Calenn Lithgow 🌊

I know it’s difficult right now, but I insist that you seek and enjoy beautiful things, even if it seems frivolous or irresponsible in the face of overwhelming horror. I want you to feed yourself artistically, spiritually, and literally, because you can’t Do The Work when you’re starving.

Artist! Quote with some of your most detailed art!

Guess I passed the 50k mark on my WIP today without noticing. HUH? Oh, and my agent took my finished manuscript on submission. !!! #writesky

ALT:

That feeling when you go on submission and at the same time your writing partner starts querying. Bound to be ups and downs, but I’m so excited for both our journeys! @sfbegum.bsky.social

Woohoo!!

Black and white illustration by Dan Rempel of two desert warriors being surprised at night by a giant snake.

Black and white illustration by Dan Rempel of Elric sitting atop a dragon.

Black and white illustration by Dan Rempel of two middle-eastern from the age of antiquity being surprised by a might djinn appearing from nowhere.

Black and white illustration by Dan Rempel of Sister Chaos, Bryn Hammond's Mongol bandit character, nude and ready to throw a spear while her partner, Goatskin, watches from tall grass.

🖌️WELCOME BACK DAN REMPEL!🎨
Dan will have new illustrations in this year's issues. Go here to see more cool art and gaze upon mighty crowdfund exclusives before it's too late! 👉 www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

Dawn over Marl Pits (1)
digital painting

I'm not changing the way I write for the sake of weak thinkers. I don't care

Hit 47k on my latest WIP (elvish fantasy where humans have runic magic). The middle is coming easier than I feared. Quest structures are the MVP: travel keeps the characters driving forward, new locations keep the world feeling fresh. I feel like this is cheating. Is this cheating? #writesky

So all three uses of “sweetheart” in BRIGHTER THAN TWO MOONS are pretty derogatory in their use, apparently. #WIPSnips #WriteSky

My art digital, a women with a sidecut and a single antler leans in to lick a women in a monsters mouth

Eat or be eaten- happy Valentine’s Day 👀

MAHA: Eating a giant steak cooked in butter alongside beef tallow fries and washing it down with coffee spiked with butter

Not MAHA: Clean air, clean water, health insurance, vaccines, disease monitoring, scientific research, food assistance, food safety, bike lanes

A picture of the book Hild by Nicola Griffith.

Obsessed. What do you mean I have to do a financial analysis for work? Sorry, I’m too busy, I can’t put this book down.

A scam email from someone named “Sophie expert” offering promotional services for a fee.

They’re getting lazy. I don’t even have a book published yet. lol.

I will not support any funding deal that puts money in the hands of Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and this violent agency. Defund and abolish ICE now.

A few others include: Some Desperate Glory by @emilytesh.net, A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, and Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang (last one is a novella)!

Small acrylic marker painting of a red kirin on a bright yellow background. The mythical beast is standing and keeping its head low and looking at the viewer. The base coat is bright red but it has brown antlers/horns and hooves and also teal scales, mane, tail tassel, eyebrows, beard and ears. The kirin is showing its teeth a little bit.

Kirin/Qilin
#art ✧ #painting ✧ #kirin ✧ #qilin

VHS collection of seven of Carl Sagan’s COSMOS, spanning thirteen episodes.

Now that’s a collection!!

I got an avocado coin purse from there. Someone stole it out of my car last year. It was so tragic.

Ps- I might recharacterize Meow Wolf as “sci fi fantasy” 👀

Meow wolf is so sci fi! Some exhibits are solar punk, some are def dystopian. Have you been to the Santa Fe one? (More hopeful.) Las Vegas? (Full dystopia)

Iron Man meme, edited, Obadiah Stane yelling, "Your ancestors made timeless art in a cave! With berries and ash!"

"I need AI to make art, human art is only for the rich and privileged-"

Context: this speech is from SIR THOMAS MORE, a history written, as near as scholars can tell, in the early 1600s by 6 or 7 people including Dekker, Heywood, Chettle, Shakespeare, and Munday.

It was never performed, because Jacobean England was a police state and it was banned by the censor.

A hundred years ago, the only time you’d point and click was when you pointed your horse toward a meadow and clicked so he would trot

Turns out values are sexy.

YouTube video by MS NOW When a bookshop owner turns anger into resistance

If you haven't seen our own Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books in Minneapolis hearing about Alex, being consumed with fury, and driving down to see and then express his opinion for so many of us? Here he's interviewed by the Banned Books Club. 1/

youtu.be/WnvF274Eeho?...

They always run up against the wall that good artists don't want to have anything to do with them, and they can't even pretend to be satisfied by the art made by conservatives.

It turns out that making good art often requires the tiniest bit of curiosity about the world, and people who aren't you.

F420.5.3.3
Water-spirits call human godmother.

This is nothing. ICE and DHS need to be outright abolished. Call Schumer's offices and make it known.

Writing letters to senators + representatives and sending friends templates to do the same. Participating in local protests. You could host a poster-making session at your house for friends the night before Friday actions - provide creative poster ideas, glitter, colorful sharpies, etc.

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.