Join us this afternoon at 3:00 in Latter 101 on PLNU's Campus for a Q&A event with R.F. Kuang! Virtual tickets are also available for $5 for those who can't attend the event in person! plnu.universitytickets.com/w/default.as...

Check out graduate student @sarahbsouthern.bsky.social's review of Christina Rivera's 2025 book 'My Oceans' for @terrainorg.bsky.social! www.terrain.org/2025/reviews...

Goodness, I’m pretty terrible at @bsky.app 🫣

The best decision I made (so about #AWP2025 (so far) was opting to take the train instead of driving up from San Diego 😍

@byjeffchu.com’s stunning new book ‘Good Soil’ releases today! I had the opportunity to read an ARC and ask Jeff a few questions—check out our conversation here: open.substack.com/pub/sarahsou...

Saturday in OB!

It’s wild how a bishop’s *Christian* plea for mercy elicit outrage while an unelected billionaire’s takeover is met with…silence.

Just got my first rejection slip from a big time lit mag. I’m committing to holding Sylvia Plath’s words close: “rejection reminds me that I tried.”

Blessed are the women who would not be silenced.

This excerpt in @thecut.com from Christina Rivera’s forthcoming ‘My Oceans’ is a stunning reflection on the parallels of the horrors of orca captivity and human subjugation in a world in crisis. Sobering + stunning: www.thecut.com/article/cork...

Nearing the end of the first 24 hours of the new sub manager, and 11 of the 15 submitted pieces are in Fiction. The rest are poems. So if you're a poet or CNF writer, the odds are generally never better than this to get a quick response/acceptance! duotrope.com/duosuma/subm...

The best thing I did for my mental health last night was slip my phone onto airplane mode. I spent the entirety of last weekend doomscrolling instead of the legion of actual productive things I needed to accomplish 😭 But I refuse to let my anxiety ruin this semester 💪🏻

Just deactivated Twitter and I feel so free.

May we all remember St. Madeleine’s words: “Stay angry, little Meg. You will need all your anger now.”

Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

I wanted this space to be my literary refuge where I’d encounter other writers, publications, and books, share my own work, discover abundant craft + beauty. I thought Bluesky could be an oasis against the loudness of every other app, the dreadful, depressive news permeating every digital turn.

Same 😭

I think what makes me saddest about whatever is happening with social media (not just TikTok even) is that I still don’t have consistent IRL community. Social media has helped me survive long swaths of loneliness, months when my husband was deployed and I had no one.

I am genuinely intrigued by the phenomenon of consuming a dozen cookies or the entire Wingstop menu on camera. I think I want to write an essay about this because it’s just wild 🤯

Unintentionally triggered some exvangelical folks when I said I wanted to “submit” more this year (to clarify: I want to submit more to lit mags, not to men [not ever])

My goals for Christmas break were simple: submit to lit mags and attempt homemade croissants. Only one was successful 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

“When is the world ever not ending? What if it’s always the end of the world?” Emily St. John Mandel

Anyone else feel more productive when writing in cozy mountain coffee shops? This spot in Silver Plume, CO, is one of my favorites.

Craving winter and the Rockies are calling (aren’t they always?). Relocating from Denver to San Diego was grievous but I relish in the goodness of Southwest deals and direct flights there + back ❄️

Read widely. Read beyond what’s “allowed.” Read work that makes you squirm. Read perspectives that challenge your assumptions. As someone raised in fundamentalism, I didn’t read widely until far too late. It’s never too late and still, I wish I’d started sooner. I wish I’d known better.

I never want to take for granted the beauty that exists just miles beyond my front door:

Distanced myself from an essay for a few weeks. Returned to it thinking I’d hate it after time away. Read it again and wept because I think it’s the best thing I’ve written at this point in my writing life. As someone who rarely trusts her voice, it feels good to finally say: “this is good work” 😭

I had great expectations for holiday writing but I was a bit burnt out and honestly, I think resting and reading is writing too. Cheers to easing back into over these next few days.

Some of my top “ins” for 2025 include: reading more poetry, revising more essays, submitting more work, paying better attention to the wondrous + the mundane.

if you made art this year, you did well. a sketch, even if it was scrapped ; a poem, even if it was deleted — mattered. you put thought to paper, you engaged with the creative alchemy of turning feeling to something tangible. doesn't matter if you weren't productive "enough." or good "enough."

Solstice thoughts: Hope is a joke when it’s conditional upon death. I want a hope that supersedes the eternal and lands here in the temporal. I want assurances that this physical life matters, not for what it could bring but for what it is.

As countless others have said: Pelicot is the true “person of the year.”

Nothing like the consistency of Southwest flight Christmas cancellations (with less than 6 hours notice) 😭

Packing stresses me purely because of the book decisions I’m required to make. For now, I’ve settled on these three gems (and my Kindle). Looking forward to reading this lovely book of poetry @ellahachee.bsky.social gave me 😍

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try. —Sylvia Plath—

It’s been a year of the unexpected: unexpected travel to Japan, unexpected pivot from book writing to grad school applying, unexpected acceptance into said school, unexpected launch into tutoring/teaching. 2024 has been surprising + Wild + good.

@plnuwritingma.bsky.social Grad readers: Nonfiction: @sarahbsouthern.bsky.social Nonfiction: @annawangyuan.bsky.social Poetry: @emmagraceweber.bsky.social

Issue III of @lastsyllablelit.bsky.social is live!! It’s been such a privilege to serve as one of the nonfiction editors this semester. I’m so thrilled about the pieces we selected + hope these words read far + wide! lastsyllablelit.com/issue-iii

Writing is an act of rebellion. Writing is an act of creation. Writing is an act of salvation. Writing is an act of exploration. Writing is an act of emotion. Writing is an act of confession. Writing is an act of speculation. Writing is an act of reflection. Keep writing.

Why do we write as the world burns? Because (as Samwise Gamgee said), there is still good in this world. Words unearth that goodness.

In Iceland, on Christmas Eve, people give each other books so they can spend the evening drinking cocoa & reading. It’s called, Jolabokaflod, the Christmas book flood. I’ve never been more in love with Iceland than I am right now ♥️♥️

I live for this yearly notification! #GoodReads

“In this work with the land, Patrick is carrying out acts of reclamation, finding ways to push back against the systems designed to oppress people of color.” @bittersouth.bsky.social bittersoutherner.com/feature/2024...

“It all starts with the writing.” 🥹

One of my favorite essays ever 🔥

Issue 3 of “Last Syllable” is coming soon!

::Sigh:: Once more for the people in the back. If audiobooks don’t count as reading, then braille isn’t reading either. Stop gatekeeping literacy.

Just feeling kind of overwhelmed (in the best way) thinking about how my writing’s evolved after just one semester in grad school. Imagine where I’ll be 3 semesters from now 🥹😭

I don’t often fall for celebrity bot impersonators (I know no matter how many Keanu Reeves follow me it’ll never be THE Keanu Reeves), but yesterday LeVar Burton followed me + (for a moment) I celebrated, so ecstatic that my childhood hero followed little old me! Reader: it was a bot 🤣😭