Colleen Burner

It felt very cloth mother vs. wire mother!

A photo of David Lynch from the chest up, his open hands reaching out in front of him. The background is panels of muted red, blue, yellow, and green. The caption text on the image says "You're all together on this planet trying to live a life"

A photo of David Lynch from the chest up, his open hands reaching out in front of him. The background is panels of muted red, blue, yellow, and green. The caption text on the image says "you know, a good life"

A photo of David Lynch from the chest up, his hands face down in front of him. The background is panels of muted red, blue, yellow, and green. The caption text on the image says "Why would you torture people?"

When you recount this election day:

Fear By Lydia Davis Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has not been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families too, to quiet us.

Oh Lydia Davis ❤️

Head, Heart Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.

Heart weeps.

Head tries to help heart.

Head tells heart how it is, again:

You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But
even the earth will go, someday.

Heart feels better, then.

But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. - Lydia Davis
#Poetry #LiteratureSky 💙📚👀

A photo of a book page, showing a short story by Lydia Davis titled 'Lost Things' that reads; They are lost, but also not lost but somewhere in the world. Most of them are small, though two are larger, one a coat and one a dog. Of the small things, one is a valuable ring, one a valuable button. They are lost from me and where I am, but they are also not gone. They are somewhere else, and they are there to someone else, it may be. But if not there to someone else, the ring is, still, not lost to itself, but there, only not where I am, and the button, too, there, still, only not where I am.

This might be my favourite piece by Lydia Davis - a comfort in the never lostness of things.

It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.

—Louise Glück, from "October"

A “no smoking” sign that has been amended to say “no kings”

Ursula Le Guin letter to the owner of Powell's Books in 1999 where she says it would be an honor to know that it's a union shop.

Ursula Le Guin's 1999 letter to Michael Powell, the owner of Powell's Books in Portland. Powell's workers unionized in 2000 and have faced some union-busting measures since, but were the first contract in ILWU Local 5.

A wet snail on some tiny leaves on the side of a wall

I didn’t even edit this one. Snail looked this good all on their own. Sports Illustrated model of snails over here. Great work snail you’re lookin wet as hell.

Ah, the scammy book club placement emails have reached me and they’re getting the title of my book wrong. The perils of being An Author in the modern age ✨

YouTube video by SparksVEVO Sparks - It’s Sunny Today (Lyric Video)

It’s sunny today ⛅️
youtu.be/F_09jWiVbYg

A torn paperback copy of a book titled 20/20 Thinking on the sidewalk under a power pole that’s been seeping creosote so it looks like black ooze is snaking out from underneath the book

Two red hatchback cars parallel parked on a street; they aren’t the same model but very close, like siblings but not quite twins & there’s something striking about their likeness and proximity and how bright their red is—the shade of red is the same

Ominous portents this evening

Kitchen disco, 8 a.m.

@davidnaimon.bsky.social we’re in here somewhere

I don't think anyone's figured out how best to keep promoting a book once it's no longer brand new (if you have, lemme know!), but SGC is in great company on Split/Lip's backlist.
And wow, look at that, this weekend you can get 2 SGCs for the price of 1 (16 cow legs total):
bsky.app/profile/spli...

I was also lucky that anyone paid attention to this book! Reviewers at @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social, @necessaryfiction.com, @fullstopmag.bsky.social, & @haydensferryreview.bsky.social, as well as @alissahattman.bsky.social & @eyesonindie.bsky.social were generous with their time, attention, & care

the cover of Sister Golden Calf: a peach-colored rectangle hovers in front of a landscape of red rock formations and blue sky. On the peach rectangle are the title of the book and my name, in front of a pile of 7 cow legs; 1 cow leg hovers mid-air. Designed by David Wojciechowski.

David Naimon and I in front of the audience at Powell's City of Books

Me reading in front of a wall of books at The Stacks Coffeehouse

Promo graphic for my reading at Bishop & Wilde on 10/4/2023. Five people showed up for this reading, but now I'm actually friends with all of them, and the oddly intimate reading situation should not be dismissed!

my 1st book, Sister Golden Calf, was released 2 years ago today by @splitlippress.com. I don't think anyone can predict how a book launch will go, but I got real lucky with the Split/Lip team & the events I got to do in Portland w/ David Naimon, Alissa Hattman, Thea Prieto, & Bishop & Wilde Books

thank god i'm not alive to see this

Three pictures of sun bears, which look dazed and goofy as hell standing on hind legs, the wonderful ape-dog creatures everyone knows them to be. They’ve never been sent emails and I envy them that.

how the emails are finding me this morning:

I can’t believe we’ve only watched TWO of these together (& that you didn’t list any of The Matrix movies (matrices))

The latest issue of The Anarchist Review of Books

“In this year of war, fear, and rage, we have found ourselves returning again and again to W. S. Merwin’s poem The River of Bees. “We are the echo of the future,” Merwin writes, “On the door it says what to do to survive/ But we were not born to survive/ Only to live” ALL POWER TO THE IMAGINATION ALL POWER TO LIFE The Editorial Collective August 15, 2025”

& speaking of review outlets, a boon for my Monday just came in the mail

what if I (or anyone) started a publication for reviewing books that have been out at least a year...? 🤔

It’s too hot to think about quilting. And yet.

It’s a heatwave in Portland so I’m looking back ever so longingly at quilting progress from a couple weeks ago

I’m Out Of Office for the next week but please fill our inbox with your weird short fiction in the meantime

“Let us come together to celebrate literature without lending these banks the shine of our collective dreams for a better future, without helping the reputations of those who profit off death in the shadows.” 📣📣📣

THE SUMMER THE COLLIES died and were buried beneath fir trees, I had two kinds of apple: red and red-yellow. I had a three-legged aluminum ladder, a bucket, a wasp's nest the size of my fist. I fit between the branches, filled, first my hands and pockets and then the bucket. A wasp with the face of my oldest dog stung me twice. It takes a long time to leave. My father's green bulldozer will break down in the purple-headed thistles some August and then stay and stay there. A tractor outlasts a person. It's never worth it to haul it away. There are monuments, in the country, everywhere. If I talk too often about wasps it's because they're inescapable. They'll be under the hood in no time--here, no emptiness goes uninhabited. I always want to put Christ's heart back in his chest, like returning a jar of jam to the cupboard. I make the bruised apples into sauce, ladle it hot into jars. What is sown as perishable is raised imperishable--a joke I make to myself about the buzzing soul of the bulldozer, existing here on earth long after it's died, as something venomous and intelligent.

This beautiful summer poem by Rosalie Moffat.

Get his ass, Ron 😤