Justine Gardner

So strongly worded! #wtfchuck

a person is standing in a field holding a stick . Alt: a young child is shoveling dirt into his own face

This is the gif that comes up in my text app when I search for “epic fury.”

Clearly a scene from a jolly Victorian Christmas tale, right?

Tank ya! 👵🏼🫖☠️

Sure. And I appreciate the ask.

Ooh, yes please! 😬 (sorry but distracted here in northeast States where we’re about to get 2 feet of snow at the end of school break which means the child is home for yet more days…)

I mean murderous vengeful old ladies with impeccable manners? What’s not to like? 👵🏼🫖☠️

Yes! The snakeman was creepy AF. Wonder if that movie holds up?

#HorrorWritersChat

This question sent me down a rabbit hole for 1984's "Dreamscape" starring Dennis Quaid and NOT Aidan Quinn as I have been thinking for the past [redacted] years.

And I just remembered an actual nightmare I have: being in the middle of the ocean and something BIG bumps my leg.

Hard pass! I'll stay in my nightmare supermarket thank you very much.

#HorrorWritersChat

I like to joke that dreams are only interesting if they come from small children. Dreams in fiction, especially horror fiction, are tricky for me to write. More usually a character will experience a nightmare that leads to sleep distress, e.g., somnambulance.

#HorrorWritersChat

Hallo! I am an old fart in Brooklyn, NY, and I write weird shit.

Scariest dream...I don't know if this counts but the most persistent and distressing dream I have is being lost in a big box store unable to find what I need, or my $, or my child, or the exit, etc.

It’s been a bit of a year and it’s only February 🤯but I gotta say, I think the Aunties are what we all need right now. I very much enjoyed this dark and funny tale from @erynmccee.bsky.social. You might too? books2read.com/AuntieNetwor...

I’m not crying you’re crying

I think I found my new tattoo

Folks sometimes tease me for maintaining a paper subscription to @consumerreports.org but then they have never heard the excited squeals of my 8-year-old when I pull the auto issue out of the mailbox. He will read this cover to cover multiple times and have every car memorized within a week. 🚗🚙🚕🚘🚖🤪

Yestereve the child and I stepped over a dead rat, emerging from the melt like Croghan Man from the bog….Ah, winter in the city…

The Inheritance

He showed her seeds: the brown flat bugs in neat rows on the leaf’s underside. Now, 40 years later, her father long since #wound in his shroud, she cannot pass a fern without touching a feather, turning it over for confirmation that this, at the very least, continues. #vss365

📌

Do not fund them. End them. Noem/Miller out. Any more dead are on the hands of EVERYONE who votes to fund this one day more.

The Past

I watched a woodchuck flatten itself to stone between the graves. The grass was still green then. The trees had leaves. A hawk was watching from a nearby monument to a dead child.

I did not stay to witness the woodchuck’s #pain or the hawk’s inevitable loss. #vss365

Closing in on my 1st month of the Ray Bradbury Challenge* and I've been thoroughly enjoying myself. I'd thought the weekly writing would be the hardest part but there are 4 new stories on my desk and my brain is purring.

#amwriting #writing

*Read 1 SS, 1 poem, 1 essay a day + write a story/wk

(I should have read the other comments before replying but I got so excited! So rare to see a GR reference out in the wild. And A+ deployment with the cat's name.)

Photo of Jack Lemmon with mustache and top hat from the movie The Great Race

OH MY GOD. She is named for the one and only...

Is she named for Leslie the Great's arch nemesis? 🎩

A photo from the LEGO archive of a black wooden pistol toy.

One of my favorite fun facts about LEGO is before ol' Ole Kirk Christiansen got going with the plastics he manufactured this popular wooden "peace gun" in 1949. #internationalLEGOday

Also, always: #abolishice

@schumer.senate.gov

Extrajudicial Killing

He #slipped helping another up. His eyes burning in the cold, from the gas; he could not regain his footing on the iced street. Masked men put him on his knees before he could utter please. His back now bared to them, they saw their chance and took it. #vss365

Is there a German word for when you start writing what you think will be a 2K-word story but you're nearing 3K and you realize this will take at least another 3K to wrap up? #amwriting

Great. Now #abolishIce before they shoot a 5-year-old in the face.