Francesca Leader

This is kind of you. No need to worry — I’m doing great 😊

Aw, TYSM for reading the piece, and for sharing this 🤗

A very merry un-birthday to me 😊 ♌️ ♊️

I’m Sorry, I Know My Well-Being Is Bad for the Planet I should’ve been compost, in and out, no strain on this world I can’t seem to love any more nobly than a pig-loving bacon-eater.

I was due to be born August 1st, but my mom got toxemia, so they cut me out, jaundiced yellow, on June 12th. Hence the line “Ordained Leo, but born Gemini,” in my @identitytheory.bsky.social prose poem from last April, if you’d like to read it 😉 👯 🦁 🙏

www.identitytheory.com/im-sorry-pla...

And that right there is something to have 🤗 🥰

“….Twitter filled … a hole I didn’t realize was there. It was messy and chaotic, but ….You could celebrate a milestone—”Finished my draft!”—and strangers would cheer you on.”

@barlowadams.bsky.social nails what we all loved, and miss, about OG Twitter in this new @reckonreview.bsky.social essay 💔

Please head over to Reckon to read this essay by our columnist Barlow Adams. It was exactly what I (Meg) needed to read today. Maybe you, too?
@barlowadams.bsky.social

Have a new column out today if you’d like to read it.

RIP Jane Greer, aka the poet North Dakota Jane. Here's one of her poems I highlighted on Forgotten Ground Regained a few years ago:

You guys, I cooked!! 🤣 😂 🔥 😱 #adhdlife #neurodivergent #momlife #momswhowrite #momswhodaydream #iwastakimgabathok

Had a story declined today because, though the editors loved the “specificity of the descriptions,” they felt the story didn’t belong to the one telling it. But I think sometimes the MC in a story lacks the skills/awareness to tell it themselves. And that’s part of the point. 🤷‍♀️

So happy to finally get my hands on this book by @voraciousbrain.bsky.social, thanks to the Barnes & Noble gift card my stepmom sent me for my birthday. (Not sure I’ll tell her about the book, though I’ll definitely mention the gorgeous ukiyo-e bookmarks I impulse bought along with it 😆 😉)

Your kind encouragement in response to previous submissions was a big part of the reason why 💕

Awww, thank you!! ☺️ 🤗

Acceptance from @stonecirclereview.bsky.social!! I’ve been submitting to this beautiful journal for years, and I’m so happy they liked this particular piece, which has been seeking the right home for several years now. Thanks so much for choosing my work, Lee 🤗 🥰

🥰 🥰 🙏

Not sure what recs you got already or who you’ve read, but these are truly great ones:

Frank: Sonnets - @dseuss.bsky.social

Tell Me - @kimaddonizio.bsky.social

Like Wine or Like Pain, by Francesca Leader Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features. How does it feel to fall in love while broken? To stumble into an experience both beautiful and painful, exhilarating and terrifying? Do we retreat...

Shameless self promo 😉

bottlecap.press/products/lik...

😂 🥹🥹

😆

He said yes 😉

😂 🤣

Any questions for Zoltar? 😆

Come on Down! by Julia Strayer My ex doesn’t know he’s my ex. I just packed and left. Headed east for an hour. It’s close to midnight and I’m cruising through a one-light town in his old Crown Vic on the way from nowhere to some…

I stopped writing flash for a few years while I worked on a longer project. I started again because it feels like coming home. I’m thrilled to have a story at @flashfrog.bsky.social Thanks @ericscottryon.bsky.social for choosing it and Alaina Hammond for the great art!
flash-frog.com/2025/06/02/c...

LOL thank you 😂

The Archive Challenge — Win $400! - SmokeLong Quarterly How often do you read the literary journals you submit your work to? Flash has been around for centuries but as “flash” only for around 23 years, when James Thomas’s wife suggested the term. Lots of o...

This challenge starts June 25th. Read the archives of a favorite flash journal and get your name in the hat to win $400. www.smokelong.com/the-archive-...

I may not quite have reached the bird-watching stage of middle age yet, but I’ve definitely reached the stage of getting excited about oatmeal and tacky shirts 😆 🌞

Busy Summer Saturday included a side-quest for kiddo’s latest food obsessions—Buldak ramen & Dubai chocolate. 🍜 🍫 The baked Mac n’ cheese & the improvised Brussels Sprout Broil seasoned with all my ten packets of hoarded duck sauce came out 🔥 Hope your weekend’s been great 🤗

Such a nice surprise to (belatedly) discover this shoutout @joannatheiss.com gave my story “The Bear” in her @fivesouth.bsky.social Reader Spotlight earlier this year. Thanks so much to Joanna for the mention, and to my talented friend @iwantanewhead.bsky.social for letting me know about it. 🙏 🤗