this one guys, it's good. tearjerker level

𝕕𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞𝕤— day 1: an old friend, disregarding years of distance, approaches and caustically inquires how my life is. her face warbles with static like a tv screen. later, she dissolves as we are jaywalking across a busy street. I wish her absence well.

if you've "Chosen" to listen, assume you're complicit (followed by "The Encausting" by @christinogle.bsky.social, one of my favorite stories from her third collection (!!), One Eye Opened in That Other Place!)

pʅoɥsǝɹɥʇ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔ January is named after Janus: the two-faced Roman god of 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 a ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀss ʀᴏsᴇ has 𝟷６ points, but the needle is spinning cʁoƨƨ ϝμԍ ϝμʁԍƨμoɼq

PERCIPIENCE, by @michaelsellars.bsky.social, cosmic horror, unorthodox presentation of narrative, and a cerebrally stimulating central mystery invoking metafiction by story's end. highly recommended—a quick read, fast-paced, and dread-soaked throughout. fans of Area X will find much to enjoy here!

just wrote 2100 words about a guy who menaces another guy in a bar with a five-inch hunting knife, accompanied by the keening crash & wail of "I Wish It Would Rain Down" by Phil Collins

fascinating. clocking in at about 45 minutes, a study of numbness & banal placidity, cracking like thin ice under sustained pressure. don't expect any answers from this elliptical and ambiguous film. misophoniac beware: its aural madness is communicable, and lingers like an invisible echo.

though approaching the end of my two-year contract at Spooky House Press, it's always still such a joy to see new readers embracing theｓｃｒｅｂ

read a TON of short fiction this year (and every year) so I'll bite— hit me where it hearts

had the honor and pleasure of reading this early and it's a stunner

I’m truly blown away by the beautifully unsettling illustrations @brettkent.bsky.social did for my collection 🖤 Here’s a little bit about what inspired the story alongside his creative process. Preorder The Drowning Machine and Other Obsessions today at @undertakerbooks.bsky.social

"look upon my works, ye mighty— The Disappearance of Tom Nero, a novelette (author):

I just finished listening to the enormously talented Kate Reading's audiobook of George Eliot's Middlemarch while reading the text alongside and making over 200 highlights—what prose! my god, I wept openly during a few sections—and now I need desperately to talk about it

optimist: the glass is half-full pessimist: the glass is half-empty @ivygrimes.bsky.social: the glass is stories

writers: quote this with a random piece you are proud of written specifically for publication in Complete Sentence: no one had used footnotes—I read through their entire archive to double-check!—and found myself inspired. the art with it is also my own. www.completesentencelit.com/post/a-robbery

FOLK SONGS for TRAUMA SURGEONS, by Keith Rosson—an urgently-driven collection of stories, like a sick heart pistoning beneath the pages, gone tachycardic and at the point of exhaustion—yet still, beats on. bleak but bizarrely warm, and character work that shines through the dark.

Here's another story from that Halloween episode of my old podcast. The wonderful @eerieyore.bsky.social doing what he does best. tjpricewrites.com/the-burglar/

screb it, why not, it's been awhile— www.amazon.com/dp/195994610...

still one of my favorite poems (and translations) of all time—days like this, it often randomly skirls into my head, like a prayer, like a sigh

right now bluesky feels like an echo of an echo chamber, but at least these are voices I care to hear

there's a kind of Rapture allegory to be made with how many folks have come over to these blue skies, making me think that those left behind in X are writhing in a kind of hideous torment. I, as always, am a soul on both sides, unwilling to depart and yet already gone