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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Amazing, I'm so honored to be included in this long list for my book!!

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I did it!! I am now Dr. Poetry! From being homeless in Florida, to a borough in New Jersey, to dropping out of high school, to surviving domestic violence and being a single mom in academia. I did it. Thank you to all the people who supported me and believed in me. I love you! I am Dr. Smith!

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

I'll be doing a reading in Calgary on April 25th for the Alberta Literary Awards!

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Reposted by Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD

Michelle Lobkowicz @mlobkowicz.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Congratulations @orphdc.bsky.social on a powerful collection! Love these #poems especially: "Dogs Myth-Make the Desert", “Basha Sparrows”, “We Stop to Imagine a Skyline Without the Fire Stack”, "Cloud Seeding the Empty Quarter", "Origin Myths or A Poem for Survivor’s Guilt—Cut Up" + more! Blurbs⬇️

Cover of poetry collection entitled Sweet Rupture by Omar Ramadan. The cover art is an abstract painting reminiscent of a group of apricots. The colours are bright orange and yellow against a background of navy.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Can I do another MFA to specialize in fiction? I'm tired of being a poet. There are too many line breaks to deal with. Every goddamn day.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Happy birthday, fellow poet! My poetry collection on domestic violence and childhood poverty is a finalist for the Alberta Literary Awards. I feel like I've finally made it. Keep going, one foot in front of the other, that's what I tell myself when everything sucks.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Self-promotion is so hard and feels onerous. I always look at other people and wonder how they do it so seamlessly. I think you'll find the exact right place for your book that doesn't require the transactional sales pitch. Solidarity!

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Reposted by Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD

Omar Ramadan @orphdc.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Big congrats to my dear friend on this nomination! Invisble Lives is an incredible book and this recognition is so deserved :)

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Erika Thorkelson @ethorkel.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

😂😭

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I am a finalist for The Writers' Guild of Alberta poetry book award! Wow. I'm just so floored anyone would read my book. I'm so honored and grateful. Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout the years.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

That's my buddy's book! You should buy it and read it. Some poets teach us how to see the world again. And that's Omar Ramadan.

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Reposted by Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD

University of Alberta Press @ualbertapress.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

THIS SWEET RUPTURE has hit #1. Congratulations, Omar Ramadan. And thank you, Edmonton! ualbertapress.ca/978177212797... @orphdc.bsky.social

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Omar Ramadan @orphdc.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Thank you all who’ve bought the book!! #1 on the best seller list :)

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thetemzreview.bsky.social @thetemzreview.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Read @amandaearl.bsky.social's review of @cristallesmith.bsky.social's Invisible Lives (pub. University of Calgary Press) in Issue 30! Poems are tight, with an accumulation of striking images that convey wonder, grief, and a child’s attempts at joy ... www.thetemzreview.com/earl-smith-3...

The cover of Invisible Lives, by Cristalle Smith. It's a close-up photo of a row of clear plastic bags with water and a red Betta fish in each one. One bag is sticking out and the fish seems to be looking directly at the viewer

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Lol at the Griffin Poetry Prize. 10/10. No notes. Love being a Canadian poet. Let's go!

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Please check out this amazing review by Amanda Earl. I'm so humbled and honored that my work received such care and attention.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Wow, thank you so much this amazing review. I wrote my book because I wanted to see what I couldn't see. This review humbles me and I'm so appreciative. Thank you again.

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Amanda Earl @amandaearl.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

It was an honour and a pleasure to review @cristallesmith.bsky.social 's amazing book, Invisible Lives, This is an important book of childhood trauma,, violence, poverty & motherhood. I highly recommend it. Thanks to the Temz Review for publishing the review! www.thetemzreview.com/earl-smith-3...

thetemzreview.com

Earl Smith 30

Reviewed by Amanda Earl

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Every time I rewatch Mad Men I just get so bummed about Chauncey. Is he just out there roaming the streets of NYC forever? Poor Chauncey...

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Brutal, honestly! I use Eve Sedgwick's reparative reading (compared to paranoid readings) to get people to stop thinking of argumentation as a series of cheap AHA! GOTCHAs.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

I'm weird all the time and I am convinced I alienate at least 60 percent of all people I interact with. Solidarity!

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

I like how the elite class is stealing education from everyone else. Like. Are we gonna do anything about the MBA dudebros who now control most everything on planet earth? Hasn't anyone ever watched Shark Rank? We are utterly fucked.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Read this poetry! One of the best collections I've ever read.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Check out this amazing book by an amazing poet!

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Tania Hershman 🏳️‍🌈 @taniahershman.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

We're now up to 103 writers, lit mags and publishers in my Hybrid Writing start pack who leap over genre boundaries & out of boxes, ignoring traditional labels & definitions. Would you like to be added or do you know someone else who fits into this unboxed box?! #HybridWriting go.bsky.app/MswLLwc

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I'm a hybrid lyric writer in poetry/CNF. I make a lot of my own experimental forms as well.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

The life of an adjunct! I'm tired of the invisibility of labour in academia. www.reddeeradvocate.com/local-news/r...

reddeeradvocate.com

Red Deer Polytechnic projects $10 million deficit

Layoffs, program suspensions to come

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

I am weary. I get why the ents sleep forever. Honestly. Wake me up when it's over.

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Daniel Abraham @abraham.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

OpenAI says it has proof that Deepseek used its work without permission to create something meant to undermine and destroy its product. On behalf of all the authors whose novels and stories were taken as training data, oh no that must be so hard for you.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I opened Bluesky and this is the first thing I saw. I am going with scary tech ghost incantation. The ethernet cables are alive.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

How do people deal with the constant stress from the precarity of contract academic work? As a single mom, I feel so burnt out worrying about the future. I'm not gonna lie, the system has ground me down into a fine dust.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

I haven't sent to Book*hug! I'll do that. Thank you!!

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

I'm just a girl looking for a press that loves hybrid lyric forms that are not poetry and not creative nonfiction but also are poetry and are creative nonfiction.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Below Deck is the true spiritual successor to original Real World and Road Rules. Please tune in for more reality TV thesis statements going forward.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Does anyone know of a word processor that does not integrate AI? As a writer, I don't want that shit anywhere near my work. Who's the artisanal tech company resisting the data piracy grift known as "AI?" If there's none, how do I pivot from being a poet to a tech start up person?

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Is it structured at all so it could be called a collection of essays rather than a memoir? I ask only because some places don't take memoirs but do take essay collections. Kinda like semantics really...

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I put MFA after my name cus I got tired of the MFA discourse. Not every MFA comes from Iowa. You should make friends with some of us. Some of us are single moms and shit.

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Cristalle Smith, MFA/PhD @cristallesmith.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

One time, I used a lyric essay form to write about my experiences of childhood homelessness and then this lit mag told me that I needed to consider gender and class in my work. Rofllllll. Anyways. I say the lyric essay and its iterations belong to the rough and tumble prairie girls.

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Maureen Langloss @maureenlangloss.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

It's becoming clear that A.I. is the devil. In a burning world, the energy & water it consumes are unconscionable. The intellectual property theft it depends on is wrong. It is dehumanizing. Its development is fueled by naked greed. It is a giant step backward for humanity & our planet.

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