“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell, 1984

Minneapolis protester as he's being brutalized by feds: "You're gonna have to kill me! You're gonna have to kill me! I've done nothing wrong! My name is Matthew James! I'm a US citizen! You're gonna kill me! Is that what you want?" (You can hear his wife screaming)

It’s -9 degrees. Downtown Minneapolis is packed for the anti-ICE rally and the crowd keeps growing

I'm Michael, I write queer cosmic horror. I'm currently focusing on works set in the fictional town of Hazel Branch, NC, in the southern Appalachian mountains. I like to tell stories about queer people navigating a world in which some horrors are supernatural and many are not. #JanuaryWorldbuilders

YESSSSSS

Some nice person urged me to post links to some of my stories published in 2025 and I probably will, but I think I'll post links to some friends' work first or instead of. Please add your own or others. See thread to follow, which I'll add to (and you should too.)

“Building a writing community is important… [and] actively supporting other writers. I don’t see other writers as competition but as opportunities to grow. I get to be a colleague AND a fan!” Great interview featuring @pmraymond.bsky.social ahead of her debut collection this spring

Ive not been on socials much these last few months, and not writing as much either—this was a very kind surprise to wrap up the year. Here’s to more writing, boosting, and making art with friends in 2026 🖤

Pre ordered!! Can’t wait!!!

Time to spill the tea! Meet the cover of my debut novel-length work, The Bush Tea Murder, coming from Crooked Lane Books in April 2026! Want to win one of 5 physical galleys of the book? Enter at Goodreads between now and 11/16: www.goodreads.com/giveaway/ent...

For Latin American Heritage month give the gift of a review! Reviews sell books. If you liked a book, review it. Even a sentence. If you can't do the one sentence maybe upvote a good review you agree with. In the age of the algorithm we gotta work the system. Upvote, click or share. Thnx.

“Now, my silhouette reshaped by hormones, surgery on the horizon, I watch it unfold itself like some ghoulish flower, its shape continually swelling, bursting, and reforming as it seeks an escape, a way to move undetected in the world, and I see myself.” Gretchen Felker-Martin

Nothing quite as damning to the nation as a 10 year old telling a reporter they didn’t know where to hide bc they practiced shooting drills in the classroom and not the church.

Sign up & join me Saturday, Sept. 13th for “Genre Mashups - Including a Pinch of Horror in Your Next Mystery/Suspense”! This FREE ZOOM presentation examines how horror blends with mystery, crime, thriller, and suspense elements. Register NOW! - sistersincrime-org.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

“as industrious as the state whose success was poultry & eggs tobacco & soybeans as well as convictions” Thylias Moss

“She thinks of her life as a path that’s narrowed, a twisting stairway she has always been walking down. She remembers her grandmother telling her that the things that feel inevitable are not always so, that gentle moments have power.” @bethgoder.bsky.social

“What the surgeon cut from her had hair and half a crooked smile. Teratoma it was called, monster-swelling.” @vanopticon.bsky.social

“The day folds up like money if you’re lucky.” Kevin Young

It’s about that time of year where I start sincerely convincing myself that a new planner and more Halloween decorations will fix me

Actually, I spoke too soon because I did write this flash for Shotgun Honey about Jennifer Holiday from HOLLYWOOD DOWN LOW: shotgunhoney.com/fiction/one-...

I read this months ago and still think about it—so good

I made my first pitch ever to Writer's Digest in February. How did it go? Spoiler alert...it worked out fine. Here's a few thoughts on what pitching to @writersdigest.bsky.social taught me about a successful pitch...and how short story writing influenced it. pmraymond.substack.com/p/what-pitch...

What an honor to receive a shoutout for my story, “Effie’s Oasis.” Thank you again, @mysteriousbookshop.com!

“He borrowed my pen once and I wrote a prose poem about it. Since then, everything I write is tinged with his aura. That flash fiction I wrote last month contains his spectacled green eyes, the micro that will publish in August has his clearly bleached white teeth…” @melissacuisine.bsky.social

“There’d been a lot of deliveries and a lot of vials and one or two may have made it home with me. I’d stopped using by then, but I’d never stopped looking for an exit ramp…” @garivers.bsky.social

“‘Collecting for the annual county police party,’ he said. ‘Keep your mouth shut about this, Huggy Bear.’ My name’s not Huggy Bear, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t fuck up another job.” @keithroysdon.bsky.social

“Sometimes I want to touch you and be touched in return. But you think I’m grabbing and I think you’re shirking and Mama always said to look out for men like you” Nikki Giovanni

It’d be really hard to pull away from this kind of publicity for a first book. Adding all of these titles to my TBR list, and I hope you do too.

New issue of Guilty out today!

“…or more like born in the right body too early or born at the wrong time, in the wrong language. i remember Tommy said he (is he a they now?) lived for how i put it in that one poem “more tomboy than boy” and i think that’s what language does—builds a room made for living.” Danez Smith

A reminder that @reckoningmag.bsky.social has audio and you can subscribe if interested — for stories, discussions, and more! reckoning.press/category/for...

“I told you other things too—that we would end up down south again in that city of tarot card readers, storms, and gin. In the summer, it’s terror for people who can’t take it. But we can. We were never really going to get away.” @sandmansimonds.bsky.social

Hack the planet

Hey it’s us

“Hope is not some delicate, beautiful bird, Emily. It’s a lowly little sewer rat That snorts pesticides like they were Lines of coke and still Shows up on time to work the next day Looking no worse for wear.” Caitlin Seida

One of my favorite things to do is request library purchases and use holds (almost always via an extremely simple form)—libraries are usually thrilled to get new suggestions and authors get a much wider reach! Free and fast way to boost writers and readers alike

“The notebooks and word documents began to fill line-by-line. The fragments added up. Looking back, I can see a breadcrumb trail of my own persistence. Tiny entries saying: I was still around, existing, creating.” @barlowadams.bsky.social

My book was too much for the staff reviewer at the local alt-weekly. TOO GROSS? I'LL TAKE IT!!! www.wweek.com/arts/books/2...

As a long time horror fan no one can convince me that there is any media scarier than Robert Stack’s narration.

Couple of book reminders. My new collection is now out THE SKIN WE FEEL MOST COMFORTABLE IN. And next Spring THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL TO BEING A VAMPIRE is released through @nwreader.bsky.social Note to self: write shorter titles.

“‘It’s cramped inside his ribcage,’ I tell her, but my jaw only clicks, and my words crumble out as loose dirt. I’ve forgotten my missing voice box.” @amandacecelia.bsky.social

Easing into the weekend right with popcorn and @cwblackwell.bsky.social

“You can make art out of anger, or obligation, or fear, and sometimes that art can turn out really great. I just find that, in the long run, love will win out. It has staying power... To me, horror is such a perfect genre to get this point across. Love shines brightest in the darkness.”

Look at that, I am a highlighted author!

"You actually can do this, you know. You can just try to highlight the beauty of things you like and not try to vampirically extract value at every step."

Believe people when they show you who they are.

🔥🔥🔥

Libraries are truly the best of us (and Kanopy is commercial free!)

“Months of enjoying his spot again later, John is called into a meeting with the new chair of the department. “I hear you’re still teaching critical thinking?” John says that’s from an old syllabus, notes that he has tenure anyway, so what?” @richienarvaez.bsky.social