This has been an amazing week of scholarly, literary, and magical discussions. Thank you so much for entertaining my clay- and career-related questions!

Not to my taste, but still glad I gave it a try. Dark sapphic romance with a vampire twist, starring two Black women. I don't mind a dark theme, but the romance aspect fell flat for me, in comparison to the many luscious descriptions of blood. Wish the two enhanced each other, instead! #booksky📚💙🌶️

✨️writing prompt✨️ Solstitia seeks short stories of any genre for the fourth issue of their twice-yearly zine, themed "Dragon Hoards". Fiction fans welcome here! 📝: under 10K words 🗓: due 09.01 💸: $50 award

Another Black sapphic read; s/o to V. Black for handing me the spiciest book on her table at ReadOut! Reminds why I've loved fanfiction; it's hard to find a well-written tale of two women with full arcs, flaws, and victories, falling in love, on traditional shelves. Kudos to you! #booksky 📚💙🌶️🪐 #bvm

✨️writing prompt✨️ Bannister Press seeks visually evocative, thought-provoking fantasy short stories of otherness for the second installment of their annual anthology "Other". Submit the first 1500 words of your story to be considered. 📝: 2.5K - 3.5K words 🗓: due 08.31 💸: $0.08 CAD/word

One of my first forays into Black sapphic romantasy. Loved the drama, creative worldbuilding and fresh take on those tired old fantasy tropes. Still learning about this genre, but I'm curious to read more! #booksky 📚💙🌶️ #blackbooks #blacksky #bvm

✨️writing prompt✨️ Silver Sun Books seeks fantasy short stories of Potions & Paramours for Issue 20 of their quarterly anthology "Indie Bites", featuring indie authors whose books are self-published, hybrid, and unpublished. 📝: up to 7.5K words 🗓: due 08.31 💸: £5 honorarium, plus donations share

Haul from my local bookstores on Bookstore Romance Day! Excited to start Lana Harper's sapphic witchy series. Expanding my Romantasy repertoire! #booksky #blackbooks #blacksky #bvm 📚💙🌶️

Honestly, my ideal historical romance. Real, unsung histories of women of color, portrayed as playful, nuanced and powerful as I know they must have been. Sapphic history can be uplifting... and sexy! More, please, Adriana Herrera! #booksky 📚💙🌶 #blacksky #blackbooks #bvm #sapphic #lgbtq #lesbian

✨️writing prompt✨️ Author Henry Neilsen seeks cyberpunk horror short stories of a technofeudalist future for his upcoming shared-world anthology, "The Disconnected". 📝: up to 3K words 🗓: due 08.16 💸: AUD$10/500 words #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #litmag

Another Caribbean author; loved exploring the rich world of Xaymaca through this fantasy lens. A good YA read for lovers of dense world-building, full casts of moody characters, and plots with more turns than a mountain highway! #booksky 📚💙🪐 #blacksky #blackbooks #bvm #specfic

✨️writing prompt✨️ Author Claudie Arsenault seeks sci-fi/fantasy short stories centering non-romantic relationships for her upcoming anthology, "Common Bonds". Aromantic writers encouraged! 📝: up to 7.5K words 🗓: due 08.15 💸: 8c/word #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #litmag

Falling in love with Nalo Hopkinson. This short story collection is such a delight! "Broad Dutty Water" and "Inselburg" were my favorites. I love her unapologetically exuberant imagination! What should I read by her next? #booksky 📚💙🪐 #blacksky #specfic #blackbooks #bvm

✨️writing prompt✨️ Air & Nothingness Press seeks speculative short stories of memory manipulation for their upcoming anthology, "Mmeory". Writers of Color strongly encouraged! 📝: under 2K words 🗓: due 08.15 💸: 8c/word #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #prompt #litmag

What's a writer to do when @reactorsff.bsky.social lists her first short story among the top ten of June 2025? Buy more books, of course! 🥰 Thank you again to @lunastation.bsky.social for giving Deepika's story a home, and to Book + Bottle for helping me celebrate! Can't wait to share more.

A fresh take on the sci-fi thriller. Thoroughly enjoyed! Recommended read to those who enjoy unique perspectives, engaging mysteries, and a little dash of horror in their not-too-far-off future fiction. Looking forward to more from this author! #booksky 📚💙🪐 #scifi #mystery #thriller #asianauthor

Whew, what a ride! Highly recommend to readers curious about what speculative fiction can do. A swift, fierce, and explosively creative dive into a world shaped by anti-literacy. #booksky 📚💙🪐 #scifi #caribbeanauthor

My first time reading a medical mystery plot in a fantasy... and I want more! Loved the complicated explorations of Persian history and identity, presented through an alternate world where blood magic and bioscience intersect. #booksky 📚💙🪐 #fantasy #lgbtbooks

Loving @maroon-stranger.bsky.social 's 'Lentils for Breakfast'! Such an evocative (and fragrant!) way of portraying the challenges of assimilation while holding on to one's cultural roots. Looking forward to the other stories too!

What a tender story. I resonated with so many aspects of Jess's journey, and the Ghosts v Gods v Gangsters action did not disappoint! Great read for fantasy lovers looking beyond the Euromythos, and for Queer children of Asian diaspora. #booksky 📚💙 #fantasy #lgbtq #sapphic #lesbian 📚🏳️‍🌈

Better is a direction! And paradise is in the mind... Feeling inspired by this read. At times painful; as a mixed kid, Sidney's self-hatred reflects who I could've been. Grateful for the family & community who guided me to love, instead. #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #fantasy #bvm #blacksky

😃 I'm stunned!! Thank you @jamieboyd.bsky.social for sharing this... and thank you so much @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social and @reactorsff.bsky.social for featuring my story! I'm so glad Deepika is reaching the hearts she's meant to. #booksky 📚💙 #writesky #blackbooksky #bvm

Some lighthearted fantasy romance treats (and one poetry anthology!) from a local book fair. I've read a few of these already; my favorite was the Kimberley Lemming! Any other lovers of her work? #booksky 📚💙 #romantasy 📚🌶 #romancebooks #bvm #blackbooks

My second Silvia Moreno-Garcia read; first was Mexican Gothic, which I read when it came out and still bring up in book conversations to this day. Luxurious, culture-rich, fantastical, and sweetly achingly human. More brown fairytales, please! #booksky 📚💙🪐 #fantasy

South Asian villainess arc. Binsa's fear & ambition cast such a compelling story, even as she makes every wrong decision imaginable. My closest comparison is OO Sangoyomi's 'Masquerade'. Still chewing on this book, and imagine I will be for quite a while. ❤️ #booksky 📚💙🪐 #darkfantasy #asianauthor

Another favorite read of 2024. Real, flawed characters in a deeply imagined, fantastical world... plus, all the martial arts movie drama one could ask for! Made me nostalgic for a time&place that never existed. Looking forward to the next installment! #booksky 📚💙 #fantasy #asianauthor

"They're gone. Now you got no excuse for who you can be. So who you gonna be? Same as you were? Or everything you would've been otherwise?" So much wisdom&imagination in this book. This is why I read speculative fiction! #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #fantasy #bvm #blacksky

Just finished this incredible nonfiction read. Found at The Lit Room in Boise; Black history is everywhere. Highly recommend for fresh perspective, engaging storytelling, and a deeply researched dive into oft-ignored history. Here's to our future. #booksky 📚💙 #nonfiction #africa #blacksky

Idli blew on her chai, and the cooled surface wrinkled at her breath. A wave of warm cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and fennel wafted up to her nose; her mother's magic. "Yes?" * Lentils for Breakfast by Maroon Stranger Read on in Issue 62 of @lunastation.bsky.social #booksky 📚💙 #fantasy 🪐 #specfic

New read! Love the premise, very excited to see where this one goes. What would you do, if all the white folks in America up and walked into the sea? #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #bvm #blacksky #fantasy

"[Her parents] set her up to have a life different from theirs, free of the hardships they'd had to endure. The result... almost all her troubles were exciting new troubles, beyond their skillset to address." Right in the 1st-gen feels 🥲 #booksky 📚💙 #asianauthor #fantasy #lgbtq #sapphic #lesbian 🏳️‍🌈

This week, we're diving into New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color! 🌟 @nisishawl.bsky.social @AllysonJohnson @rebeccaroanhorse.bsky.social @silviamg.bsky.social @DarcieLittleBadger www.sistahscifi.com #sistahscifi #blackownedbookstore

Final prompt for the week! Inspired by... Banshee Press seeks thought-provoking #speculative short stories for their 20th issue, themed "It doesn't have to be this way". buff.ly/QMzU0yY 📝: <5K words 🗓: due Mar 31st 💸: €250 📚💙 #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #prompt #litmag

My small but growing shelf of Black historical fiction! 📚⏳️ Not sure if I love the genre (my go-to is SFF 📚🪐), but willing to keep exploring. Fave so far: god loves haiti. Léger's "fabulist" tone transformed devastation into laughter & joy. Any recs? #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #bvm #blacksky

Calling all writers of color! This prompt inspired by... Hearth Stories seeks #sliceoflife, non-industrial, #cozyfantasy. Bonus for 🏳️‍🌈 romance! buff.ly/kRoIOLM 📝: 1.5K-3.5K words 🗓: due 03.31 💸: 1c/word 📚💙 #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #prompt #litmag #lgbtq

LOVED it. coffeeshop!AU made legit. What sustains revolution in the real world: small, genuine acts of care & love for those around us. One cup of coffee at a time. On the lookout for more books in this genre, especially by Women of Color authors! #booksky 📚💙 #cozyfantasy 📚🪐 #sapphic #lgbtq 📚🏳️‍🌈

First of this week's prompts! Inspired by... On the Premises' current short story contest, themed "Somewhere Else". Any genre, new & unknown writers encouraged! buff.ly/NDE7Fpp 📝: 1K-5K words 🗓: due Mar 28th 💸: $75-$250 📚💙 #writingcommunity #bvm #writesky #prompt #litmag

New read! Picked up years ago, then immediately set aside... Jessamyn's tension w/her family&culture sounded so achingly close to mine. Finally worked up the courage to read; we're off to a wild ride! #booksky 📚💙 #fantasy 📚🪐 #asianauthors #sapphic #lgbtq 📚🏳️‍🌈

Frustratingly boring read. Missed the meat&depth I love in novels; felt more flat/clean like a screenplay. Flipped to the back & found out, it is! 👀🎬 POC screenwriters: is it easier to get picked up for book+movie rights, than directly by Hollywood? #booksky 📚💙 📚🪐 #blackbooks #afrofuturism #bvm

Current read! Picked up at ReadOut; cover art had me hoping for a sweet sapphic subplot. Even if that doesn't pan out, so far I'm enjoying the gentle worldbuilding, postheroic plotline, and warmly painted characters. Fast becoming my new favorite genre. More, more! #booksky 📚💙 📚🪐 #cozyfantasy

Beautiful; heartaching. Love the perspective on generational trauma: we do not, cannot, heal it all in one life. I wish there was a way to talk about my lineage, my history, without the horror of what was done to us. There isn't. I guess that's the point. #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #africanauthors 📚⏳️

Calling all Speculative Short Story Writers of Color! ✍️🏽 I'm creating writing prompts from open submission calls of spec fic #litmags & anthologies, esp those seeking underrepresented voices. Submission details in thread. 📚💙 #writingcommunity #bvm #lgbtq #writesky #scifi #fantasy

Richly textured Black Speculative Fiction, steeped in Memphis memory. Stories you read more than once, to uncover latent layers of meaning, and imbue some of your own. For lovers of the surreal and superreal, #afrofuturism, Black magic, and Rivers Solomon's "The Deep". #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks

Some 📚🏳️‍🌈 books picked up this weekend... I'm excited for my first dive into the "cozy fantasy romance" genre with Legends & Lattes! #booksky 📚💙 #queerbooks #sapphic #lesbian #lgbtq

Frankly drove me nuts; if I knew Ti-Jeanne in real life, we'd be having words 🙄 Read for frustration, Black magic, afrofuturist dystopia, & generational healing. From the same house as Butler & Vinge; WA had a good nose for classics of the genre! #booksky 📚💙 📚🪐 #afrofuturism #blackbooks #BHM

My fave epic fantasy read of 2024 🙌🏽 Vulnerable characters making all the wrong choices, for some of the right reasons, in a complex, living, Afrohistory-inspired world. Ready to bite my nails, whoop and wail at the next installment! #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #afrofantasy #BHM

I am once again asking the publishing industry to implement physical+digital packages for books the way vinyls do!! I would love to buy a physical book and have a code to read on ereader if I want to switch back and forth!

My first Okarafor read. Some elements of YA I don't prefer (fast-paced & emotionally bimodal), but I loved unapologetic African Woman roots, culture, & perspective in a sci-fi world. Up next: acclaimed "Who Fears Death" or her latest "Death of the Author"? #booksky📚💙 📚🪐 #blackbooks #afrofuturism

Drawn in by Black joy & music of NOLA; stayed for lovingly crafted Black trans experience, family bonds & growing pains. This riot of color & sound whisked me to a world of wonder, imagination, & heart. For superhero fans & surreal fantasy lovers alike! #booksky 📚💙 #blackbooks #afrofuturism

#NoGoogleWeek Day 7, and experiment complete! Surprising result: I don't miss the tool at all. Bonus: rediscovering closer-to source research has rekindled my curiosity and love of learning. I don't *need* Google's one-stop-information-shop. So... why did I feel that I did? 🤔