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Graham (Gray) Scott

@graythebruce.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.4K following 905 posts

PhD. Professor of English. Pushcart nom. BSF noms (x2). Stories in Split Lip, Pithead Chapel, HAD, Barrelhouse, Necessary Fiction, JMWW, others. Large Language Human. For now at hemicyon.wordpress.com

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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
My haunted predictive text story from April, "I Can Still Hear You Breathing," has been nominated for Best of the Net by the wonderful editors at Split Lip Magazine. Those same editors had a substantive impact on the final version of that story, so I'm feeling very grateful to them right now.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I also trunked an AI-critical story. It had some positive rejections before OpenAI released ChatGPT and then immediately it was dated and looked like it was last week's news or something. I mean, it was accurate, but immediately unmarketable.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Oh wow! Thank you so much, and also please accept my apologies. When I asked, I didn't intend for you to go scroll through a year of posts! I'm now following their account, which seems fun. I've bookmarked the story to read later tonight. Thank you!
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I have never heard of this story, but I am *very* intrigued.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I've taken graduate seminars on Old English (not a medievalist, just curious) and I need translation dictionaries and a lot of time to read the original. Given both time and references, I can maybe decode a speech before wanting to make the dictionary go away by eating it. :-)
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No joke: the top of my Shakespeare syllabus is a quotation from Beowulf, sans translation. It's the very first talking point. Another recurring, related convo: Student: In high school, I read Beowulf in Old English. Me: Here. Student: What the F is this?
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Thank you for saying that. Was bugging me too. - A Shakespeare prof
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Cue 1,000 Internet Tendency submissions using this as a prompt, all using "keep being awesome" as a refrain at the same frequency as the F word in the decorative gourd season piece.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Long time between story acceptances, but there's another notch.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Hah! Thanks. I forgot that I had that in my bio. You're the first to comment on it!
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Holy hell. Fiona's right, Ali. I've read it at least three times now. What a story.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Okay, I followed the advice reposted below and stopped what I was doing to read the micro by alimcg.bsky.social. And... yeah. Damn. I pass the recommendation on to you.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
That's probably the best title I've seen in more than a year.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Agreed, all counts.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
What a cover!
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
True hypocrites, this site has a whole accordion on copyright for submitters while also having (likely without permission) many of George Saunders's stories. They say they can take down stories within 2 weeks but don't have easily located contact info.
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Stan J Wild @stanjwild.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Thanks @wallstrait.bsky.social! Grateful to @smokelong.bsky.social friends, @marioaliberto3.bsky.social and @graythebruce.bsky.social It’s story about a 🐐, a chef, and overreach… at an NGO compound in Haiti www.wallstrait.com/post/heifer-...
wallstrait.com
"Heifer, Milk & Mango" by Stan J Wild
In hot Haiti sun, on the NGO compound at rue Pelican, Boy scrambles up the bark. Through mango tree leaves, illuminated lime green, in his fluorescent cocoon for one, he lays pressed to timber slats o...
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Congrats, Stan! Thrilled to see this story land in a good place.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I'm in the US, so I've never had an issue delivered by hand. But I'm enchanted by the idea of his Royle Mail stamps. Had no idea he did that.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Adventure is the one I earned the Certificate of Wizardry from, and one of the two that I saw in the thread. The maze of twisty passages all alike. Was there a third, on top of that one and Zork?
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Love that this thread is alluding at once to two classic text games, both of which I obsessed over eons ago. Somewhere I have my Certificate of Wizardry.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
No notes. This is science.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Subscribed/backed
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Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I'm almost out of the woods of early childhood years. But we don't have family here, and it's just us. So it's usually one of us w/ three kids. And there are rare scoffers and eye rollers. But there are lots who smile and have been there. People are cool, and it's ok to tell the whiners to go fuck.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
^This. As a been-there Dad, I always try to support the parents around me in planes and stores, and never can I recall being the only person on scene with that mindset. Always seems to be a village.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Novelettes are just about my favorite length as a writer and as a reader. Love this move.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Oh, cool! You and Evernight are publishing short stories together now? (Love the Chemically Bonded theme and name.)
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Ordered!
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I would be interested.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Right. And he had been an English lit major, too. Somehow missed both Donne and Hemingway. Weird. It wouldn't have bugged me so much except that he loved to do that sort of thing in his own writing, when he got the references.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
At another paper, the editor deleted one of my favorite ledes because he didn't get the allusion. The news was that a toll lane which previously waived tolls for carpools of 3 passengers would now charge them. My lede: "Ask not for whom the bill tolls, it tolls for three."
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Not creative, but it may induce cringe anyway: back when I wrote for a community newspaper, I had an editor who insisted on inserting a "literally" into a metaphor about a funding cut leaving a kitchen-table-themed nonprofit with just two legs to stand on. ie, literally two legs to stand on.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
The turn to imagining him as a child is so powerful here. Lovely poem.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Congratulations, Lindz!
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Having enjoyed two of the stories that appear in this collection, I have the collection as a whole on my short TBR list.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Yeah, I think thats my pick for title, too.
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Chill Subs @chillsubs.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Do you have questions about submitting to lit mags, what it takes to run a journal, or how to get your work published in The Common? Join us tonight @ 7:30 PM ET for our AMA with the wonderful Jennifer Acker, the founder and editor-in-chief of @commonmag.bsky.social! RSVP here: luma.com/doxmdiwe
luma.com
Ask-Me-Anything: Jennifer Acker, EiC of The Common · Luma
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Love that story. Looking forward to seeing it in a new medium.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Clarkesworld has been setting an example for other fiction mags for ages. How to hold an ethical stance. How to compete for the best writers. (They respond quickly and they keep increasing pay, their new target 15 c/word.) How to treat staff and readers. There's a reason they win so many awards.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Could always have a pedant as a visiting character say it for you and be laughed off :-)
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I love how that may not change what your characters say; people in that time and setting call them pickerel. But then you're stuck knowing they're wrong. Curious how you've decided to handle it. (I am now terrified to factcheck my childhood, but I probably should follow your lead.)
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Strange Horizons @strangehorizons.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
The Strange Horizons Kickstarter to fund 2027 will begin on Sunday, 7 June, 2026! This is a critical time for SFF publications when the existence of venues publishing short speculative fiction, poetry and non-fiction is sometimes uncertain. We hope that you will keep us publishing for another year!
Strange Horizons annual Kickstarter 
7 June 2026
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InkFoundry @inkfoundry.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
LAUNCH DAY! There's no fee to enter, and on top of the winning publication, EIGHT authors will receive $100 each. THAT'S $2,300 of community-raised funds! See inkfoundry.net/the-inkmark/ for more details!
Promo material for the InkMark that says: $1000 to a specfic magazine that pays their authors, charges no fees, bans AI, is free to read. Submissions open June 15th at inkfoundry.net/the-inkmarkThe InkMark Prizes: $1000 for one magazine, $100 for each of the five representing authors, $500 for one commissioned artist. Submissions open June 15th at inkfoundry.net/the-inkmarkThe InkMark is made possible by sponsorships from The Pulp Pit, Foofaraw, and InkFoundry
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Pulp Literature Press @pulpliterature.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Presenting our Issue 50 cover reveal and more in this week's newsletter! mailchi.mp/18a48ef2808a...
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Augur Society | Augur Issue 8.3 is NOW LIVE ! @augursociety.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Our priority call closes TOMORROW! 👀 Got a story to share? We'd love to read it! Visit augursociety.org/submissions/ for more info on submission guidelines! P.S. Don't self-reject!
augursociety.org
Submit to Augur Magazine
We're looking for surrealism, dream touched realism, and SFF! Now with higher pay.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Too damned common. Related: Some academics aiming for celebrity are reluctant to admit findings or research from other disciplines, even when it's clear they read them, and even when they cite the folks that they hang out with. "That other field that also researches this topic? Never heard of it."
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I'm mad at myself for not coming up with it first, but also because I know I wouldn't have done it as well.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
You’re Gonna like the Way You Look—or Else www.pointsincase.com/articles/you... LOL. Always hated those ads.
pointsincase.com
You’re Gonna like the Way You Look—or Else
And if you don’t, let’s just say we have ways to make you like the way you look. I fucking guarantee it.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I've been working slowly through this one, turn-taking with other books, and I've enjoyed the stories so far. The Locus review nails the style of surrealism characteristic of what I've read of Khong's work. Like the reviewer, I'd be hesitant to call the style cute--there's a razor in that candy.
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Graham (Gray) Scott @graythebruce.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
No kidding about the Postal Service. There's one issue I never got. Delivery skipped past it. Instead of wondering what happens next, I'm wondering what happens middle.
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