the-modern-typewriter

It started with hair. I have my mother’s hair. It is silky and fine. Hair that seems to take mere minutes to knot, snarling and tangled, at the back of my head. As tight as a fisted up scream. If it were given the chance, it is hair that would race dark along my legs, curl beneath my arms, prowl relentless even upon my chin and in dappled spots along my neck. We do not give it the chance. My mother is a vanguard armed with combs, scissors, razors and wax. I never see her hands empty. Never see them without something sharp. Every night after I turn ten she picks and plucks, fusses and burns, snips and tugs. We try out every strategic plan of attack that she can think of. I squint up at the full fluorescent roundness of the bathroom light as she inspects my face for perfect symmetry. My eyebrows are always the last job. The finishing touch. My eyes always inevitably start to sting and well. “It’s okay,” she tells me; part tenderness, part terror and part thin-lipped impatience. “It’s supposed to hurt! Being a woman hurts. You’ll get so used to it that you stop noticing, love.” She’s wrong. I always notice. But when I see the other girls wrinkle their noses and laugh behind their hands at the hair on Shannon Finchley’s legs during swim class, I stop complaining. I learn to do it. She is pleased. So, all in all, it is not a complete surprise when she immediately goes and buys a new shaving kit the first time I transform into a wolf.

Working on a new werewolf short story, among many other things!

#amwriting #werewolf #shortstories #horror
#writing

27.10.2024 14:27 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Folk horror writer and poet @stephellis.bsky.social asks where all the older women are in fiction—especially in horror, where the evil crone stereotype dominates, and especially in folk horror, which centres so much on fertility.

britishfantasysociety.org/a-womans-wor...

24.10.2024 11:35 — 👍 18    🔁 10    💬 0    📌 1

In the past day or so I've had several people ask why I have descriptions on the images I post. It is called ALT text and its primary purpose is to make visual media accessible to people with visual impairments, but there are other benefits, too. You can read more at the link below!

19.10.2024 01:32 — 👍 1826    🔁 668    💬 34    📌 14

So far...

1. Rolling in the deep by Mira Grant
2. Icarus by K.C Ancrum
3. Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe by Emma Torsz
4. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
5. Cultish by Amanda Montell

18.10.2024 20:43 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

There are bones buried beneath your front yard. It was not you who put them there but it is the rain that is drudging them up like worms. You watch as a skeletal hand twitches by your ankle, fingers curling around the laces of your boots. Remember, if you’re cold, they’re cold. Bring it inside.

20.09.2023 02:53 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Her (Marble) by Medusa | the-modern-typewriter Get more from the-modern-typewriter on Patreon

Free sapphic medusa retelling if you'd like to read my work! I'm super proud of this one :) <3 I feel like we as writers need to get better at saying that.

www.patreon.com/posts/104601...

#retelling #medusa #greekmythology #writing #shortstory #sapphic #queerwriter #queerstories

18.10.2024 19:31 — 👍 2    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

Authors, artists, poets, all kinds of creatives deserve at bare minimum a living income from their work.

The idea that receiving money for creating art is somehow disgusting is a lie created and perpetrated to keep the unprivileged far away from being able to influence culture.

Pay the artists.

11.10.2024 01:03 — 👍 802    🔁 332    💬 4    📌 11

The Blue Key On her first night in her new home, after a lavish dessert of strawberry cheesecake and cream, her new husband handed her a clinking set of keys across the dining room table. “You can go anywhere in…

New to this platform and figuring out how it works! Let's start with sharing some stories I guess?

Anyone want a Bluebeard retelling? 🖋️

www.tumblr.com/the-modern-t...

#writer #fairytale #shortstory

18.10.2024 16:19 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0