G.S. Brouwer

I've read a couple of really good manuscripts in the last couple years that were clever in ways that surprised and elated me. Watching them die on sub has been so disheartening. I wish there was a Black List like Hollywood has to save these stories.

#booksky #writing

100% pure asbestos. Great reason to want to get past that field!

Even scarier, wasn't the snow on all the poppies asbestos?

I think all of your transparency on this has been wonderful and heartening to get a peek behind the curtain at the Wizard.

Math class stress? Hey now, that's MY job!

Why do I get the feeling you had no problem whatsoever being ready for honors?

The turnaround in the California education system is a wonder, and as a teacher, it always makes me smile when someone remembers a teacher that made them really love something. I'm so glad you had that experience. Maybe I would've started taking my literary inklings more seriously earlier if I had.

I think we were far too focused on diction and theme (and killing my love of reading) to discuss something like that. No wonder you loved English enough to make a career of it!

I'm trying! It's difficult when you know it's supposed to be something really good, and you know you haven't found the magic in it yet. Makes me feel like my mind is defective because I can't see it.

I hope so. I've learned over the years to keep going for a bit longer, and it usually will. The brutal ones are when it doesn't pay off for me in the end and I've slogged through something that didn't get better.

But if you've read it, how long did it take you to get into this? It's compared to Proust, which was hard to get into but is now among my top five favorite novels. Am I doing something wrong? It should be more captivating. This is my wheelhouse.

3/3 #💙📚 #booksky

Maybe it's something in the translation from German that makes it less engaging to me. I had trouble recently with Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. And yet, as it's the only book I took with me on my current trip, I will keep reading and hope it takes a turn for the better.

2/3 #💙📚 #booksky

Sometimes reading critically acclaimed books/watching critically acclaimed movies makes me feel like a total philistine. I'm 1/3 of the way through and, while I know what the general theme is, I barely feel like I've scratched the surface of what are supposed to its serious depths.

1/3 #💙📚 #booksky

Posting poetry from the archives on a hot summer Saturday night. #poetry #poem

Is the counting the o's as champagne bubbles a real thing? If so, you had a MUCH better English teacher than I did.

This one's about being loved for who we are in the deepest parts of ourselves, the places we don't know about ourselves sometimes, let alone show other people. Not everyone will love what they find there, and not everyone is lucky enough to be admitted into our Secret Gardens.

#poetry #poem

I think a lot about the process of aging. Bodies don't work the same way, recovery takes longer, everything moves slower and aches. Wrinkles form and we go grey. But there is still so much beauty in that, and not just in the glow of youth.

And thus, a #poem called Greying.
#poetry

I wrote out a nice paper query letter with special touches and everything, and I... have no idea where I put it for safe keeping to come back to after my vacation.

#booksky #writingcommunity #💙📚

A #poem called a little bit of heather.

I was getting ready to do something new and exciting: my first paper query! I typed it all out on my typewriter and went to print out my pages and whoops! There's a giant line across one side of every printed page. So it goes.

#📚💙

Not to mention that NYC taxes (income, sales, congestion pricing) absolutely affect a large number of Jersey residents! You'd be crazy to not care.

This is the summer I fell in love with writing again. After surviving my first year full-time teaching math with no mental space to write, the book I'm working on is messy (like life) and WAY too long to pitch, but I live for it. It matters when people are being told who they can and can't be. #📚💙

I'm a nerd, so I'm still willing to snail mail you mine if you haven't read it yet, just to feel like a part of publishing's very long history.

Absolutely! It seems like the network fractured between Threads and Bluesky, so I'm grateful to have been able to maintain my best mutuals, like you.

I also wanted to add a heartfelt thank you, @jsinsheim.bsky.social. You're always accessible and super friendly as you answer my million questions, and you don't even rep me!

I'd suspected that, so that's really good to know!

Do you think it is possible for something as substantial in page number as Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, or that door-stopping ilk is publishable today, even post-debut?

I knew you'd have a good answer. You even anticipated my follow-up question! That's good to know that 100 is a pretty hard ceiling on debuts.

The em-dash is considered a tell of AI writing, but I was loving my em-dash before it was cool. I somehow discovered it as a HS freshman and used it CONSTANTLY in spite of only having half an idea of its purpose, and I've never stopped. Don't get me started on semicolons...

#booksky 💙📚

Nosy #askanagent question for @jsinsheim.bsky.social: what's the longest non-SFF fiction debut you've ever agreed to rep?