Dina Strasser

my daughter announced, with great confidence, that the lit menorah in the city plaza was for people who celebrate harmonica

A movie marquee advertises for the films Nuremberg in Zootopia 2

really went dark for the sequel

My son wants to know how Macy's calculates how many black bears fit into the Smokey the Bear balloon. "Like... is it *emulsified* black bears??"

A bird flies over the south side of the canal lined with boats and houses from 3 to 400 years ago the lights reflect on the water the light is dim

Good morning from Haarlem.

#GoodMorningFromHaarlem

A Provincial Market in Second-Hand Books: Book Sales in Devon, 1688–1725 Abstract. Comparatively little is known about England’s early book-auction trade outside of London and the university towns, with few catalogues surviving

*small embarrassed voice*
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...

I'm not talking to you anymore, Mr. Happy Birthday Hamster

While baking tomorrow's pumpkin pie, I only had to take the label out of the recycling three times to check the recipe, a new personal best.

I prepped the entirety of the Thanksgiving Day meal today with a dull knife. Witness me.

One Poem by Jared Beloff - Terrain.org New from Jared Beloff: "Flooded Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," a gorgeous, haunting poem.

I am so excited to share this poem and join the many many other Icarus poets. Here is my speculative ekphrastic "Flooded Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" which imagines Breughel's landscape altered by climate change.

Thank you @terrainorg.bsky.social!

www.terrain.org/2025/poetry/...

Simple black and white image of an adult and child, the child has a speech bubble with a blue exclamation mark inside.

I've got 5 #WritingWorkshops coming up - Child POV, True Stories, Micros, Horror Without Blood, and Lyrical Sentences -- sound like fun? Find out more here:

tyrtle.com/writing-work...

#WritingCommunity #Writing #SpeculativeFiction #FlashFic #FlashLit #MicroFiction #POV

Reposting for the Tuesday morning crowd because oh—I love this love poem by @burgi.bsky.social, which is also an ekphrastic poem, also an ars poetica, and also speaks to long relationships and devotion ❤️📚

narrator: 50 years ago...

me: [nods] in 1945

narrator: in 1975...

me: what

Opening the stage for Rochester's performers - Rochester Beacon Performing Arts in Rochester, a newly launched nonprofit, hopes to help artists connect with sponsors and patrons.

Performing Arts in Rochester, a newly launched nonprofit, hopes to help artists connect with sponsors and patrons, easing financial barriers in the arts.
rochesterbeacon.com/2025/11/21/o...

We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope

wrapping up edits on my review of this cool new anthology that comes out a week from today! shoutout to editors @annaleen.bsky.social @older.bsky.social & @drkarenlord.bsky.social

this is also a good time to remember: if you need help feeding your pet, there's a really good chance that your local rescue &/or SPCA is giving away pet food rn; they know times are hard all around and no one should have to decide between feeding themselves or feeding their pets

At a coffee shop listening to three teen girls workshop a text convo one is having, don’t tell me teens can’t effectively analyze a text for tone, subtext and connotation

Quote from Miriam Toews: We were in Winnipeg for two months, my mother and I, to help out with my son's daughters, who at the time were a three-year-old and a newborn. My mother was old, eighty-five, with a bad heart, and all she could really do to help was hold the baby and sing lullabies in her ancient language which, if you think about it, is a lot. It's almost everything. My mother rocked the baby, which meant that I was the one who ran around all day with the three-year-old.

One of my very favorite moments in Miriam Toews’s A TRUCE THAT IS NOT PEACE. To sit and hold the baby was enough. Indeed, it was everything. As we all run around this holiday season, I want to keep this passage in mind. Doing just what we can is a lot.

A short story titled "After" by Cheryl Pappas reads "I put the orange in the freezer, because I didn’t know what else to do. The rest of her school lunch I threw away, but it seemed important somehow to hold on to the orange. People filtered in and out of the house for days to ask us questions. I stacked shepherd’s pie and lasagna in the freezer; the orange poked its head out from a corner. I felt cold for it, wanted that kind of cold, wanted my fibers to go ice-sharp with crystals, wanted all the sweetness to stay put, wanted to play dead."

Just found out my story "After" published in Hunger Mountain Review is being nominated for a Pushcart!

The Wing - The Maine Review The morning Nadine’s feathers sprouted, a light snow fell. She was standing outside, watching Meg board the school bus, noticing how the little girl’s hair, frizzy like her own, glistened with snow, m...

Excited to have a flash in the beautiful latest issue of The Maine Review.♥️

www.mainereview.com/the-wing/

Thanksgiving or Perimenopause? 1. There’s a turkey neck situation. 2. Is it four thousand degrees in the kitchen, or is it just you? 3. You love your family, but you also wish th...

"You’ve been obsessively trying to prepare for it, but who knows what will actually happen."

Do you love books? Do you love not paying a lot for them? @bullcitypress.com has its Black Friday sale on. When Friday's over, so's this sale.

Here I try to make a critical teaching topic a little less frustrating: health insurance.

A Richard Scarry drawing of a cat leaning out a smoky window. A caption identifies her as “beautiful screaming lady”

Today we are reading vintage Richard Scarry

White Rabbit Once, we could eat anything we wanted. We gorged on peaches and red bean cakes. We sucked on White Rabbit candy. The moon was empty and my heart was you. Now, there are only rice paper ghosts on my tongue, while Li Bai looks up and is blinded by what he sees.

One of mine from my tiny chapbook, “The Moon, My Heart” www.tinywrenlit.com/product-page...

#smallpoemsunday
@tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Old elevators are trying so hard

I will participate in small poem Sunday with this mysterious two line koan I found among my notes

What I did recently instead of doomscrolling:

1. Packed up the headset that didn't like Linux along with the return info.
2. Unpacked the SECOND headset that didn't like Linux that I didn't ask for. Repacked with return info. Laughed at the silliness.
3. WENT TO SEE OFF BOOK WOWIE KAPOWIE (1/2)

Here is a song I sang to my cat this morning to the tune of Be Thou my Vision:

Don't eat the roses
they're no good for you
Please can you find something else you can chew
how about a cat toy
or even a ball
your catnip banana
is just down the hall

Just goes to show you. I think this is a gem.

The Nickel Knows It’s Next “With the end of the penny, is the clock ticking for the nickel?” — CNN - - -It keeps replaying in my head. It was a normal morning at a normal tim...

a masterpiece marries horror and humor. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

Lovely.