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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥

@emkerkman.bsky.social
77 followers 174 following 49 posts

23 | writer of surrealist short fiction, pirate novels, and weird poetry | 2024 Dell Award winner | short fiction appearing in Apex and Asimov’s DE TERRA AD INFINITUM | #PlanesWIP SAIL BY DAWN | #PiratesWIP emkerkman.com

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Reposted by E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥
Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The third tale of ECO25: THE YEAR'S BEST SPECULATIVE ECOFICTION 🌎💡🌱 Read "Lolo's Last Run" by @emkerkman.bsky.social ⛰️ alongside 23 stellar tales of climate fiction, solarpunk, New Weird, and ecohorror 🌟 🌳🍎 Preorders for ECO25 are open now! www.apexbookcompany.com/products/eco...
"Lolo's Last Run"
E.M. Kerkman
"I know Jome Hill-Moses is in the crevasse before I look in it -- and as soon as I do, I don't need to reach the bottom to know he's dead."
Preorder ECO25: the Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction today at www.apexbookcompany.com
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Hey, that’s me! Lolo’s Last Run will be available in print in ECO25 on Nov 17th, 2026!! It was also a finalist for @asimovssfmag.bsky.social’s reader’s choice awards! So so honored to have been chosen for this anthology alongside such excellent writers. I can’t wait to read the whole thing!!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
#ICFA47 recap up on my blog! Featuring a video of me reading from my award winning short story “KINESIS”. Check it out! And subscribe to my newsletter if you want my news straight to your inbox! emkerkman.com/2026/04/08/i...
emkerkman.com
ICFA 47 recap: readings, lava cake, and book hauls
Hello everyone! About two weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 47th international conference for the fantastic in the arts, and it was so lovely to see old faces and meet new fac…
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
More exciting news! I am officially a nominee for this year’s Astounding Award! Read more about it here: astoundingaward.info #astoundingaward #writingcommunity #sciencefiction
astoundingaward.info
Astounding Award for Best New Writer
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
ALPHA was one of the most influential workshops I attended as a teenager that helped form me into the writer I am today! If anyone knows/mentors young spec fic writers, please encourage them to apply!
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Alpha Writers Workshop @alphaworkshop.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Here is a beautiful flyer our lovely publicity people (it was me) made for applications this year! It’s so cool and easy to print out and post in libraries or send to your friends wow!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Hi everyone! Sorry for the radio silence—I’m back with exciting news! This year, I am once again First Runner-Up for the Must Read Books (formerly Dell) Award, for my short story KINESIS. I will be at ICFA in Orlando again this year, and hope to see some familiar faces there! #MustReadBooksAward
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Hey look, it’s me holding up a copy of my story in this month’s issue of @asimovssfmag.bsky.social! My first publication ever available in a brick and mortar store, too! Check my blog/newsletter for more info :)
A photo of author E.M. Kerkman holding a copy of Asimov’s Magazine issue 48 open to page 146, standing in front of her local Barnes and noble.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
#SFFchat A1: aside from my usual plethora of short stories, my current project is De Terra Ad Infinitum, a dieselpunk alt-earth sci-fi novel about illegal plane racing, flying cities in an apocalyptic world, government conspiracies, and the unavoidably cyclical nature of human history!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Oh this is so cool! I’m totally going to do this—I’ll make a thread and then backdate the first few posts :) what a fun idea!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Also also, as a fun little extra, a friend of mine did fan art for Black Gold a while back—here’s her interpretation of the MC! (Also, please go support her art if you like what you see! You can find her on KoFi here: ko-fi.com/cat_psychic)
A drawing of the main character in my most recently published short story, dressed like a cowboy with robot parts visible through the costume, over a simple blue and tan background
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Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
The Apex Magazine team is thrilled to announce that our Kickstarter for 2026 begins OCTOBER 1ST!! 🎃🍁 We're keeping all the rewards you love, adding exciting new rewards for readers and writers alike, AND reopening submissions! Mark your calendars, and we'll see you at the graveyard smash! 👻🌙🐈‍⬛📅
A parody of the Little Golden Books logo featuring a circle of vintage black Halloween cats surrounded by spilled potions, lit matches, pawprints, and candies. Text reads: "Apex Magazine Kickstarter 2026""Apex Magazine Submissions OPENING! October 1st!"
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Black Gold is out today!! I’m so excited for everyone to get to read it—thank you to Apex Magazine for making that possible!
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#SFPit @scifipit.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Dear friends, writers, #agents, interstellar travelers, interdimensional aliens, and otherwise paradoxical time hoppers! We would like to invite you to set your favorite time-traveling device to October 21st, 2025, for the pitch event dedicated to Science Fiction, #SFPit! 🧵
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Hi #weeknightwriters! I coach a HS sports team this time on Thursdays so alas I can only pop in right at the end—I have two upcoming short story publications! One is Black Gold, out with Apex Magazine on 9/2. My other, Lolo’s Last Run, is currently out in the Sept/Oct edition of Asimov’s!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
hi y’all!! I’m absolutely blown away by all the amazing #PosterPit posters, and the love you’ve shown my projects #PlanesWIP and #PiratesWIP! I’ll introduce myself properly for all the new folks soon, but for now I just want to thank y’all 🥹 what a wonderful #WritingCommunity
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
#PosterPit #W #SF #SPF #A #NA #PlanesWIP Racing planes for a living, and newly accepted to the airforce academy, Terrah's living the dream when disaster strikes. Explosions on a flying city always mean trouble. Especially when you live under it.
Text on poster: "De Terra Ad Infinitum: A new adult science fiction novel by award winning author E.M. Kerkman. One central mystery, Two worlds colliding, Three narrative POVs. Terrah always knew she would fly. She never expected to fall." Along the side, the repeating text reads "Omnes aequales sub astris. Pax diu". The background image is a real photograph of a North Vietnamese MiG-17 aircraft being hit by 20 mm rounds from an Air Force F-105D on June 3, 1967. Photo credits: USAF via National Archives
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Sammy Holden @holdencreates.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
WARCROSS x ONE OF US IS LYING DEADLY ARCHETYPES is a fast paced, grounded YA sci-fi that features: - a high-tech, high stakes VR competition game - an unlikely group of allies - the ticking clock of a mind control glitch - hero x villain archetypes #PosterPit #AG #SF #YA
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
#PosterPit #W #NA #F #R #PiratesWIP During her world tour, Captain Holloway is captured by pirates. After encountering an assassination plot, a magical curse, an unlikely romance, and an imminent war, she finally takes a side. The wrong side. It's all Captain Falcon's fault.
The text in the image reads: "Magic, mutiny, romance, and a six-month deadline. What could possibly go wrong?" "Dual POVs, sentient oceans, vengeful ghosts, magical curses, enemies to lovers, and lovers to enemies." "He has a curse to break. She has everything to prove." "Sail By Dawn, a new-adult fantasy novel by award winning author E. M. Kerkman." The background image is of a sailing ship on a stormy sea with dawn light shining from behind it. It is a paining titled "Bird of Dawn" by Montague Dawson.
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Emilia Young | Author @emiliayoung.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
📖🐦‍⬛Mark of a Magpie🐦‍⬛📖 When a small-town thief crosses paths with the kingdom’s big-shot assassin, an unlikely partnership is born; but can their goals align before their egos and secrets land them both a spot on the gallows? #PosterPit #PosterPitOS #PosterPitA #AG #OS #A #F #R #DIS #onsub #editors
*Art by Shibushio on fiverr*

The image shows a fake movie poster for the book "Mark of a Magpie"

Text in the image reads: Mark of a Magpie, An adult fantasy by Emilia Young, On submission next week, Thief x Assassin, Forced Proximity, Morally Gray, Women's Wrongs

Behind the text are two characters leaning over the side of a ship with beautiful skies in the background. The first character is a women, Ryn, who has brown hair in two braids, wearing leather armguards and a tunic, watching the land pass. The second character is a man, Seven, who has black hair and is wearing a tunic with a black turtleneck beneath it. He's watching Ryn with a small smile on his face.
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Jacob Foster (Querying) @fosterja8.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
IDLE OF A PSYCHOPOMP How far would you go to make sure your loved ones survive? For a retired explorer, that burning question never ceases to exist. When he overhears a rumour about a mysterious forest, he ventures back into the wild, desperation overwhelming every other emotion. #PosterPit #Q #T #A
IDLE OF A PSYCHOPOMP - POSTER
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Jadyn @jaystraigis.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
🌊OF GEMSTONES AND DIVINITY🌊 Kiana robs the wealthy to give to those in need. Emeralda left her noble life behind to be a seafaring vigilante. The unlikely duo must cooperate long enough to take down a bloodthirsty pirate. They get along better than they expected. ~96k #QueerPit #NA #F #FR #HF
A mock search bar with search suggestions, there is a picture of a crashing wave in the background. The search bar says 'Of Gemstones and Divinity', the search suggestions are: 
Second world historical fantasy, sapphic rivals to lovers slow burn, pirates and sea adventures, self discover, rebelling against the government, all women pirate crew, duels and banter
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T 🐀 @tessaswck.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Think: A forest that gives birth. The paper-thin layer of skin between life and death. The sacrifices we make to ensure our lineage. Pairs well with: sandalwood, cedar, bonfire, freshly laid mulch, and pinot noir. #HuntingSeason #PosterPit #PosterPitA #AG #H #LIT #SPF
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Shida Ketzer (follows back all fiction writers) @wisteraverse.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
🗡️Murdered in cold blood &resurrected through forbidden powers, Quill becomes a legendary assassin. 🥷When her latest mission sparks the higher power’s wrath, Quill must avenge the death of her people and her own murder. 💀Failure will cost more than just her life.🪶 #PosterPit #P #F 🪐📚 📚💙 🌈📚
“This world, my dear, is the slaughterhouse of noble ideals.” 

Color Magic 
Fantasy Heist
No Romance!
Epic Fight Scenes
Feral Feminine Rage
Touch Her & You'll Die

Title: Killer Quill

Coming 
Sept. 25
2025
Wisteraverse.com

Author: Shida Ketzer

Guaranteed
NO
Romance

Color composition: Saturated red, black, & white. 
Figure: Quill's image holding a dagger and a quill wafting tenrils of black magic
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Jessica DeLand - Author (is getting published! 😱) @delandjessica.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
A CURSE SO DARK & LONELY X THE INHERITANCE GAMES When a ballerina is kidnapped by fantasy fugitives desperate to recover their leader’s magic trapped inside her, she unearths their secrets to facilitate freedom, but bonds w/ them & falls for 1 instead #PosterPit #Q #YA #F #M #R #FT
Pretend movie poster for #Posterpit featuring an image of a dark forest in the background with the silhouette of a ballerina's legs en pointe in front with rope tying the ankles together. Ice is creeping in from the bottom, purple swirls of magic are by the legs, and a giant feather is on the ground beneath the feet. Words at the top read, "Mental health rep," "Slow burn," "Found family," "Forced proximity." The top center reads, "One kidnapped ballerina, Four fantasy fugitives, And her quest to escape" next to a badge reading, "Killer Nashville Claymore Finalist." Center reads, "Jessica DeLand's Wake" centered between words reading "A Curse So Dark and Lonely" and "The Inheritance Games," both bracketed separately by feathers. Bottom reads, "YA Contemporary Fantasy, AAPI/ADHD Writer, 26 Full Requests, 4 Previous Offers of Publication, Querying Now."
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
#PosterPit #W #SF #SPF #A #NA #PlanesWIP On the floating city she calls home, Terrah just wants to race planes and join the air force to make a better future for her family. Then things start exploding.
Text on poster: "De Terra Ad Infinitum: A new adult science fiction novel by award winning author E.M. Kerkman. One central mystery, Two worlds colliding, Three narrative POVs. Terrah always knew she would fly. She never expected to fall." Along the side, the repeating text reads "Omnes aequales sub astris. Pax diu". The background image is a real photograph of a North Vietnamese MiG-17 aircraft being hit by 20 mm rounds from an Air Force F-105D on June 3, 1967. Photo credits: USAF via National Archives
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Jadyn @jaystraigis.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
⚔️OF GEMSTONES AND DIVINITY⚔️ An honorable thief and a noblewoman vigilante must work together to end a pirate’s reign of terror. 🌊 ~96k 🌊 Slow burn rivals to lovers 🌊 Second world historical fantasy 🌊 Pirates and sea adventures 🌊 Rebellion and self discovery #Queerpit #NA #F #FR #HF
A mood board for the aesthetics of my novel, Of Gemstones and Divinity. There are nine pictures in a grid, all are warm toned. 
Upper left: a map, candle, scroll, and coins on a wooden table.
Upper middle: pirate ship on the sea in front of the horizon.
Upper right: a spyglass overtop of some maps.
Center left: close up of a pile of coins and glass bottles lying on sand.
Center middle: two women laying together in a nondescript setting, both appear contemplative.
Center right: an overflowing treasure chest sitting on sand, a spyglass and seashells are nearby.
Bottom left: the deck of a ship, facing the door that leads below deck and the stairs that lead to the helm.
Bottom middle: black boots stepping toward the camera.
Bottom right: the deck of a ship, facing the corridor area between the cabin and taffrail.
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Amara Cavahlo @amaracavahlo.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
IRON WIDOW x THE CLONE WARS When her squadmate is murdered, Ahrin will risk anything for revenge, even her chance at knighthood. But this murder is the key to a tangle of secrets spanning star systems and centuries: ‘anything’ is a much higher price than she could imagine. #QueerPit #SF #YA
Illustration of a longsword silhouetted by a glowing green symbol of three concentric ovals. Title: "Odyssey's Wake", YA sci-fi by Amara Cavahlo
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Jeannie (Jay) Marschall 🍇🫐🍏🍋🍊🍓 @jeanniemarschall.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST❌UNDEAD FOLK What is an aging witch to do when two newcomers upend the age-old agreements between her world and the Other People? Well, there's magic to turn to, the forest, your community ...and your dead wife, of course. #A #F #H #MYTH #N #QueerPit
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Christina Adrian @christiemadrian.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
When an accident turns Chess into a reaper, she must learn to control her power, manage a ghost dog with boundary issues, help her ex-friend's spirit, try not to fall for her annoying Grim, & save the thin veil between the living & the dead all before her chem test on Friday. #QueerPit #YA #SN #F
Four pictures of a girl dressed in black in various poses and expressions. The last at the bottom shows her with a skeleton dressed in a black hooded cloak with a scythe.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Alas I will not be doing #Queerpit this year (I do not have a finished manuscript, oops) but if you are drop a like so I can support your pitches!! And best of luck to all of you! #WritingCommmunity
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Alright team, I am all geared up and mostly ready to go for #PosterPit this weekend! If you’re also participating, drop a like or comment and I’ll be sure to check out your posts!! #WritingCommmunity
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 12/08/2025
Just saw someone repost this so I thought I'd resurface it for everyone. It's still relevant.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
A2: My LDP flew out to see me this week! We’ve been planning this trip all summer and it’s been great spending time together. I feel bad all of my social media marketing events are happening while he’s here, but he doesn’t mind (I bought him a copy of murderbot vol. 1 as an apology; he loves it!)
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Current status: footsore from trekking around Chicago all week and really, really tired of the Canadian wildfire smoke. Us midwesterners barely get any summer heat as it is, and I want to be outside writing!! A minor complaint in the grand scheme of things but still.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Hello #WeeknightWriters! This week I’ve finished organizing all of my short fiction in a spreadsheet to help prioritize my revisions, and hacked out a few more words of Planes WIP, my new adult (ish) dieselpunk sci-fi novel about airplane racing, conspiracy theories, and disastrous bisexuals ✌️
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Thank you all so much for the support on both of my Questpit projects (normally known as Planes WIP and Pirates WIP)! No agent likes for me this time around (afaik; if I missed yours, let me know) BUT I did make a bunch of new author friends and find a load of projects to follow along with, so, win!
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Uncanny Magazine @uncannymagazine.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
PLEASE REPOST! "Uncanny Magazine Is Looking for Submissions Editors Once Again!" buff.ly/7Ol5DQu
Space Unicorn!
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jenn (is querying and writing) @kotegentarri.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
THOROUGHFARE ₊ ⊹ ˑ 𓂃 a religious apostle & western outlaw must work together to stop an eldritch horror spreading across the desert - novella (26k) - a sunshine MMC and grumpy FMC ☀️ - eldritch monsters but the true horror is humanity #questpit #Q #A #H #S #amquerying
red and yellow moodboard of 9 western themed photos; (right to left) a horse, a hand with flames, a creepy cowboy, a western gothic church, artwork of a coffin, flying doves, a body and a crow, a yellow cross, and a woman riding a horsea pastel moodboard (right to left); a cross with a vulture on top, horses in the desert, a hand with a dove; a velvet background with a finger gun, a person training a horse, a woman resting with a horse in the plains; sculptured hands reaching from the ground; a man and a dark horse, many crosses staked into the ground
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Julianne @authorjulianne.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Introducing the #agentsguide for my very soon to be #Q novel, THE BOG PRINCE! 💀 A necromancer, doomed by her own dark power. 👑 A lost prince, lying murdered in the ruins of his crumbling kingdom. 🖤 Maybe some secrets are better left buried... #Questpit #YA #RF #agentguide
A picture of a crumbling castle with text that reads: an agent's guide to The Bog Prince by Julianne M, a 105k word YA fantasy romance. Eighteen-year-old Everin Lockett’s dreams of returning home from ruthless Wyverith College are shattered when she manifests a forbidden necromancy magic that reanimates the bog body of her kingdom’s lost prince. If the college discovers the truth about her abilities, she will be conscripted into their brutal army, 
doomed never to see her family again.

Desperate to guard her secret, Everin strikes a deal with the long-lost Prince Byrnan: if he helps keep her power hidden, she will help him solve his centuries-old murder. But when Byrnan’s quest for justice could be the very thing that endangers her last chance of going home, Everin will need to confront the true cost of 
falling for a lost prince with nothing left to lose—and a kingdom to reclaim. 

Maybe some secrets are better left buried…For fans of...
Hozier (Yearning & Bog Bodies)
A Study in Drowning and Curious Tides (Dark Academia and Lyrical Prose)
Belladonna, One Dark Window, and Florence + the Machine (Haunting Gothic Atmosphere)
Divine Rivals (Slow-Burn Romance) Snippet...

 A fork of lightning split the rain-soaked sky in two, and the ground trembled with a deafening clap of thunder. But even after the rumbling faded, the bog still shuddered beneath me, swelling and quaking like a pair of lungs drawing their dying breath. I lurched away, my heart jolting against my throat as I scrambled back through the mud. 
Another crack of lightning. 
And in its wake, silhouetted against the flash of violet light—

 A single grasping hand, 
clawing its way out of the earth towards me.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
#questpit #F #YA #NA #RF #HF SAIL BY DAWN Andrew has a curse to break. Lior has everything to prove. When pushed together by the whims of the sea, the problems from their pasts become all too present. Mutiny, magic, and a sixth-month deadline. What could go wrong? Everything, it seems.
A collage relevant to Pirate WIP (also known as sail by Dawn) 1) golden sunlight on water 2) a male pirate silhouette looking at a gray stormy sky 3) a red and yellow sunset streaming through the clouds 4) a pair of masculine blue eyes looking at the viewer 5) an image of the sea and sky superimposed with the text “I’ll be in the sky, I’ll be in the sea” 6) a golden female eye peering through black curly hair at the viewer, 7) a pirate ship sailing at sunset 8) a female figure silhouetted by a tall bonfire behind her, 9) a stormy sea as seen from a beach at dawn
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
#questpit #SF #SFF #A #NA #W #agentguide DE TERRA AD INFINITUM 💫 ~90k 🌟 Adult/New Adult dieselpunk sci-fantasy 💫 currently standalone, open to sequel 🌟 contains romance, but not romance-centric 💫 knock off pod racing from Star Wars in unique dystopian setting 🌟 bisexual FMC (who gets the girl)
Title page: De Terra Ad Infinitum, Adult/New Adult science fiction by E. M. KerkmanThe Pitch: Alexia “Terrah” Terranova moonlights as a pilot, illegally racing planes beneath Helix City, a massive dieselpunk city floating in Earth’s lower atmosphere. During the day, she’s a model student at the Academy of Aeronautics. Terrah is content with her life, but when planes begin exploding during races, she finds herself unwillingly involved in trying to solve the mystery. Forced to unite the two halves of her world—her friends at the academy and her racing team—to survive, the six of them evade blackmail, sabotage, and even an attempted kidnapping to chase the mystery to its source. 

When the team finally uncovers the secret at the mystery’s core, they realize it could reignite the war between Helix City and their long-dormant enemies. Before they can reveal it to the world, Terrah’s group is violently fractured, and her story becomes one of survival against insurmountable odds. Will she make it back to Helix City in time to save it, or will her home be destroyed before she can warn them about their literal downfall, hidden in plain sight? For fans of: bulleted list: Dieselpunk/Retrofuturism
Near-future alternate-Earth and
post-apocalypse settings
Military Academy inspired settings
Cold-War-inspired politics
Complex and divided societies
New-Adult-aged characters
Forgiveness as a tool for growth
Losing and regaining friendships
Escaping a familial legacy
Messy romantic relationships
Queer love triangles
Found family
Multiple POVs

Comp titles: moral engines by Phillip reeve, retribution falls by Chris wooding, airborn by Kenneth oppel, skyward by Brandon Sanderson, and leviathan by Scott westerfieldExcerpt from chapter 6

     Callum stepped inside the Admiral’s office and closed the door softly behind him. The Admiral gestured for him to sit in one of the empty chairs in front of her desk, not looking up as she leafed through a pile of papers. Brilliant white light streamed in through the arched industrial window at the back of her office, casting everything in a ghostly gray. 
     “I have a task for you, Callum,” she said as he sat, finally looking at him. Callum ran his sweaty palms down his thighs.
     “The girl from the entrance exam.” It was a statement, not a question, and Admiral Astara’s expression softened a bit as she watched him squirm.
     “Correct. You’re smarter than you look.” She handed him a dark green plasticine folder. “I pulled her file. You might be interested in what’s inside.”
     Callum didn’t bother to question the legality of it and opened the folder, scanning through it quickly. It was emptier than other files he’d seen, and though the photo in the upper left corner was old, her cold, brown eyes and difficult scowl hadn’t changed at all in the years since it was taken. The name next to the photo gave him pause, even though he expected it. 
     Alexia Terranova. Terranova as in TerraCorp. 
     She really is alive, he thought, and he must’ve said it aloud, as Admiral Astara sighed and leaned back in her seat.
     “She is,” she replied, “and that poses problems.”
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
#questpit #SF #A #W AIRBORN X MORTAL ENGINES Terrah always knew she would fly. She never expected to fall. 🌟dieselpunk floating cities 🌟man-made apocalypse 🌟political intrigue plot 🌟flight school setting 🌟queer love triangle 🌟messy relationships 🌟new-adult characters
A collection of nine images reflective of the themes of the book De Terra Ad Infinitum. In order: 1 beams of light erupting from below a layer of low clouds, 2 a circular solar system structure in black and gold, 3 a grainy image of a jet plane as seen through a targeting scope, 4 two jet aircraft flying upwards in high contrast black and white, 5 one jet aircraft flying leftwards in bright red on a black background, 6 a black and white galaxy, 7 planetary orbital calculations behind superimposed text reading “and we’ve barely begun”, 8 a hand with strings tied around each finger like a puppeteer, 9 a disc shaped floating city in the background with a lone figure silhouetted in black in the foreground.
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Y’all know what time of year it is—renaissance faire season! New year, new profile photo, as always. Costume hasn’t changed much since last time, but I did dye my hair. On to another year of writing silly pirate books :)
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Here’s my writing buddy Hazel! She’s in her teenage years where she’s basically just teeth with legs, so she’s not *that* helpful, but she is cute. #weeknightwriters
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
This is awesome news! I’ve backed them already, but if you haven’t, you totally should!!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Hi #weeknightwriters! I’m E.M. Kerkman and my current WIP is about airplane racing, dismantling government conspiracies, and turning friends into family along the way—all while living on a dieselpunk city flying in the sky. I’m 30/~90k words through, as of today. It’s nice to meet all of you!
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E.M. Kerkman | 🏴‍☠️☠️🔥 @emkerkman.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Hi everyone! Since it seems all the cool people have moved over here, so have I! Took me a little while though, haha. Where are my people? #writing #writingcommunity #author
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