Malina

"'Ugh. Why are you so cheerful?'
'It's a passage spell.'
'A passage spell? I've never heard of that.' His tone blended skepticism & curiosity. 'The grumpier you are, the more cheerful I become. It passes your grumpy energy across to me & I transform it into bright flowers & sunny days." Kate Elliot

I bought a copy! Enjoying how the intro gradually sprinkles in this unique world...

Need to start reading this before book II comes out in November!

Coffee with.... grapefruit? Turns out, it's tangy and refreshing. Cheers to trying something odd that turns out to be pleasant.

#poetry #mpprompt

faded memories
along the rocky coast
playing in tide pools
anemones waving
hermit crab walking
sea star bright & slow
gulls crying above
waves crashing against long stone benches reaching from the cliffs
where footprints worn by ancient ancestors
greeted my toes like old friends

First pumpkin spice latte of the season! In a cosy new cafe.

Jennifer Kovich was yearning for a girls’ getaway but never expected to be transported back to the 70s against her will, and she was dead set on finding out exactly how she got there. #timetravel #romance #SciFi #paranormal #Supernatural #darkfiction #darkromance #thriller
books2read.com/u/3nMAB8

I love that character.

Lem can be heavy-handed at times but THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS hits just the right tone, IMO.

New release! 2nd edition of 'My Alien Self' updated with a new afterword! A memoir of mental health, adversities and hope www.amazon.co.uk/My-Alien-Sel... #myalienself #books #memoir #mentalhealth #bpd #depression

cow being lifted out of a graveyard by a UFO tractor beam, two little ghost friends looking on in dismay. The cow's thought bubble reads: "$4,110!"

20% UNLOCKED! Lesley Conner will read “And She Had Been So Reasonable” by Rachel Bolton live on YouTube! “And She Had Been So Reasonable” was published in Apex Magazine issue 147, and was a finalist for the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction in 2024. There is a 100% chance that Lesley will cry during the reading.

We've unlocked our 20% goal in just 24 HOURS!! 🎉🎉🎉

@lesleyconner.bsky.social will be doing a LIVE STORYTIME of @raebolt.bsky.social's “And She Had Been So Reasonable.” Tears guaranteed! Don't miss it! 💧📖📺

Back our Kickstarter and make Lesley cry (with joy!) at: www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...

Do you know anyone who "believed the AI was conscious or in love with them, withdrew emotionally or socially from real life, experienced delusion, obsession, anxiety or depression"? Share their story or yours anonymously here:
‎https://www.thehumanlineproject.org/share-others-story

🥀🖤6 months until VILE LADY VILLAINS comes out in the UK (just over 7 months in the US) 🖤🥀

To celebrate this exciting but also nerve wracking milestone, I’m sharing some sneak peeks from the first pages of the book. Want more? Give me a page number and I will give you a line

So happy to be nominated for my piece “Feeding Time” which I recently had the pleasure of reading in Brussels at the @saloneurope.bsky.social

I just listened to this great interview. I didn't get a chance to meet @foxesandroses.bsky.social in Seattle and so it was great to hear her here. I'll have to see if I can view any of her panels from the Seattle Worldcon when I get the time.

"Jardine doesn’t just tell a story- she immerses the reader in it. The hum of sewing machines seems audible, the dust of the mills tangible...readers will keep on turning pages because you need to know and because Jardine makes you care."
#WomensFiction #victorian #scotland
mybook.to/TTsss

⭐ The Poetry Society Annual Lecture/ Liverpool University Allott Lecture 2025 ⭐

Burlesque Picaresque in the Rural Midwest: My Education in Poetry with Diane Seuss

More info below...

Hello from the welcome chill of September Welcome to our latest newsletter. We have news, submission stuffs, Trash Family publications, Quick Reads from award nominees and a seasonal ekphrastic writing prompt.

September's newsletter is live 🦝
We've got subs, Trash Family stuffs from @cbigs.bsky.social @matgost.bsky.social @meproctor.bsky.social & @emilyrinkema.bsky.social, three quick reads from Genrepunk Award nominees and some autumnal ekphrastic writing prompts 🧡

trashcatlit.com/2025/09/22/h...

Hurrah! 🎊

Check out the first print anthology from Trash Cat Lit, fresh from the press! You'll find all kinds of shiny things inside, including my story, Discarded Treasure.

Portals to Inspiration In the Footsteps of Charles Dickens

Inspiration will find you if you step through the portal. Try out the prompts in my latest Substack post, inspired by a walk through Brighton.

open.substack.com/pub/iridesce...

Here's the message of the day.

Perhaps you could use a support sandwich...

‎"It is the story of a very stubborn woman and I didn't see it when I created her... that really makes her powerful. If I wrote Blackbird now it would be a totally different thing. I understand her better and better and I would love to be as stubborn as she is." Tamta Melashvili

‎"I allowed myself. to play out some scenarios in a much more dramatic way than in my life." - Megan Nolan

‎"I didn't give a name to the male hero and I did it on purpose. I wanted to generalise a specific kind of man... He's a good man, he can express his feelings... I really enjoyed writing about this better kind of man and sometimes you can meet him in this life..." Tamta Melashvili

‎"I know what I didn't want and I didn't want to be dependent on loving a man... It was quite an aware process in that way... The further away from that situation I get, the softer I feel about it. Now I can look back at girls who are 22 and feel more tenderness for them." Megan Nolan

A fascinating discussion with Megan Nolan and Tamta Melashvili: Redefining Writing About Love at the Tbilisi International Literature Festival 🧵

Diving deeper into this collection, feeling the tug of strong emotions. How the cinema pulls Lata from a blustery day to places saturated with memory in Dusk Over Atlantic Wharf and the narrator's observations in the title story as spices bring a cold street to life.
@susmitab.bsky.social

Does anyone else find that Zoom gets slower every time you use it? That it opens too slowly, the keyboard lags, and it randomly boots you out?

"I'm now in that age that my goal is to get rid of all identities and ego. I write because it's the only thing I really enjoy... ‎In Finland we have a lot of auto fiction nowadays... They tell quite the same story: I don't know who I am, I hate my body, then I found my identity."
‎Pirkko Saisio