“I cried years later, when I understood we hadn’t survived a journey. We had survived the end of a life we never got to finish.”

I can tell the 2016 nostalgia trend isn’t for me because while my life has changed a lot in the past decade (started publishing fiction! had kids! went freelance!), I also wear a lot of the same shirts.

I'm fully confident literary magazines will survive the AI apocalypse. There is no better time to become a creative writer. You already have an inside track because most people have never even heard of these things that can never die. We will be here with the cockroaches and Taco Bell

SUBMISSION CALL COMING! Wednesday, 1/14, 10 AM (MT) / 12 PM (ET) / 6 PM (CET) Subs will be capped at 150, so be quick. The nitty-gritty: 750 words for prose (or 2 micro pieces of equal combined length) 1-2 poems & hybrid pieces (each no longer than 2 pages) guest ed: @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social

An important part of introducing new foods to my baby is having a corresponding movie or song earworm to go along with it.

My piece was close, but no such luck this year! I have to praise @mattkendrick.bsky.social, though — my rejection was so kind and encouraging. It honestly feels like a win to have something read with that care. Can’t wait to read the winners (and to send my piece back out into the world)!

You know, we could just wait a little longer?

PSA: the new year doesn’t fully begin until the first Monday of the year. This is still liminal season.

I’ve decided being sick to start the new year is an in like a lion, out like a lamb situation for the year.

“That’s a miracle — but not a rare miracle. A miracle like a sunrise, or a strange cloud, or a weird bird. A miracle that happens often, that maybe we don’t appreciate enough. It’s special. Stories are special. Storytellers are special.”

There are 242 working days in 2026. If you write just one page a day - just 250-300wds, roughly 5 Bsky posts - you will have two full scripts or a novel by New Years Eve. If you write just two pages a day - just 500-600 words - you will have five scripts or one epic novel. Just. Keep. Writing.

Millennial nostalgia is missing Facebook’s old, original version of embarrassing trash (cringy statuses and photo albums) vs its current iteration of embarrassing trash (AI and bots).

if you send a micro submission to [email protected] by 11pm eastern today 12/31, i’ll send you a response before the new year. @identitytheory.bsky.social guidelines here: www.identitytheory.com/about/micro-...

Hard to pick a favorite but this is one I remember being struck by, visually and musically, in real time. youtu.be/fTH71AAxXmM

In 2025, I wrote in spite of and I wrote because of and I wrote before and after and during and my goal for 2026 is to do the same.

“Everything is fraught with terror when one’s life is blessed by saving.”

Some of my favorite reads of 2025: - Annihilation, @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social - Fever House & The Devil By Name, @keithrosson.bsky.social - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, @sgj.bsky.social

Little 2025 publication thread, with thanks to @crowkeys.bsky.social and @templeinacity.bsky.social and @bendinggenres.bsky.social: (And send me your lists!)

Just stumbled across a BookTok take that reminded me we are all writing to our own audiences because what do you mean you hate titled chapters?? I want all of the little clues and in-jokes and extra contextualizations.

Oo, I may have to try this.

Ok, it is time. Time for the annual filling out of the new planner, allowing me to transform into a new person, a better person, an organized and timely person.

Dickens: hey guys it's the week after Christmas Dickens: you know what that means? Poe: Barker: King: Koontz: Lovecraft: Dickens: it means ghost stories, damnit Dickens: ghost stories

I don’t really watch football, but whenever I catch a bowl name, I feel like I’m reading Infinite Jest.

Ok, plans for 2026 are to only read the books I actually own. Plus whatever we pick for book club. Plus the new Scott Hawkins and the third Ninth House book. And and and …

Yessssss.

We keep the tree up until January, sometimes early, sometimes late. A little extra light in the coldest month .

Happy for everyone who has already dissembled Christmas, but it could not be me. Tree’s still up, dragon hoard piles of presents underneath, no sense of the passage of time. Chaos week celebration activated.

Thought I didn’t have anything for the @welkinprize.bsky.social this year, but then the last @havehashad.com call sparked a new idea. Sharing in case you, too, need a few more days to trim and polish something up!

May the season bring you joy and peace, reflection and renewal. ♥️

Write the stories you want to write. Because then, no matter what happens, no matter what markets are or aren’t there, you’ll at least have written the stories you want to write.

This thread is spot on about why AI doesn’t have a place in writing but also about the act of writing in general.

May the season bring you joy and peace, reflection and renewal. ♥️

I don’t know if it’s just because I don’t have as much time to watch TV now, but it feels like a decade ago there was so much good TV that you could watch legitimately great shows that no one else in your life had even heard of.

I … am not sure why I consistently get excited for adaptations of things I enjoy when I am very rarely rewarded for this excitement.

a cornfield maze where to get out, you have to finish writing your novel instead of just posting about it

ICYMI: “No one knew what it meant when the numbers starting appearing around town: an errant 2 tacked to the bulletin board at the neighborhood pool, a random 7 spray painted in the middle school pick-up lane. The rumors started immediately.”

It’s that time again: time for the old Midwestern bag of bows and gift bags from the closet to shine once more.

I would love to totally finish my novel and maybe format/submit a chapbook. But! With the baby being, well, a baby, I’m going to just aim for continuing to write regularly and call it a win if I manage to do that.

This is gorgeous.

2025 has been a rough year. What's one piece of art that's brought you absolute joy despite everything?

“We are, and will keep being, the greatest gifts in each other’s lives. And also, we will keep doing this: killing each other, making each other’s lives hells, maintaining our reverence to systems that both promote and benefit from the massacres.” — @garrettbucks.bsky.social 1/4

You know? This feels correct.

A beautiful thread and a reminder to help whoever you can, whenever you can.

Nope. Nope! I almost started reading the AI’s gonna bless us lowly humans with all the ideas piece. But! I instead closed the tab and am going to go do literally anything else.

I am delighted to be part of Issue 48 of @bendinggenres.bsky.social. Starting a thread to boost some of the wonderful writing my piece gets to appear beside. bendinggenres.com

Love this! Today's must read!

This quote from George Saunders just immediately became part of how I view writing and the world: “I started to understand writing as a kind of sacrament, by which we remind ourselves that the person we happen to be, at this moment, through habit, is not the limit of who we might become.”

Most writing advice is take it or leave it as it works for you, but one I stand by? Save PDFs of anything you publish online.

ICYMI: “No one knew what it meant when the numbers starting appearing around town: an errant 2 tacked to the bulletin board at the neighborhood pool, a random 7 spray painted in the middle school pick-up lane. The rumors started immediately.”

“After exactly 1 week, 2 days and 17 hours, the number began to decrease. 1801. 1779. 1643. Historians were consulted on significant events of those years. 1385 threw everyone for a loop.” @ramccafferty.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/the-digital-...