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lillianhowan.bsky.social

@lillianhowan.bsky.social
135 followers 76 following 36 posts

Author of The Charm Buyers, Ka Palapala Po'okela Award for Excellence in Literature & Essential Book by Honolulu Magazine. Listener of Muses. She/her #Lupus #LupusAwareness

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Marianne Villanueva @2waystreet.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
It's self-promotion Friday. My newest short story collection, Residents of the Deep, is a mix of horror + speculative fiction, with a few more traditional stories, most set in the Philippines. www.mariannevillanuevaauthor.com
mariannevillanuevaauthor.com
Marianne Villanueva | Author of Residents of the Deep & Acclaimed Short Story Collections
Discover the official site of Marianne Villanueva, celebrated author of Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila, Mayor of the Roses, and the upcoming Residents of the Deep. Explore her powerful stories of...
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Purple
Blooming purple passion flower surrounded by dark green leaves and purple-tipped green buds
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Deer crossing
Deer crosses street at night. Red lights indicate that deer is crossing properly with a green light. Parked cars and trucks line the street which is empty at night except for lone deer.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Summer evening.
Purple flowers blooming on tree branch. Shadowy tree branches in background. Evening sky above is dark blue.
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ProfKFH @profkfh.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting
Colorful quilt of a nighttime scene with  Harriet Tubman in an orange jacket and purple dress carrying a rifle. She is leading other figures who walk behind her.
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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
A strong literary community is an amazing thing. On June 6, help us celebrate San Francisco Writers Workshop and our venue @noisebridge. Here are some items we'll be raffling off, thanks to donations fr Counterpoint Press, @mumblers.bsky.social, @cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social and others! #readings #SF
A group of books arranged around raffle ticketsA group of books arranged next to a roll of raffle tickets atop a clipboard and with a bookmarkA clipboard and bookmarks labeled "San Francisco Writers Workshop"Flyer announcing a fundraiser for Noisebridge, hosted by San Francisco Writers Workshop on June 6, at 7 pm, at 272 Capp Street
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Raine Geoghegan @rainegeoghegan.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Celebrating ‘#KIN’ Poetry & Harp Music with Allison Hulmes, Nessie Wood-Davies & myself at the #ChurchInTheWoods on Bramdean Common, Alresford, Hampshire (also known as the Gypsy Church) August 2nd @ 3pm - all welcome. @lillianhowan.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social @poet-pratibha1.bsky.social
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
@joannackalbus.bsky.social’s fabulous reading of her memoir, The Boat Not Taken, at the Redwood City Public Library. A powerful memoir of secrets and revelations.
Asian woman with chin-length brown hair signing a book with a pen while seated at a desk. She wears a dress with alternating navy blue, white, and black-patterned stripes. A blond woman with chin-length hair is writing at the desk. She wears a jeans jacket, white pants, and a black backpack. Book cover with the title The Boat Not Taken: A Memoir. The cover is a black and white photo of a mother and daughter, about five years old, seated together. The mother is wearing traditional Korean garments. The daughter wears a dark coat and a hat.
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Ilze Duarte @ilzeduarte.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Are you in the San Francisco Bay area? Join us today in Redwood City at 6:30 PM. @wtawpress.bsky.social @bettybooks.bsky.social #newrelease #authorevent #memoir #supportsmallpresses
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Thrilled to be In Conversation with @joannackalbus.bsky.social, TODAY May 20 at 6:30 pm, discussing her powerful memoir of secrets and revelations. Redwood City Public Library, 1044 Middlefield, Redwood City. #AANHPIHeritageMonth
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Betty Books @bettybooks.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Have you heard the news? @joannackalbus.bsky.social's The Boat Not Taken is officially out in the world—and she can’t wait to share it with you! Come celebrate at one of her upcoming events, starting with tonight’s exciting virtual launch featuring special guest Jimin Han. Register: bit.ly/3GXjfIU
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Ann VOTE EARLY Gelder ❌👑 @anngelder.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
The people who lived here before us planted a bunch of rose bushes that mostly look terrible because the climate isn’t right for them. But once a year this spindly one puts out a couple big ass flowers, and I want to give it its due:
A large pink rose with a hand next to it for scale (bigger than the hand)Closeup of a large pink rose
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Joanna Choi Kalbus, author @joannackalbus.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Join me for the virtual launch of my memoir THE BOAT NOT TAKEN at 5:30 PM (Pacific) on May 15, when I will be in conversation with Jimin Han. You can register for this free virtual event here: [link from Betty Books] #WTAWPress #BettyBooks #virtualbooklaunch @jiminhan @BettyBooks
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ACLU @aclu.org · 10/05/2025
Today, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies. 📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro
Two woman walking and embracing each other in front of an ICE detention center. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress and heels. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. Members of the press are in the background.Two women standing, smiling, and embracing each other with grass, water, and the sky in the background. The woman on the left is wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. The woman on the right is wearing a black dress.Two woman stand next to each other and hold onto one another. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. In the background is the fence of an ICE detention center.
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World Literature Today @worldlittoday.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Olga Zilberbourg discovers the flora of the United States Botanic Garden—the oldest living forced migrants to the US—and a Russian writer, Vsevold Garshin, who wrote a story about a captive palm. Enjoy this new essay and translation! @olgaz.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/h...
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Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I'm so grateful to @worldlittoday.bsky.social for publishing my translation of Vsevold Garshin's 1879 short story (written 100 years before I was born!), and my accompanying essay on how I came to (re)translate this story. Read: worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/h... #fiction #essay #booksky
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Essay
How to Care for Our Longest-Living Forced Migrants
May 8, 2025
by  Olga Zilberbourg
Looking up a palm tree's heart hortly after Donald Trump’s reelection and before his inauguration, writer Lillian Howan told me that she was putting aside her other projects to travel to Washington, DC, to visit the United States Botanic Garden where the plants collected by the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–42) were kept. Howan, whose roots are in Tahiti, was finishing her second novel set in the Hakka Chinese community in Tahiti and California, and, researching a new story, she wanted to see the cycad plants that had been uprooted from the Pacific islands and installed in Washington, DC, the oldest living forced migrants to this country.

A week after that conversation, writer Monya Baker shared with me a short story written in 1879 by Vsevold Garshin, “Attalea Princeps” or, in my translation, “A Captive Palm.” Reading List

Marília Arnaud, The Book of Affects, trans. Ilze Duarte (Sundial House, 2024)

Lillian Howan, The Spellbound (WTAW Press, 2025) and The Charm Buyers (Latitude 20, 2017)

D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature (Knopf, 1927)

Simon Parkin, The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice (Scribner, 2024)A Captive Palm (1879)

by Vsevold Garshin
translated by Olga Zilberbourg

In a botanical garden of a large city, there was a stately conservatory made from iron and glass. The building was a thing of beauty: slender, twisted columns held up the structure; upon them rested sleek ornamented arches, webbed together by iron frames enclosing panes of glass. The greenhouse looked particularly fine in the evenings, when the setting sun flooded it with red light and set it ablaze, bright reflections playing and shimmering as though within an enormous, finely polished gem.

Inside the thick glass stood the captive plants. As large as the building was, the plants were crowded. Their roots tangled in the struggle for moisture and nutrients. Tree branches collided with long palm fronds and bent and broke them, and themselves pushed against the metal frames and broke. The gardeners constantly trimmed the tree branches and tied the fronds with wire to tame their growth, but this only helped a little. The plants needed wide open spaces, their natural habitats, freedom.
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Raine Geoghegan @rainegeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
My poem ‘SHELTER’ commissioned by the TT, a tribute to the Church in the Woods, also known as the Gypsy Church on Bramdean Common. @fft.bsky.social @travellerpride.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social @romanistanpodcast.bsky.social
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Viet Thanh Nguyen @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
You know that if the New York Times is reporting this, then the situation is extremely dire. Palestinians have been saying for months that famine is happening due to Israel’s siege. That is a war crime, Israel is the agent, the US is the sponsor, and American taxpayers are rendered complicit.
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Unusual and beautiful Nacreous clouds over UK, 2024, photo via Kate Guilding #WomensArt
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
NEW: Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful." The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.
lawdork.com
Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful"
The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.
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Melissa Llanes Brownlee @lumchanmfa.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
New micro up @pitheadchapel.bsky.social!! Thank you @kimmagowan.bsky.social! pitheadchapel.com/mission-boys...
pitheadchapel.com
Mission Boys Are So Hot
Melissa Llanes Brownlee   I tell my best friend from church as we sit by the baptismal font, a deep little pool, perfect for two, with all of these haole boys from the mainland trying to conve…
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Zeteo @zeteo.com · 30/04/2025
Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from ICE detention. Video Credit: Riley Livermore Read: zeteo.com/p/breaking-m...
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Sumitra Singam @pleomorphic2.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Friends, i have a ragy cnf micro featuring Gauguin in @epistemiclit.bsky.social. Hope you’ll read. Thanks @kristinwrites.bsky.social @melruthwrites.bsky.social @gcbwrites.bsky.social for being the most awesome, supportive editorial team 🧡🧡🧡 epistemiclit.com/current-issu...
epistemiclit.com
MY BROTHER LECTURES ME ABOUT GAUGUIN -
He says, “Art is in the eye of the beholder.”I say, “So you want to behold a naked fourteen-year-old Javanese girl whom he bought as asex slave?”And he says,
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Joanna Choi Kalbus, author @joannackalbus.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Nikki, the Library Program Coordinator at the Feldheym Central Library, wrote: "I wanted to share this picture with you. I read your book and added page tags. Look at how much stood out to me when reading!" I’ll be reading from my memoir at the Feldheym Central Library in San Bernardino on June 7.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Trees and reflections. Arbor Day.
Trees - leaves and branches - reflected in pool of water. Pink water lily blooming with green water lily pads floating on the water.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Trees and reflections. Arbor Day.
Trees - leaves and branches - reflected in pool of water. Pink water lily blooming with green water lily pads floating on the water.
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Reposted by @lillianhowan.bsky.social
Olga Zilberbourg @olgaz.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Translated literature has never been more needed. I'm MCing a reading by translators I admire, voices from across the continent and the globe. Zoom-based! Register: bit.ly/4hvfXZK @ilzeduarte.bsky.social, Jenny Bhatt, @bdralyuk.bsky.social, @katherineeyoung.bsky.social, @yilinwriter.bsky.social
a WTAW PRESS virtual event
The Art of Translation
2025 Spring Reading Salon
Thursday April 17 5:30 PDT
Ilze Duarte
Jenny Bhatt
Boris Dralyuk
Katherine E. Young
Yilin Wang
Olga Zilberbourg
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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
A reminder that if the government can send migrants to a prison camp without any due process, it can send U.S. citizens there, too. I know because this happened to me and my family in 1942.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Spring green
Feathery plants in different shades of light and dark green.
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Cory Booker @corybooker.com · 02/04/2025
I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Fog at night
Tree branches with green leaves fill upper left corner. Bare branches on lower portion of photo. Misty grey light and shadows in center and right of photo.Flowering tree with purple-pink flowers and leaves. Bare branches extend from the left edge of the photo towards the center. Blurred misty background.
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Joanna Choi Kalbus, author @joannackalbus.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
I’m excited to officially reveal the cover of my upcoming book. Coming out from Betty Books on May 6. You can secure your copies now at a 20% discount. Preorder it here: www.wtawpress.org/product-page... #BettyBooks #WTAWPress #memoir #coverreveal #newrelease #herstory
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Grace Loh Prasad @gracelp.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
TOMORROW!! Come see me and @sabinaki.bsky.social at the Millbrae Public Library at 6pm, you could score a free book 📘🙌🏽 @thewritersgrotto.bsky.social
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Mat Johnson @matjohnson.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
I taught at the VONA Workshop for writers of color, off and on, for about a dozen years—one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. The list of writers who found their way to your bookshelves via the experience is truly remarkable. www.vonavoices.org
Summer 2025 Online Workshops
June 22-28, 2025

Nonfiction Faculty:
Bridgett M. Davis
Emily Bernard

Fiction Faculty:
Fabienne Josaphat
Jennine Capó Crucet

Residency Faculty:
Jamie Figueroa
Tim Seibles

Poetry Faculty:
Oliver de la Paz
Anastacia-Reneé

Application fee: $30
Workshop Tuition: $1,000
Residency Tuition: $1,200

Applications close on February 28. Apply Today
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NPR @npr.org · 16/02/2025
NPR's Scott Simon remembers Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny, who died a year ago Sunday in a Russian prison.
npr.org
Opinion: Navalny's words of love
NPR's Scott Simon remembers Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died a year ago Sunday in a Russian prison.
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Amie Souza Reilly @amiesouzareilly.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Yes! And if you need more encouragement (I def do) read this from @cassmannes.bsky.social too:
pinestatepublicity.substack.com
EAGER BEAVERS & BUZZY BUGS
there's no shame in being eager, in fact I want you to be overwhelming.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Thank you Redwood City Library hosting @anitafelicelli.bsky.social & myself for Anita’s darkly dreamy & sharp How We Know Our Time Travelers! Thank u full house audience & @anngelder.bsky.social @ilzeduarte.bsky.social @jayrit.bsky.social Caroline Kim @gracelp.bsky.social @2waystreet.bsky.social!
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WTAW Press @wtawpress.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
TOMORROW Redwood City Public Library hosts @anitafelicelli.bsky.social in conversation with @lillianhowan.bsky.social to discuss and read from Anita's latest short story collection, HOW WE KNOW OUR TIME TRAVELERS. Learn more about How We Know Our Time Travelers here: bit.ly/42LjkIg
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Anita Felicelli @anitafelicelli.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
looking forward to a conversation about HOW WE KNOW OUR TIME TRAVELERS with novelist Lillian Howan on Saturday, February 8 at 3 pm at the Redwood City Public Library (downtown), 1044 Middlefield Rd., Redwood City. swing by and say hi, please!
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Plum blossoms at night.
Slightly blurred photo of bare tree branches with pink plum blossom flowers. The background is a dark blue night sky with some cloud haze and a sprinkling of stars.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
In Conversation with @anitafelicelli.bsky.social re her dazzling HOW WE KNOW OUR TIME TRAVELERS, Sat Feb 8 at 3 pm! Redwood City Public Library, 1044 Middlefield Rd, Redwood City. @wtawpress.bsky.social Join us!
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
let justice roll on like a river
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Inaugural Address of San Francisco’s Poet Laureate Genevieve Lim! Celebrate fabulous, brilliant & compassionate Poet Laureate Genny Lim: Sun Feb 2, 3 pm - 5 pm, Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco!
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Lauren Alwan @laurenalwan.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
An elegiac #flowerreport: reupping a 2023 essay for World Literature Today that includes a remembrance of my grandfather’s garden in Altadena, now gone. www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2023/july/gr...
An excerpt of my essay, A Growing Inclination: “My father’s inclination for growing was passed down from his father, an immigrant from Syria who came to Los Angeles via Brooklyn after retiring from lifelong work as a baker and confectioner. The story goes that in 1950, when my grandfather took a train west to buy a house in Los Angeles, he’d been told that with the mountains and warm weather, southern California was “just like Damascus,” and the house he found, in Altadena, an enclave in the highlands northeast of downtown, reminded him of the houses he’d known in Syria. There were grassy tracks front and back, grape vines, lemon, fig, apricot, and kumquat trees, and a rose garden he tended over the next twenty years of his life. From my time in that house, I grew up knowing you could pluck fresh grape leaves to brine, pick a warm fig or apricot and eat it beneath the tree, and that a warm Los Angeles night carries the scent of jasmine and lemon flowers.” Alongside the excerpt is a closeup of a cluster of peaches in their branches surrounded by green leaves.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Lunar New Year approaches. Flowering quince. #LunarNewYear
Several peach-colored flowers blooming on leafless branches. Many of the flowers are in full bloom, a few are beginning to bloom, and some are buds that have not yet bloomed. A bush of peach-colored flowers blooming on bare branches with flowers only and no leaves yet.
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Ann VOTE EARLY Gelder ❌👑 @anngelder.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
I just came across this (very!) old flash of mine while updating my short story collection. Many things are different now, but I still like this piece. tinhouse.com/the-mother-s...
tinhouse.com
The Mother Satellite - Tin House
It is time again to call my mother. I call her every day at noon. When she picks up today, she sounds great. A little winded, but energized. I can hear her treadmill whirring, her sneakered feet light...
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Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
don’t touch that it’s my emotional support bedside book I like to look at longingly while I scroll on my phone for an hour
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D. Carreira Ching, PhD @mistahdonald.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
For those interested, I'll be teaching fiction at the Oʻahu Writers Retreat on Saturday, 4/26. For more information on the retreat, check out: oahuwritersretreat.com
oahuwritersretreat.com
O‘ahu Writers Retreat at Mokulē‘ia
On O‘ahu's North Shore. All writers and artists welcome.
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lillianhowan.bsky.social @lillianhowan.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
reactivating my account here.
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