Melissa Anne Tolentino

I hate writing and myself. It's great, really.

It’s live!!! 🥰 yes it’s another dnd poem leave me alone lmao a millennial has to find joy somewhere

I’m in this issue, #25 from @smallwondersmag.com woohooooo! It’s my first publication in a spec fic journal - hopefully the first of many 🥰 please snag a copy of the ebook if you can!

Strange Horizons 2026 A free weekly speculative fiction magazine with a global perspective.

If you love speculative fiction, then you owe a huge debt to @strangehorizons.bsky.social -- a magazine that successfully brought SFF short fiction online and expanded our ideas of what genre can do. It launched my career and many others. And it's still amazing.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/str...

I usually love looking out at the Potomac when driving into DC but today was different.

Looking for: an indie press to submit a poetry microchap (10 poems at its current version but could be 11-12 if that’s the min) - genre is speculative/fantasy. I’ve done some research into spec presses but much of it is fiction or fuller length collections. Would love to hear your recs ❤️

every day I have to remind myself there's only so much astonishment I have each day and I cannot spend it all on The Horrors

I really want more writers to embrace “I don’t know.” You don’t have to know how all of your mythology perfectly fits. You don’t need to know how the magic works or how the lore all connects.

Sometimes fantasy stories are just isolated little fables, best understood by the heart, not the head.

A rejection after waiting months. le sigh 😔

a poem should be at least as good as a ham & cheese sandwich

Dec 31st Dec 31st
2016 2024

the reason an MFA doesnt improve your writing is because it cant instill in you the single most important quality for a good writer to have: being an absolute weirdo who really wants to make people understand the perverse undulations of their gremlin brain

A massive gray long haired cat lying on a white blanket on a blue couch

A tuxedo cat on a blue blanket with white daisies stretching

someone mentioned this is the last caturday of 2024 so

Dear emerging, pre-emerging & post-emerging poets, — TL/TH

well brb im cryin

tlth.co.uk/dearemerging...

I’ve said it once about fanfic schoolwork grant apps emails poems etc etc etc and I’ll say it again: when will the writing spring fully formed from my forehead onto the screen??????? Idc about jet packs that’s what I want from science

I love this so much!! Also amazing timing because I was just listening to the dubbed soundtrack yesterday

My new flash story, “Sailor Moon Is Tired Of Fighting Evil” is out today at @hexliterary.bsky.social!

It's under 500 words and is for anyone who's ever wondered what it's really like to fight evil by moonlight.

now this is the kind of sky I’m talking about in that one poem about sunsets 😮‍💨

Final Fantasy I-XVI original soundtrack

Square Enix has just released a playlist on Spotify/Apple with every song from every Final Fantasy I-XVI.

2,892 songs. 1,425 hours.

open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF...

painting of a black frazzled cat with the caption: "Unusually repulsive cat startled by a gesture of affection:

when someone says they like my poem

A hand of olive complexion holding a paperback book with a white cover titled “Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading and Writing Poetey Forensically” by Paisley Rekdal. The hand and book rest on a light linen bedspread. In the background sits a tuxedo cat and a dresser.

I don’t usually read books on craft but I learn best through actual examples vs just reading about concepts (bc that is so boring) and this is chock full of em. Also really fun if your favorite part of English class was ripping pieces apart for analysis

Falling and Flying By Jack Gilbert Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It’s the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last. Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist. Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

“anything worth doing is worth doing badly”

The ending of this poem brings me to tears every time.

Green text on beige background. asking millennials why we’re so obsessed with sunsets because what is as striking as the end of the day? because we can’t resist a giant neon sign. because it’s nice to know someone could be held that high so low. because maybe that’s where the pot of gold is. because our swords have tarnished and we want something beautiful to look at. because we love a good pink and our turnout for the barbie movie was proof. because we love a good orange, the memory of a sunkist burning its way down our throats tasting like the summer of ’96—knees asphalt-kissed leggings teal with zigzags my freedom as long as the horizon when it bleeds. because we’re grown and we’re not afraid to cry. because for some reason we always need some kind of nature-related excuse to cry. because the sun says I’ll be here tomorrow and means it and we love that for her and we need that for us.

Green text on beige background. because the way that clementine sugar light holds me is more sacred than anyone could ever understand. because our tangerine crayon nubs are all her fault. because when I was seven I had a windbreaker that was the same electric purple-pink. because it was supposed to protect me. because she glows and so did I once. because she won’t tell anyone I’ve been crying. because this is another kind of prayer. because I want to go back to her, that blunt-banged brown baby girl, seven years old and skinned knees, and tell her the one thing that never changes is the sky.

Had a poem come out today in BRAWL Lit (+ an interview) 🌅

This was such a dream - Martheaus and @taylorfthiel.bsky.social are putting some stellar work into the world and they give the BEST feedback.

anyway here’s my poem, I’m 33 and the sky makes me cry!!

www.brawllit.com/2024/melissa...

"Someone said/winter has broken windows...Today my heart wears you like curtains."

Today's autumn poem... any other favorites? Feel free to add them to this thread.

“You came across my skyline” sound like some romantic shit lmao

a man in a nike sweatshirt is running on a road ALT: a man in a nike sweatshirt is running on a road

Nothing like getting an update from a journal you submitted to and opening that message like

Excited to share my poem Faint Drum, which received a BOTN nomination this week from The Arkansas International:

look at my pantoum

Die más. Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands by Felix.

tacobellquarterly.org/poem-in-the-...