iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Everything about Cornell is horrifyingly familiar, and cyclical, because the powerful men saying “we didn’t want ruin these boys lives” are the same kind of bad men whose lives the bad men before them didn’t want to ruin, on and on ad infinitum

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s so incredibly disheartening that since I was in college 20+ years ago, it feels like almost nothing has changed around campus sexual assault

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Split Lip Magazine @splitlipthemag.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

We're closing ACCOMPLISHMENT SUNDAY with a craft seminar 😍 Contributor @ambersparks.bsky.social is hosting the zoom seminar "The Modern Gothic: Making Haunted Fictions for the 21st Century" on Nov. 14🖋️ It's almost sold out, so reserve your spot! buff.ly/Rfwp5nq

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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 27/09/2026

Internet, I'm raising money in honor of Scarleteen's seven million visitors in 2026 and I'm at $1,000, $500 short of my goal—and the fundraiser is only $800 away from its goal. Help me take it over the top? Link to fundraiser in my reply!

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This could have come out of my own mouth, and how great that it’s Kevin Wilson, whose work I love?

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Incredibly excited (and shocked) to be in this anthology! Also positive this is the only time I’ll share pages w/ Shirley Jackson, HP Lovecraft, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, @benloory.bsky.social, Amy Hempel, Joyce Carol Oates, Joy Williams, Danielle Dutton, and @reeamilcarscott.bsky.social

loa.org

American Flash Fiction: An Anthology - Library of America

Books have arrived in the LOA warehouse. Purchase your copy today at the special prepublication price and it will be shipped to you immediately—weeks before the official publication date. Available in...

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

ICYMI! Seconds is on Kanopy right now and I highly recommend a watch, especially if you, like me, have always been meh about Rock Hudson - this will totally change your mind

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

News! Since it’s officially fall, I’ll be offering my absolute favorite workshop again this November - because i firmly believe the gothic season starts AFTER the spooky season. Join me, tell your friends, November is goth month!

writingworkshops.com

The Modern Gothic: Making Haunted Fictions for the 21st Century

We'll study the conventions of the gothic story, look at modern ghost stories by writers like Brian Evenson and Carmen Maria Machado and others.

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So excited this piece is up as part of @brightwalldarkroom.com ‘s Midlife Crisis issue! I was thrilled to write about a cult classic that really deserves to be just called a classic, period: Rock Hudson’s darkest, best performance, James Wong Howe’s experimental, brilliant camera work - a great film

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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This century, test scores became the sole measure by which pols, pundits, & journalists judged the success of public schools. This helpful overview by @joshcowenmi.bsky.social gets at how this belittles their varied impact -- and is likely depressing trust in an institution that provides so much.

joshcowen.substack.com

What else do public schools do?

Many school districts offer fee-for-service programs. Many engage in broad community-building work. Locally elected school boards oversee it all, and that sets this work apart.

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Alyssa Harad @alyssaharad.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yes, this is as good as everyone is saying it is. And yes, it is a wrenching example of the persistence of history, systemic oppression, the limits of individual choice within a system and the need for organized resistance. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...

nytimes.com

In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? (Gift Article)

A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I haven’t talked about this very much because honestly I’m just too devastated, but Trump really did just take my city’s beloved arts center and trash it because fascists hate art and I’ll never be over it, for my community and for all the artists and all the Kennedy Center employees

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Helena Fitzgerald @hellafitzgerald.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

another reading highlight the year so far for me was @ambersparks.bsky.social's Happy People Don't Live Here, a brilliant and unsettling and spooky and human and enormously moving ghost story which, imo, deserves to be a massive sensation

bookshop.org

Happy People Don't Live Here

Just past the edge of summer, Alice and her daughter, Fern, arrive at the Pine Lake Apartments--a former sanatorium occupied by an ensemble of peculiar neighbors and a smattering of ghosts. Among the ...

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Rachel Vorona Cote @rvoronacote.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

First, a few that I love and didn’t review: Happy People Don’t Live Here, by @ambersparks.bsky.social If Only and Repetition, both by Vigdis Hjorth The Church of Divine Electricity, by Emily Mitchell Medium Rare, by @joukovsky.bsky.social A Very Cold Winter, by Fausta Cialente

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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Kaitlyn Greenidge interviewed Marlon James for the Harper’s Bazaar books newsletter she writes. They have a fantastic conversation about community and this novel: acloserread.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

acloserread.substack.com

The Best Book of the Year Is a Novel About Gay Men in Jamaica

Marlon James’s “The Disappearers” imagines a different kind of queer community

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The wealthiest in the US - before it was even a nation - have always had one fucking playbook: pit everyone against a marginalized community so they never achieve actual class consciousness and realize the wealthy are the real enemy

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Does any other song just sit you down, hand you your menu, and pour you a glass of water as perfectly as the lyric “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar”

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Don’t yell at me but I actually think this is very smart and important. I think about Eula Biss’s On Immunity all the time, and about how so many women especially turn to alternative health care because they’ve been harmed by corporate greed and health systems that couldn’t give a shit about women

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

She made my whole career possible, and was my mom’s greatest hero. I once got bashed on that other platform for saying that Gloria freed my mom from having to be a good cook, but it’s true and I stand by it, rest in power to an icon

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The Verge @theverge.com · 02/09/2026

As a new Harry Potter trailer makes the rounds, it bears repeating that there’s no way to watch this show without supporting J.K. Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on the trans community.

theverge.com

There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series

You can’t without supporting Rowling’s transphobic bigotry.

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AFL-CIO @aflcio.org · 25/08/2026

Dolly Parton knew what it was like to struggle as she fought for working families her whole career. From providing free books to kids to giving working women our "9 to 5" anthem, she was an icon and an inspiration. Rest in power to our union sister. We will always love you.

A photo of Dolly Parton sitting at a desk and talking on the phone in a scene from the movie 9 to 5.

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Ah, August in the city, when it’s easier to get a restaurant reservation but also everything smells like pee and trash

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I was diagnosed after the lightbulb went off when my daughter was diagnosed. As an oldest daughter, I HAD to make elaborate systems to make life work, but I always wondered if I was dumb as hell since everything that’s so easy for others has always been so hard for me and just keeps getting harder

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Took my daughter to AFI Silver Theater yesterday for a repertory showing of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and it just reminded me that they used to make MOVIES, like movie movies

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I could never use a chat bot for the same reason I could never join a cult - I’m allergic to positive affirmations and praise

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Just introducing the 11 year old to an absolute essential classic

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I just know everyone who was way too obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology as a kid is muttering to themselves now “yeah okay well but these new fans don’t know the deep cuts though”

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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Yep that's pretty much the poem.

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Now that I’ve sat with my thoughts on The Odyssey for a few days, I find I really disagree that Nolan doesn’t know how to write women or that women are one note in the film. I LOVE Circe’s fierce hatred and feral power, Calypso’s melancholy, and Penelope’s anger, so bitter it touches even her son

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I know the trend for a while has been “book that tells the real story of X mythical figure” and they are awesome books, but I would love to write a book that’s just nothing but unfounded gossip about X mythical figure (a little like The Odyssey actually)

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Franck Boulègue @franckboulegue.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The online version of the TWIN PEAKS special issue of the Supernatural Studies Association is now available. A huge thank you to all those who collaborated to this conference/issue! ☕️🍩🦉🌲🚦 #TwinPeaks

supernaturalstudies.com

Supernatural Studies - Vol 11 Issue 2

Print run sold out. Page under construction [7/19/26].

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I love summer because I love being sad and thinking about endings

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Saw (and loved) The Odyssey with my husband and daughter which was cool because today is our 23rd anniversary which is about the amount of time I think Penelope and Odysseus have been married by the time the story takes place

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

All these armchair classicists on social yelling about how you shouldn’t stray from the text of an ancient epic poem that’s been so strayed from it’s become the basis for 80 percent of western storytelling

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LM “Gory” Fontanes 👻 @lorifontanes.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Amber is not only a fabulous #writer, she’s a fabulous workshop instructor, especially on all things fabulist 👇

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Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Here it is, my 285th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

blackwhiteandread.com

#ScholarSunday Thread 285 (7/19/26) – Black and White and Read All Over

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I went to a Taco Bell once in rural PA that was out of lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese, and beef and somehow it still tasted like Taco Bell www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Taco Bell removes lettuce from menu after explosive diarrhea link

About 1,645 people in five states were infected by the parasite after having Taco Bell, according to US health officials.

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