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David Abrams

@imdavidabrams.bsky.social
769 followers 427 following 525 posts

Novelist (“Fobbit” & “Brave Deeds”), husband (42 years), human father (3x over), Cat Daddy (3x over). Avid reader. Founder and curator of #SundaySentence. Author of Van-ishing America on Substack: davidabrams.substack.com

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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
What have I been up to in the last six months? Starting a fresh new chapter of Art in my life by taking up #watercolor #painting. Here are some examples of the dozens of canvases I've completed since I started in January.
A watercolor painting of a barn at the edge of a field.A watercolor painting of a black cat holding a bouquet of what look like popped balloons (but are really just streaks of paint) in various rainbow colors.Two watercolor paintings in side-by-side watercolor sketchbooks depict a large blue ball about to crush a small red house, and the silhouette of a cat in various wet-washes of blue.A watercolor painting depicting a map of the United States painted in blood-red, with "250" faintly showing through in the solid color. At the tip of Florida, a single drop of blood falls into the blue water below, setting up a series of concentric rings.
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Patch Zircher @patrickzircher.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"I always want to know the things one shouldn't do." "So as to do them?" asked her aunt. "So as to choose," said Isabel. -- Henry James, Portrait of a Lady #SundaySentence
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Lynne Perednia @perednia.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"Sometimes it was clear and bluebird-bright, and sometimes snow fell all around them and the world was wrapped in silence, and then the winter sun would break through the trees and the light -- apricot, aquamarine -- would appear against the horizon." COUNTRY PEOPLE Daniel Mason #SundaySentence
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Labrini Zafeiropoulou @labrinizafeir.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"I choose to hold you in my dreams… For in my dreams, you have no end.” ― Rumi #sundaysentence 📚 💙
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Isa Leshko @isaleshko.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
“Just as some cultures have a hundred words for “snow,” there should be a hundred words in our language for all the ways a Black boy can lie awake at night.” —@theferocity.bsky.social from How We Fight For Our Lives #SundaySentence
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nancyadairb.bsky.social @nancyadairb.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Because fiction is where memory and imagination meet #sundaysentence #beginningmiddleend #valerialuiselli @aaknopf.bsky.social
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Leslie Greentree @lesliegreentree.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Today’s #SundaySentence is from the entertaining restaurant farce The Reservation, by Rebecca Kauffman. Like all good bartenders, Darius had mastered the two most important aspects of his job: pretending he was listening when he was not listening, and pretending he was not listening when he was.
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Carol Brisebois @carolbrisebois.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
#SundaySentence (s) She is both history and now. Her unhappiness travels through time, feels palpable yet is enigmatic, beyond comfort or rescue because she is paint on a wall. "Report" essay, The Missouri Review ~ Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social
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Christian Bauman @christianbauman.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
This was a fun read by @carolinebicks.bsky.social for those of us who soaked in cocaine-era King at a ridiculously young age & then went on to be writers ourselves. (Turns out, that's a pretty big cohort.) My #sundaysentence this week is my favorite King line: "Sometimes, Louis, dead is better."
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Lara Maynard 🫐 @laralou.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
“It was like walking through a folk song that afternoon — the blackbirds and the thrushes, the sweetness of the flowers, the boy I loved, and who might even love me, waiting for me between the trees.” Seán Hewitt - Open, Heaven #SundaySentence #FolkloreSunday #QueerBooks
Photo: Hand holding book Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt with illustrated cover in yellow and green showing wood path in dappled light, with title and author in white font. Grass, trees, blue and cloudy sky in background.
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Rob @unixwhisperer.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"I'd be aghast at my own audacity if I didn't think that someone needed to try to connect these dots across space, time, and topics, and that it's better to do it imperfectly then not to do it at all." - Rebecca Solnit, The Beginning Comes After the End (2026) #SundaySentence
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
There was nothing wrong with Roger, but talking to him was laborious. ~Thomas McGuane, "Balloons" (in A WOODED SHORE) #SundaySentence I've been away from BlueSky for awhile. Missed the Sunday Sentence community. Thought I'd pop back in. I mean, how could I not post this superb McGuane sentence?
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
The snow beat in a soft flurry against the windowpanes. It made a whispery, uneasy sound. ~"Three Blind Mice," Agatha Christie #SundaySentence
The first-edition cover of "Three Blind Mice and Other Stories" by Agatha Christie shows a sprung mousetrap with a scrap of something unidentified bleeding out of the trap wire with the book's title printed across it.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
One doesn't recognise in one's life the really important moments—not until it's too late. "Endless Night," Agatha Christie My #SundaySentence comes from my annual "Christie-mas" read. What was YOUR favorite sentence of the week? Share with us, using the hashtag!
A library hardcover edition of "Endless Night" by Agatha Christie showing the title in a white band in the upper portion of the jacket design, while the rest is in a blood-red color with Agatha Christie's name prominently displayed. In the lower right-hand corner, there is the black silhouette of a bird being stabbed by a knife.
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iolanthe @iolantherosa.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." #SundaySentence #JamesJoyce #TheDead
A leaden gray sky over a rock promontory, studded with junipers and pines. The candlewick-shaped spent bloom stem of a yucca plant reaches up on the right. This was taken at a Grand Canyon viewpoint.
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nancyadairb.bsky.social @nancyadairb.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Oh, my brother, we’re lighting the torches and heading out into the darkness to find the words and bring them back to you. #sundaysentence #lateinvocationformagic #jimdaniels #msupress #netgalley
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Jennifer Messner @occasionallyzen.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
...if the place is legitimate there is no pool, there is no second floor, just leather against flesh, flesh against bone, rope slapping concrete, slapping earth, that machine gun fire of sideways fists against speed bag. #sundaysentence Lucas Schaefer, The Slip
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Christian Bauman @christianbauman.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
My #sundaysentence this week performs a delightful left turn, courtesy the great @danchaon.bsky.social: “She kept her face stern and neutral, the kind of face you made when you chopped the head off of a chicken.” Honestly, what a terrific novel this is.
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Michael Downs @michaeldowns.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
A #SundaySentence from John Cheever's story, "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill."
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Carol Brisebois @carolbrisebois.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
#SundaySentence (s) But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another. Cat’s Eye ~Margaret Atwood
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
I loved “Seven Stories About Tammy” by @elizmccrack.bsky.social so much, I couldn’t pick just one #SundaySentence so here are two: Tammy's breath was as soft and insubstantial as health food. They'd given her a glass of white wine that tasted green as a tree, with an aftertaste of violin.
A blue Buddha statue sits next to a copy of “The Best American Short Stories 2025” with other copies of previous Best American Short Stories in the background on the shelf.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
The land wears her corset of cement. My #SundaySentence comes from “Ruin Song (Number 8)” from SWEET HUSK by Corrie Williamson Readers, what was YOUR favorite sentence of the week? Join the weekly celebration of language and literature at the hashtag!
The cover of SWEET HUSK by Corrie Williamson
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
The fact is, Mr. Dickens writes too often and too fast….If he persists much longer in this course, it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell his fate—he has risen like a rocket, and he will come down like the stick. —Abraham Hayward on Charles Dickens in The Quarterly Review, 1837 #SundaySentence
A grey cat does a "face palm" ("face paw"?) as he sits next to a copy of The Annotate Christmas Carol. Today's #SundaySentence comes from the Introduction to this W.W. Norton annotated edition.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
What if I told you the most beautiful novel I read this year was about a mass shooting at a school? Read the full review of BLOOMLAND by John Englehardt at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/what-im-re... #FridayReads #bookreview #bestbooks
A copy of "Bloomland" by John Englehardt
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
The latest installment in "The Month in Photos" at Van-ishing America features Kindle the #cat, #witches, #zombies and the #Halloween residents of #EurekaSprings, #Arkansas (along with a sidetrip to #Montana to pick up our household goods). See the pics here: davidabrams.substack.com/p/the-month-...
A man in full makeup (green hair, white face makeup) and dress (purple jacket, green vest and tie) as The Joker from "Batman" smiles at the camera.
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Leslie Greentree @lesliegreentree.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
I think being a teenager is about hiding all your quirks and contorting yourself to fit in and impress people, and being an adult is about re-finding who you were when you were eight years old. #SundaySentence We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
This is, in a nutshell, the whole raison d’etre of #SundaySentence
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CelticStoic(Dan) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @celticstoic.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
#SundaySentence "The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach." - Carson McCullers, 1951
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David Reader 🐳📚🐦 @thepaleusher.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
By early Sunday morning, the City, so far from settling itself for a deeper sleep, lies silently expectant, awaiting the visitation of a ghostly army, summoned by bells to worship old gods in their carefully preserved shrines and to walk down quiet, remembered streets. P D James #SundaySentence
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Susan Pigman 📚 @1susyq.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
“We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” Tennessee Williams #SundaySentence
media.tenor.com
elmo from sesame street is standing in front of a fire and saying everything is fine .
ALT: elmo from sesame street is standing in front of a fire and saying everything is fine .
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Carol Brisebois @carolbrisebois.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
theresakishkan.com/2025/10/22/r... a #SundaySentence from Theresa Kishkan's redux: morning (parenthesis) ... This morning, at the beginning of my swim, a little silver trout jumped out of the water just beyond where I was heading, the curve of its body an opening parenthesis to my thinking.
theresakishkan.com
on the river
Visit the post for more.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
It’s Sunday: Do you know where your sentence is? Each week, #readers share the very best sentence(s) they read in the past week. Share your favorite at #SundaySentence
media.tenor.com
a black and white photo of a man in a tuxedo sitting in a crowd .
Alt: a black and white GIF clip of Buster Keaton in a tuxedo sitting in a crowd looking at something off camera.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
My #SundaySentence is from the remarkable, unforgettable BLOOMLAND by John Englehardt: Other than telling her your name is Eddie, you won't remember what exactly you say. But you will remember how unique this moment feels, like two swimmers from separate shores meeting in the open water.
The cover of “Bloomland” by John Englehardt, winner of the Dzanc Prize for Fiction
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Jo (Sarah for some) @jostraveler.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Struggling with creativity and focus, I come back to Natalie Goldberg’s foundation for my #SundaySentence : “If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” #Booksky ✍🏼📚
Natalie Goldberg’s timeless instruction book, Writing Down the Bones
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Shawn Breathes Books @shawnthebookmaniac.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
#SundaySentence from About Uncle by Rebecca Gisler, Jordan Stump (Translator)
[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of calamari à l'armoricaine and the words Uncle also claims to be the custodian of the time-honored recipe for calamari à l'armoricaine, a recipe that consists of frozen squid rings vaguely cooked in half a gallon of cheap red wine seasoned only with a pinch of pepper, a dish, I should add, reserved for special occasions, for honored guests, for first-time visitors, because Uncle likes to give all newcomers a lavish welcome, at least those who are too polite to refuse what they're so beamingly being offered, and when we suggest to Uncle that he add some garlic, and go a little lighter on the red wine, and have a look at the sell-by date on the squid, and also take a shower, just a little more often, a real shower, not just a swipe with a wet washcloth, no, a real cleaning from top to bottom, Uncle says simply no, he doesn't want to, he's sticking to his father's recipe.]
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Brynn Devereaux @brynndevereaux.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
“And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.” A #SundaySentence by Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
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Takeshi Sudo @artssoy.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
“The continuous cycle of pronominal expansion and contraction is the heart of writing for me, it is the time of writing, the filling and emptying of the chambers of the art.” —— Ben Lerner, Cardiography #SundaySentence
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Elisabeth @temptedeli.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
#sundaysentence "I kissed your birthmarks little islands on your skin; new, discovered lands." - Caroline Kaufman, Light Filters In
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Here's a #SundaySentence (or two) from These Truths by Jill Lepore
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Lauren Alwan @laurenalwan.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
“Whenever he walked up the creaking mast of stairs to their seagull’s nest apartment, he was surprised anew by Ulla’s elfin beauty, by the pine floors, by the white Ikea couch, by the Western lightness and comfort that was, apparently, his. —Kiran Desai #SundaySentence
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Jennifer Messner @occasionallyzen.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Despite the weight of her mountainous hairdos, she didn't feel her head wobbling on her shoulders. Hilary Mantel, Royal Bodies Writing about the Windsors from the London Review of Books found in their wonderful bookshop this week ❤️📚 #SundaySentence
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
So go ahead, pray to whichever god Makes you the most happy Me? I'll take that chevron of geese Just now, over your left shoulder Crossing in front of the moon. #SundaySentence from "We All Have Our Gods" by Charles Finn #todayspoem What was YOUR favorite sentence of the week? Share with us!
The cover of "A Mountain's Idea of Time: poems" by Charles Finn lies on a porch deck surrounded by crisp, dry fallen leaves.
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Will Donnelly @willdonnelly.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
“Their marriage had ceased to be conjugal; his body did not conjugate hers; there was no grammar between them.” ~Namwali Serpell, ‘The Old Drift’ #SundaySentence
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Sam @sammyzorba.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Not from a book but a song: Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore. - John Prine #sundaysentence
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Brynn Devereaux @brynndevereaux.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
“If there were ‘new women’, really, in 1907, then you could hardly find a better example than Mary Mallon, a single, childless, domestic laborer pinned to the floor of a careening Health Department ambulance.” Another #SundaySentence from Anthony Bourdain’s “Typhoid Mary”
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
I am accomplishing quite a lot in my own nice quiet noisy way. ~May Sarton, "As We Are Now" #SundaySentence (I don't say this frequently or lightly, but THIS IS A PERFECT BOOK. It can be read in one sitting but I stretched my time with it over a week, savoring it like a piece of candy in my mouth.)
An old paperback copy of "As We Are Now" by May Sarton rests on top of a vintage scale.
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
September's installment of The Month in Photos is very Eureka Springs-centric. Pics include the Jeep parade, the Run Unicorn Run, and Hillbilly Jim taking a bath. Oh, and #cats, of course. See the photos at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/the-month-...
Two grey cats hug each other
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David Abrams @imdavidabrams.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
"Unlike its French namesake, Paris, Texas, should probably be called the City of Darkness." New post up at Van-ishing America: davidabrams.substack.com/p/one-night-... This was a hard one to write, and a hard one to read, but once I learned the facts about Paris' history, I couldn't look away.
A replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas, is seen illuminated at night. On top of the tower is a giant, cherry-red cowboy hat.
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Rob @unixwhisperer.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
From a substack post dated 03OCT2025 written by Mathilda Ferguson, entitled "The Silent Dialogue: How Literature Cultivates the Landscape of the Heart" this hopeful #SundaySentence: "The cultivation of a single reader's heart, when multiplied, tills the earth for a more compassionate society."
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