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Barbara Lock

@barbaralockmd.bsky.social
369 followers 389 following 50 posts

Writer, Editor, Teacher, and Physician. I write spec-y lit fic, edit at Variant Lit, and practice/teach at CU P&S. There's more about me at barbaralock.com.

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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction. In the spring issue, just released, you can read wonderful poetry and prose, as well as my answers to insightful questions by Lachlan Applegate, on craft, peril, and the present moment.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Many thanks to Alice Hoffman and the editors @pshares.bsky.social for seeing the beauty and peril in my story, "Keep You Safe," winner of the
An image of page 144 of the literary magazine Ploughshares, Vol. 52, No. 1, announcing Barbara Lock as the winner of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Books are spoken for!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Looking to build your physical library? Willing to give these 5 literary novels to a good home. I'll cover shipping to a mutual in contiguous US.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
This is an incredible story.
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John Chrostek @johnchrostek.com · 13/07/2025
It’s a Sunday afternoon in the dead center of the year. Life barrels along. Best of times, worst of times, y’all know the score. Please consider checking out my two new books this year: Boxcutters has been out in the world for two months and Feast is but a month away!
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Ploughshares Literary Journal @pshares.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Celebrate Summerween with Ploughshares! Join us at 6pm on July 16th at Trident Booksellers in Boston, MA, for the launch of our sinister Summer 2025 issue, guest-edited by Victor LaValle and filled with werewolves, monsters, and more. Register here: pshr.us/sinistersummerlaunch
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Great news, Suzy!
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Suzy Eynon @suzyeynon.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
My first book will be out May 2026 🖤
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
At church today we sang Get Together by The Youngbloods. You know how it goes: Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
The cat is meowing at ghosts again.
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Ploughshares Literary Journal @pshares.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Our sinister Summer 2025 issue is out now! Guest-edited by Victor LaValle, this issue features prose by Helen Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, S. A. Cosby, Joanna Pearson, Carolyn Ferrell, and more. Grab your copy today: pshr.us/summer25
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Ploughshares Literary Journal @pshares.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
We are pleased to present Ramona Ausubel with the annual Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction for her story, “Perfect Numbers,” published in the Summer 2024 issue. Read the full announcement and a profile in our Summer 2025 issue: pshr.us/summer25
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Reading @nadiabulkin.bsky.social in @pshares.bsky.social edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social : "She has never had therapy. Doctors take five minutes, and exorcisms take five days, and she figures this is a good compromise."
Ploughshares Summer 2025 is Sinister in the best way!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Will you be in Boston next Wednesday? Come out to hear us read from Sinister Summer, edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Thanks, Dan!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Thank you, Tessa!
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TRossi (she/her) @trossiwriter.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
@variantlit.bsky.social’s own @barbaralockmd.bsky.social Her story’s sunlit-subtle menace will have you looking over your shoulder in a literary way!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Thanks, John!! I'm so grateful for your enthusiasm and for publishing "The Story of Girls" in Cold Signal, one of my best and favorite stories so far!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Thanks, Suzy! The whole issue is fire.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Will you be in Boston next Wednesday? Come out to hear us read from Sinister Summer, edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
What's in the box?
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Emily Rinkema @emilyrinkema.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
What an honor! Thanks @variantlit.bsky.social for seeing something in this story!
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Tori Walters @victoriaceann.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Have you read our newest issue yet?!?
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
The masterful narrative and metaphoric content of Vittorio Ottaviani's work takes my breath away.
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Variant Literature @variantlit.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Celebrating new work from one of our poetry readers!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Thank you, Tessa!
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BOObara Byar 👻👻 @barbarabyar.bsky.social · 16/01/2024
Thrilled to share the cover of #MOTEL, the anthology I'm editing for @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
Just referred a learner to this piece today after she said she didn’t want to write surreal nonfiction. 🤔
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 07/11/2023
Reading Thomas Merton's anti-poem, "Original Child Bomb."
33: The men in the plane perceived that the raid had been successful, but they thought of the people in the city and they were not perfectly happy. Some felt they had done wrong. But in any case they had obeyed orders. “It was war.”

34: Over the radio went the code message that the bomb had been successful: “Visible effects greater than Trinity … Proceeding to Papacy.” Papacy was the code name for Tinian.

35: It took a little while for the rest of Japan to find out what had happened to Hiroshima. Papers were forbidden to publish any news of the new bomb. A four line item said that Hiroshima had been hit by incendiary bombs and added: “It seems that some damage was caused to the city and its vicinity.”

36: Then the military governor of the Prefecture of Hiroshima issued a proclamation full of martial spirit. To all the people without hands, without feet, with their faces falling off, with their intestines hanging out, with their whole bodies full of radiation, he declared: “We must n
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Jared Beloff @readinstead.bsky.social · 31/10/2023
Join me @writesloud.bsky.social and friends for a moment of peace and poetry this Friday. All donations are for humanitarian aid via Doctors without Borders. PoetsforPeace.Eventbrite.com
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Will Musgrove @willmusgrove.bsky.social · 23/10/2023
Have a new flash in @havehashad.com today about Slappy, the dummy from the Goosebumps books. Check it out. Link to the story: www.havehashad.com
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Elizabeth Fletcher @esfletcher.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
The butterflies in my stomach can attest that this is happening tonight www.eyeoftheheartcenter.org/conversations
eyeoftheheartcenter.org
Conversations — Eye of The Heart Center
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Katie Manning @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social · 20/10/2023
The new journal my grad students and I are creating has gotten a flood of poetry and fiction submissions (yay!), but the editors are especially hoping for more open genre (hybrid, multimedia) and nonfiction pieces too! Send them some good longform work!
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BOObara Byar 👻👻 @barbarabyar.bsky.social · 19/10/2023
If you'd like to vote for my story PEACE PROCESS for Irish Short Story of the Year, please vote here: The short story category is at the bottom of the page. Your support is much appreciated and anyone can vote! www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/
irishbookawards.ie
Vote - Irish Book Awards
AN POST IRISH BOOk AWARDS Public Vote 2023 Vote for your favourite books of the year here and win €100 of National Book Tokens Scroll down and vote for the book you would like to win each award cate...
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 19/10/2023
It’s a wonderful story, Barbara! Congratulations on the recognition!
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TRossi (she/her) @trossiwriter.bsky.social · 19/10/2023
@barbarabyar.bsky.social’s story is stunning. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s here: variantlit.com/peace-process/
variantlit.com
Peace Process
Visit the post for more.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 17/10/2023
My best canned flow activity, the one I used after having to contend with murder(s) (yes—as a doctor, yes plural) was guitar hero. Guitar Hero was so therapeutic. Dreamt about guitar hero instead of, you know
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 15/10/2023
"I moved onto the windowsill. Jack moved into my room. He nicknamed me squirt." Big love for this #flashfiction by @willmusgrove.bsky.social 💙💙💙
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 13/10/2023
Harvesting the sage.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 13/10/2023
What, no pithy or just-controversial-enough clickbait?
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 11/10/2023
It’s a wonderful essay, @abigailmyers.bsky.social
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 08/10/2023
Once, when I was transitioning from one job to another, I sought the advice of a dean who was also a psychologist. She asked me:  when you were 13, what did you think you would be when you grew up?  The she said: each night, just before bed, write a list of what you did that day that you enjoyed.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 05/10/2023
Morning. Son tells me to be a wide receiver and I catch the ball through the fog, touch down in the driveway. In my noticing, I forget to have opinions.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 03/10/2023
Write a poem, then nap for a while. Inspect the crawling insects. Stare down a cat staring down a squirrel.
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TRossi (she/her) @trossiwriter.bsky.social · 30/09/2023
In case anyone’s up for it, here’s an exciting literary event being held this Friday in Hartford in a cool art gallery to boot! A panel of six 2023 O Henry Award winners (including David Ryan), with series editor Jenny Minton and prize judge Lauren Groff! www.riverbendbookshop.com/event/bestsh...
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 28/09/2023
Retreated with these writers, so fun!
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 26/09/2023
Friend tried to grow moss by putting some in a blender with buttermilk and pouring the glop into the cracks in the walk. Do I know if it worked? No. But I'm very attracted to the idea of it.
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 25/09/2023
"...in any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean." ARTHUR KOESTLER
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Barbara Lock @barbaralockmd.bsky.social · 20/09/2023
“You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.” MILAN KUNDERA
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