfiction Competition with these three flash stars! 🌟 🌟 🌟 It opens on my birthday, 1 December, so help me celebrate by sending lots of amazing entries to read 🎉

picturajournal.com/submit/ We’re looking for Artwork, CNF, Fiction and Poetry for our April 2025 issue. Come on, enough of procrastination. 😅

our next themed submissions call will be open soon !! SHORTS - Gambling FLASH - Bugs CREATIVE NONFICTION - Quietude open DECEMBER 1 check our submissions page for more: xraylitmag.com/submissions/

Hey, Bluesky writers! Next Saturday, from 1-4 p.m. UK time, @lunchontuesday.bsky.social and I will host Submission (Im)possible on Zoom! We all work on our submissions in a supportive environment, Ingrid and I answer questions in the chat, and it's free! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/submission....

Hi everyone. The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up.