celia winter 🦋

I just want to point out that Alex Pretti became a registered nurse in early 2021 -- the height of death from Covid. And he chose the ICU, the sickest patients, in Veterans Affairs.

thank you so much!!

my brand forever will be these lil fuckos

thank you!! feeling really excited for it all!!

so excited for this!!

Romantic Fantasy | Contents Announcement | Of Swords & Roses We’re very pleased to present the list of stories selected for the new collection in our new Romantic Fantasy series: Of Swords & Roses!

My trans and sapphic romantic fantasy story "The Gentle Art of Necromancy" will be published this June in the Of Swords & Roses anthology! blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-goth...

A Canva graphic with purple roses. White text reads: Of Swords and Roses Half Made of Shadows "The scent of roses was in the air when the contingent of knights galloped by." An image of the book cover and its sprayed edges on a golden yellow background is in the middle of the image. A white flower with vine detailing is at the bottom of the image beneath the quotation.

I am thrilled to share that Flame Tree Press is publishing another of my short stories, a Lady of Shalott reimagining called "Half Made of Shadows", in OF SWORDS AND ROSES this June! I am even more excited to once again share a TOC with my beloved friend @crossingwinter.bsky.social!
#WriteSky

Celia Winter 2026 Short Stories: February 13 - "A Rotting Crown of Birch" Twisted Trysts Anthology March - "Gargamax and His Kits" Baubles From Bones March 17 - "Not Yet, Little Witch" A Breath of Time Anthology June 16 - "Sometimes a Sword is Like a Lover" Of Swords and Roses Anthology

For those keeping track at home, I have four stories that will be released in the first half of this year! I am so proud of all of them, and so excited to share them with all of you!

Romantic Fantasy | Contents Announcement | Of Swords & Roses We’re very pleased to present the list of stories selected for the new collection in our new Romantic Fantasy series: Of Swords & Roses!

Extremely excited to share that my short story "Sometimes a Sword is Like a Lover" will be appearing in Flame Tree Press' #Romantasy Anthology OF SWORDS AND ROSES this June!

So excited to be sharing a Table of Contents with friends and community members!

i am so grateful you introduced me to it. game changing life changing tool

Anyway—big fan of actually having data on hand. I recommend toggl track if you're interested in tracking your time. Even their free plan (which I use!) is VERY robust.

4) Merely from a cost-of-labor perspective, this is useful knowledge to have. It is what motivates me to submit to paying markets for short stories, and helps me keep a level eye on what a novel contract would actually break out to at an hourly rate.

3) I learned that I can, in fact, move WAY faster than I think if I'm actually focusing/turning off discord/slack/socials. "I bet you can get more done than you think in 30 mins" is a mantra I have started turning to when my brain is clearly "on" (though not work it when my brain is clearly "off")

2) I learned that even if I felt like I spent so much time working on short story stuff, it was actually much less than what I spent working on novel stuff. This, I think, because short story submissions (not tracked) take up a lot of background processes in my brain

1) I learned that my average week of writing is ~6 hours a week;
>8 is a good week;
>10 is a really good week/work must be slow.

donut chart reflecting: 387h24m of project work - 55.8% novel-related - 21.4% short story-related - 15.4% critique and client related - 2.99% codex contests - 4.4% other

2025 was the first complete year of data that I tracked, and it was fascinating to see how things broke down:

About a year and a half ago, @jennalevine.bsky.social put me onto tracking the time I spend doing writing/editorial. This because so frequently we focus on word count goals in writing, but sometimes time spent is more telling (especially when you hit editing, which is so important.)

I'm not the bigger person. I’ll heal in hell. Says Skeletor having one of those days.

where i create from

a poorly drawn cat wrapped in a strand of Christmas lights, with a small star attached to a spring on top of its head

a fluffy black cat, wrapped in colorful Christmas lights that glow red, green, yellow, and blue, with a red star decoration positioned above its head

🎄

While many people find it to be irritating or even disgusting, in Santa culture it is a great honor when he sheds his skin and leaves it in your home

The reason so many of yesterday’s free-speech champions transitioned so easily into today’s pro-Trump censors is that their definition of free speech never included the right of others to talk back. They were not defending a universal right to freedom of speech; they were defending a right to monologue. They could say what they want, and you could shut up and like it. The cynicism of the effort can be known by its fruits: an administration that issues executive orders “protecting” free speech while engaging in the most sweeping campaign of state censorship since the Red Scare.

The “free speech” and “cancel culture” panics have led to overt state censorship because that was always their purpose. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

I know I am not the only one who thinks this, or the only one saying it, but good golly fuck is Bari Weiss an absolute hack

A cropped photo of safari’s home section to show the top three recently closed tabs are all the submission grinder, a crowdsourced short story submission tracking aggregator; the url at the bottom of the screen is also the submission grinder.

Thanks for calling me out, Safari

A grey and red transit bus on the road in a city. The bus’ destination sign reads “NO? ?? ???????”

My response to anything over the next two weeks

Have you ever gotten so mad about the content of an all hands meeting that you took a 30 min break to hand scribble a villanelle about how much you hate AI?

If you see the words 'irrevocable', 'in perpetuity', 'formats not yet invented', 'net after costs', 'all rights', you're selling every damn thing you could make money from as an author for a one time payment, or in this case, a promise.

Signing this gives the publisher money meant for you forever.

Me for the last six months. Welcome to hell. Thank you for joining me here.