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Queen of Grimdark

@annasmithspark.bsky.social
4.8K followers 424 following 673 posts

Author of critically acclaimed grimdark epic fantasy, EMPIRES OF DUST, A WOMAN OF THE SWORD, A SWORD OF BRONZE AND ASHES. A SWORD OF GOLD AND RUIN out now. Dyslxic, dyspraxic, ASD, PhD.

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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Also, if you actually want to 'protect women and children' and 'stop the boats' you can donate to Oxfam, Save the Children, Red Cross/Red Cresent or many other international or local charities working to support communities find sustainable ways out of poverty and improve life chances worldwide.
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Oxfam GB | Donate monthly to Oxfam's Emergency Response Fund
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
You can donate to the RNLI here. Out of a desire to support people risking their own lives to save orhers from a horrible death. And as an intensely enjoyable performative f-you to a load of poisonous racist cowards. rnli.org/support-us/g...
rnli.org
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
stranimondi.it
stranimondi.it
Stranimondi 2026
Ecco STRANIMONDI, il festival del libro fantastico a Milano, con esposizione mercato di libri, prestigiosi ospiti italiani e internazionali, dibattiti infervorati, presentazioni di libri affascinanti....
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
So happy to announce I'll be a guest at #stranimondi in Milan in October!
Anna Smith Spark è l’autrice della serie grimdark epica Empires of Dust, in pubblicazione in Italia per Lettere Elettriche. Il suo lavoro è stato definito «un capolavoro» e «ispiratore di stupore».
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Really actually rained for a good long time. Everything cool and wet. The cats are in a state of complete collapse about the evil magic water from the sky.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
IT HAS RAINED!!! For about five minutes at most, granted. But it rained and I the ground was wet and I had to rush the washing in! So this also jut seemed ... appropriate. From Marian Gyste's The Silver Tree, Daljian’s translation. #books #booksky #booktok #fantasybooks #rain📚🌧️
Lord Tanis lives in a palace soaked with water, whose gardens smell always of damp and growth. But we men must live in the dry places. Until it rains, and we think we see, for a moment, what it must mean to be God. 

Or so Maran Gyste had once written, anyway. But he wasn’t half as good a poet as everyone said. 

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This is so cool! A copy of the superb GRAVE'S DAUGHTERS by Seth Lindberg - and a matching t-shirt with my blurb on the back print!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
A SWORD OF GOLD AND RUIN. Out now in beautiful sprayed-edge hardback from @flametree.bsky.social #booksky #booktok #fantasybooks #books 📙📚📖🔥
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
And The Skin: share.google/8G4IPgWEdlrr...
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THE SKIN by JE Hannaford (BOOK REVIEW) | Fantasy-Hive
Feast your eyes and mind on this utterly gorgeous new indie fantasy debut, which had Julia hooked right from the very start!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
In the Shadow of Their Dying: share.google/KMar3odETmqA...
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Review: In the Shadow of Their Dying by Anna Smith Spark and Michael R. Fletcher
Deliciously dark, gloriously grim, and unapologetically unhinged, In the Shadow of Their Dying is a treat for your black hole of a soul.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
@hannafordjenny.bsky.social is a hugely talented fantasy author who wrote the book (The Skin) about furious ab-human women. Listen to her wise words.
In the shadow of the eclipse and the heat of a thousand Hells, I felt it was appropriate to sit and enjoy In the Shadow of Their Dying! What glorious dark madness!!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I was wondering about you and some of the other Birmingham people. I hope you're okay. It's absolutely insane and terrifying.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Being able to help and support other writers is one of the best things about being a published writer.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Thank you!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In the desperate hope that I might one day get bombarded with AI generated slop, obviously. Why else does anyone write a novel?
Image is a spam email saying: Hi Anna,

I recently came across The Court of Broken Knives and it caught my attention. I’d love to connect with the person behind the story, so I wanted to ask did you write this book?

Bellamy Rhodes 
Content Director
Novirra Literary Book Club
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
One of my favourite passages from The Tower of Living and Dying. It just seemed … appropriate. One day .... one glorious, wondrous, impossible to imagine day ... I might be able to face rereading the descriptions of rain. #booksky #booktok #summer2026 #heatwave #PrayingForRain
Text reads: Curse this city in her burning. Her body and her soul are silver mirrors, heated with solipsistic lust. Like a dog she pants and scratches, the sweat of her lovers coalescing on her azure tiles. In her dust is her voice harsh as trumpets. Her dust chokes me as it fondles my mouth. Hot dry air of the furnace, drawing out all of my waters, salt fingers sucking me dry. In her desiccation her stones drip perfume. In her desiccation I am entombed in ecstasies of rain. Her rough stones enfold me, the arid depths of her passion, her kisses an abrasion dry as desert sand. Oh city of shit and sunlight! Oh city of dawn and the setting sun! In your embrace I dream of water. In your embrace I am withered to broken straw. Curse you, and yet I will lie forever in your burning, my body wracked with the heat of your love. 

Serenet Vikale, The Book of Sand.

The Tower of Living and Dying by Anna Smith Spark.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
So pleased it arrived safely!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This is a little piece of utter joy in a bleak world. The return of the caspian tiger: how a species feared extinct has come back to Kazakhstan www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
The return of the caspian tiger: how a species feared extinct has come back to Kazakhstan
The wild capture and release of a female big cat into a nature reserve is the first step towards reintroducing a population that hasn’t been seen for 70 years
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Squee in Italian and Spanish, and an English language squee thrown in too! Current mood:
Image shows a gorgeous person with a sword and a huge pet dragon.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Congratulations!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
It had to be done!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/support-us/a...
nationaltrust.org.uk
Radware Page
Loader page.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Both these scenes are based on the salt marshes around Dunwich Heath, an area I've visited since childhood. Now it's burned to ashes: it looks as if Amrath or Ikandera Thygethen have wrought a great destruction there. @nationaltrust.org.uk are fundraising to restore this precious habitat. #booksky
In the cool sunshine of an autumn afternoon, they turned the
horse away from the surf and rode inland, following a little
muddy creek trickling its way through thick reed beds. Wild duck
started up as they passed, and once a great white and black
goose, honking mournfully. ‘Snowgoose,’ Marith said with satisfaction.
‘Means a hard winter.’ The sedge grew up almost as tall
as a man, pressing in close around them with a hiss like whispers.
They rode on a small raised track, thick old planks banked up
over the creek. Another old road. Old as the keep. Old as the
lich road. Older than dragon blood and black-red hair. Still and
rotting, the land seemed in the frost. Heavy with bleak grey life.
Another duck burst up, startled by their approach, wing beats
vast in the still air. Then silence again save the whispering of the
reeds.

The Court of Broken KnivesThe track turned to the south, to the east, leading them to the very edge of the marsh. Calian and Sal and Dellet looked with interest, they had never seen salt marsh before up close. Flat dark reeds stretching away, they were low now so that the world was lost behind the high reeds, the sky above was immense and seemed very low over them, everything seemed very low to the ground here, almost beneath the level of the earth with the sky pressed down heavy as a weight. But the sky seemed to go on forever above them also. 

A Sword of Gold and Ruin
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
As I say on the cover, this is a very special book.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
But think of the fun you could have! Writing stuff that they didn't realise was parody. 'No war but the class war' in acrostic in an op ed. Approvingly quoting Marx. Approvingly quoting Mussolini or Ted Bundy. Getting the words 'prawn crackers' into every paragraph.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The marshes near Dunwich Heath were the inspiration for key scenes in my novels - Marith and Thalia ride through them in The Court of Broken Knives, Kanda walks through them in A Sword of Gold and Ruin. Now Dunwich Heath is dead ash. Please think about donating to help restore the devastation.
nationaltrust.org.uk
Devastating fire sweeps Dunwich Heath
Support the Dunwich Heath Fire Appeal. Your donation will help recover damaged habitats, protect vulnerable wildlife, and aid long-term recovery efforts.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Thank you so much for this!
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Reposted by Queen of Grimdark
Wizard's Tower Press @wtpress.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Anna Smith Spark's magnificent Bronze Age fantasy, A Woman of the Sword, is part of this year's Best of British Storybundle. Being a legendary warrior is hard. Being a legendary warrior with kids in tow... storybundle.com/bestof
The cover of A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark. The image shows a woman with a sword on her back leading a child towards distant mountains.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Buxton: day 2 (forget to post this yesterday, sorry). A Hattifatterner gathering in Poole's Cavern, Buxton.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Buxton: day 1. The ruins of Errwood Hall in the Goyt Valley.
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Reposted by Queen of Grimdark
Tom Lloyd @tomlloydwrites.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Don't miss out on the Storybundle Best of British SFF bundle - 15 e-books for just $30 / £20. Get it here: storybundle.com/bestof?utm_s... It includes my own DEVIL INSIDE, plus works from the Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social Emperor of Spiders @aptshadow.bsky.social and many more!
all the titles in the Storybundle
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
storybundle.com/bestof
storybundle.com
StoryBundle
Pay what you like and get a bundle of awesome ebooks and more!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
It's coming up to payday! Another reminder that you can get 15 e-books for $30 / £20 in the Storybundle Best of British SFF bundle. Including my 'tragic masterpiece' A Woman of the Sword and my lyrical comedy brat teenager sword and sorcery short in the Fight Like a Girl 2 anthology. #booksky
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I have just seen some beautiful beautiful things that some of you will one day soon see....
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
It hasn't rained here for so long, the cats came tearing in this morning like, what is this witchcraft? Water? Falling from the sky?
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Reposted by Queen of Grimdark
Antonio Torrubia 🔥📖 @toliol.eurosky.social · 25/07/2026
El jueves de la semana pasada estuve en el #FestivalCelsius232 de Avilés presentando a @annasmithspark.bsky.social y a @joshmalerman.bsky.social 🖤🎙️ Si os gusta el grimdark leed #EmpireOfDust (edita @ozeditorial.com) y, si os gusta el terror, probad con las novelas de Josh de @nocturnaed.bsky.social
La corte de los cuchillos rotos 🔪 y La torre de los vivos y los muertos ☠️ de Anna van in crescendo. Son poéticas y muy sangrientas. Leed a The Queen of Grimdark 👑 Llenazo en la charla y una lástima que no se graben. Anna emocionó y arrancó aplausos del público tras casa respuesta…Con Josh Malerman no sabía a qué atenerme. Una estrella del rock, una de sus canciones es la canción de una serie TOP, 14 CD, 14 libros escritos y, los dos que han llegado a España adaptados a película con gran éxito. Llegué con media hora de antelación y me lo encontré algo nervioso, empezamos a hablar, hicimos unas cuantas bromas de false friends del inglés al castellano y al subirnos a presentar ante más de 200 personas nos lo pasamos pipa. Estoy deseando que pase por Barcelona de visita e irnos a echar unas cervezas. Y como siempre, admiro el trabajazo de los buenos intérpretes. Lo de Diego García Cruz es MAGIA ARCANA.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
storybundle.com/bestof
storybundle.com
StoryBundle
Pay what you like and get a bundle of awesome ebooks and more!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
You can get 15 e-books for $30 / c. £23 in the @storybundle.bsky.social Best of British SFF! Including my grimdark masterpiece A Woman of the Sword from @lunapress.bsky.social and my lyrical comedy sword and sorcery short from @wtpress.bsky.social #books #booksky #booktok #sff 📚🔥 Link below.
The Green Man's Heir by Juliet E. McKenna 
Fight Like a Girl: Vol. 2 by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall 
Devil Inside by Tom Lloyd 
The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar 
The Anechoic Chamber by Will Wiles 
The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky 
The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove 
The Great West Wood by Philip Palmer 
The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance
 Make-Believe and Artifice by Rose Biggin
The Last Ghost and Other Stories by Marie O’Regan 
A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark 
The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod 
The Broken Land by Ian McDonaldh Spad
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Reposted by Queen of Grimdark
Miguel Peck @miguelpeck.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Pumped to finally have this in hand. Ian Whates and NewCon Press always assemble an awesome cohort for their anthology work, but this one may be off the charts. @aptshadow.bsky.social @annasmithspark.bsky.social @marklawrenceauthor.bsky.social @rjbarker.bsky.social @johngwynneauthor.bsky.social
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Reposted by Queen of Grimdark
Lavie Tidhar @lavietidhar.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
The 2026 Best of British SF/F bundle is now available! storybundle.com/bestof w/ @ianmcdonald.bsky.social @julietemckenna.bsky.social @annasmithspark.bsky.social @aptshadow.bsky.social & more! Just $30 for 15 books! Plus supporting @locusmag.bsky.social! Reposts appreciated!
Books! So many booooks!
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I hate the f-ing muppets. Always have done. Yes, even the Muppet Christmas Carol, before anyone asks.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Actually, I think I spoke too soon.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
This is the worst thing I have ever seen on telly, and I sincerely hope is the worst thing I am ever forced to see. #worldcupfinal
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Your hourly reminder that you can get all these e-books for $30 in the @storybundle.bsky.social Best of British SFF bundle. Limited time only! #books #booksky #booktok #fantasybooks #sff storybundle.com/bestof
The Green Man's Heir by Juliet E. McKenna
Fight Like a Girl: Vol. 2 by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall
Devil Inside by Tom Lloyd
The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar
The Anechoic Chamber by Will Wiles
The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove
The Great West Wood by Philip Palmer
The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance
Make-Believe and Artifice by Rose Biggin
The Last Ghost and Other Stories by Marie O’Regan
A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark
The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
The Broken Land by Ian McDonald
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Oh thank you so much. I love everything about Spain.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Before anyone worries fame might go to my head ... I am at Santander airport, the flight is delayed by two hours, the passenger manifest is me, two other women, and an English public school in red baseball caps.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
The view from my seat at my #celsiusfestival session. People were fighting to get in. I received a round of applause after every answer, moved people to tears, and was cheered and bowed to as the Queen of Grimdark at the end. Then I signed books for over two hours straight. Best. Day. Of. My. Life.
Image shows a marquee cramned with people.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Spent last night trying to explain how English football works to some Americans. Me, at the kick-off: we'll lose. In a really horrible stupid undignified way. Right at the end. Them, after our goal: but ... you're winning. Me: just watch and wait.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
But the cobbled streets mean I have to wear ... FLAT SHOES.
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Queen of Grimdark @annasmithspark.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I'm in Avilés for #festivalcelsius and having a wonderful time. A beautiful city, 'where the Spanish go in holiday to eat' because the food is so good and the portions so generous.
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