iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 15h

Gavagai's new community question was *quite* effective at getting me to talk. 🤣

Margin Note
What's the scariest horror media (book/movie/tv show) you know of? And what's the first thing you remember scaring you when you were a kid?

Question courtesy of Ben Cassidy @bencassidy

My answer:
1. The super-brief flashes of Buffy's mom's reanimated body in the episode "Body." I still shudder when I think of it!

2. The big man with the huge bushy beard FUCKING WATERBOARDING me when I was 3 years old as part of the Greek Orthodox baptism ceremony, to which I very much had not consented. (The Anabaptists may have been driven extinct, but they definitely had the right idea. RIP, you beautiful medieval punks.)

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 05/10/2026

Excited about this week's project — never tackled this SFF subgenre before. :)

A screenshot of my Google Doc screen. It's saving a story titled "draft-1 - Swashbuckling story"

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 05/10/2026

The first review is here, woot! :) megandiedericks.wixsite.com/writer/post/...

There were some underlying themes that stood out to me: what a person will do to survive, what a person will do to get their freedom—the story you read isn't the full picture in Have Hands, Will Hench (which is what makes me love it so much!)

Quotes I thought were neat:

• "I cross the remaining distance to the gigantic machine that looks like the ugliest child of a dumpster and a woodchipper that loved each other very much."

• "But I was never what you might call wise."

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 04/10/2026

Beauty is everywhere for those who care to look. :) Took that picture just now at a nearby road construction site.

19 long copper pipes in 5 rows, stacked on the ground, with the morning sunlight shining through them, making them seem magical...

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 04/10/2026

As usual, for balance and accountability, here are the rejections I received since my previous acceptance. 🙃🙂

Rejections since September 28:
The Masters Review (10 week R.)
Betascape (7-week R.)
Heartlines Spec: 19-day R.
Villainess Press: 10-week R.
Radon: 4-week R.
Fabula Argentea: 4-week R.
Orion's Belt: 1-month R.
Otherside: 3-day R.
night shades: 25-day R.
Neon&Smoke: 3-day R (personalized).

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

Huzzah! My Pratchett hoard has just gone up by one. :) Found this well-used and well-loved copy of "Thief of Time" for just $1 at a remarkably cool Goodwill. (I expect my collection will skyrocket when I go to Dublin for their Worldcon in a few years haha)

me holding a very used paperback of Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time" with the Goodwill sticker still on it.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

I like setting up small funny arrangements in thrift stores, even if nobody else ever notices them. 🙃

A very long, black-and-red orange toy gun barrel, with a smiling toy dog at the far end, about to pull the trigger.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

Corrected headline. 🖍🧐 "Princess Beatrice's friend Alice Naylor-Leyland (left) is attacked by rogue owl (right) during chaotic photoshoot."

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

Release Day!! 🥳 My first-ever novelette, "Have Hands, Will Hench," is out with foofaraw! It's a tale from the POV of an indebted henchman. A fable of a mad supervillain boss. A tragedy of unaffordable healthcare... 🥲 Buy it here or wherever you get your books! 😌 foofaraw.press/have-hands-w...

Synopsis screenshot:
"In a world... ravaged by global warming and wars, Banana Brian is forced to take a job as a supervillain's henchman to pay off his student loans. In order to survive, Brian must find a way to pay off his giant debt, avoid kleptomaniac henchmen, find shortcuts to freedom, and avoid getting killed by rampaging amoral superheroes, the supervillain's brutal enforcers, and a nasty infection he got from a cut..."

Cover for "Have Hands, Will Hench" by Lily Lachance. A bearded man with a red wristband looks into his reflection in a cup of coffee, with a banana lying nearby.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

:( *crumples up and throws away her preachy, didactic, second-person POV fanfic about a BDSM club for werewolves, zombies, and vampires that features total erotica, some gimmicks, and not a lotta narrative*

Screenshot:
"Although we will consider all types of SF, second person is a very tough sell, as are stories that are preachy and didactic in nature. We’re not the place for fanfiction, fetishistic torture-porn, or total erotica (more stuff on that below). We don’t take well to gimmicky stories that lack a narrative, and as for yarns about werewolves, zombies, vampires… don’t even get us started. Seriously. It won’t end well."

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/10/2026

$Discord screenshot. Question: "How do you do it all Tell me your secrets" Answer (by me): I have no life. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The only thing my enemies (so many, many enemies) need to do in order to truly sabotage me is find me a loving, *faithful* 🤔 partner. Maybe a puppy, too.$

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 28/09/2026

As usual, in the interest of full transparency, here are the rejections I've received since my previous sale. 🙃

Rejections since September 21:
Biome: 1-day R (personalized).
Edge&Busby: 4-week R.
After Dinner Conversation: 9-day R (personalized).
trampset: 2-day R (personalized).
Chestnut Review: 12-day R.
IDEaS fiction contest: 8-month R.
Clarkssworld: 4-day R.
Split Lip Magazine: 3-week R.
Biome: 2-day R (personalized).
Trollbreath: 4-day R.
Dickinson Publishing Group: 5-day R.
Space Ace: 2.5-month R.
Interzone: 6-day R.
Biome: 2-day R (personalized).
Toronto Journal: 6-month R.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 27/09/2026

I'm not really into modern art, but wow, this poem... This poem shook my heart and changed my whole worldview. 🥹

An inscription on a metal sign. It reads:

AC 110-120V
MAX 14.5 AMPS
MAX 1740 W
WET LOCATION ONLY
WHEN COVER CLOSED
EMPLACEMENT HUMIDE SEULEMENT
LOURSQUE LE COUVERCLE EST FERME

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 27/09/2026

Today in the "Feral Authors" discourse. 🫠 www.reddit.com/r/writers/s/...

Reddit post:

New Barnes & Noble rules part 2

I posted a month or so ago that Barnes & Noble has new rules for book signings because of some incidents.

Well I just talked to a Barnes & Noble manager I never met before from back east, and she said whatever we thought was going on, it's a whole lot worse:

Book signing tables are no longer near the front door, because there were some authors who were getting up from that table and FOLLOWING THE CUSTOMERS AROUND saying "please please buy it."

In these similar incidents, the customers would take the book just to get the author to go away, at which point the customer would put the book on a random shelf and then bug out.

The author would think it counted as a sale, causing some arguments at the end of the day when it was time for payout.

(Because you know, the book was just sitting on a shelf somewhere, never to be found again until next time they did a store wide inventory.)

And this manager said some authors were simply driving Barnes & Noble crazy with ceaseless phone calls that days towards the event. Making sure the table is ready, making sure the timeline was ready.

Not just once or twice, but over and over and over.

I'm listening to some of these stories just with mouth agape, thinking how many screws loose do these authors have?

And of course, how those of us who are perfectly emotionally balanced in every way are now averaged against the lowest common denominator like this.

So everyone I guess before you do a book signing, tighten your screws.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 26/09/2026

*catches the slightest whiff of leather conditioner* *jumps to the side, barely avoiding the bullwhip* *lands like a cat, holding two expandable batons* "Kinky Shario... I knew we'd meet again." They smirk, pacing toward me. "Subject 119B. I've spent nineteen years searching the world for you."

A security camera with two signs that say "119B" and "Kinkisharyo 2007"

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 26/09/2026

Heat exhaustion has many subtle signs, such as wondering for quite a bit how one would call a baby. 🤣

Street sign says, "2 beds/2 baths, Call Gaby for info" — but the G looks like a B in Baby.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 25/09/2026

Me contributing actionable feedback to Google Docs developers, like a good and conscientious netizen. ☺️

Screenshot of a truly stupid Google Docs autocorrect suggestion: it wants to change "the before-days" to "the days before-days"

My detailed feedback: "Your "AI" autoslop output is bad, and you should feel bad."

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 22/09/2026

And as usual, in the interest of balance, here are the rejections I'd received since my previous story sale on September 11th:

Rejections since September 11:
Biome: 1-day R (personalized)
Smokelong Quarterly: 2-week R.
Interzone: 6-day R.
After Dinner Conversation: 3-week R.
Broad Ripple Review: 1-month R.
Ninth Letter: 2-week R.
The Temz Review: 3-month R.
The Rumpus: 8-day R.
Biome: 3-day R (personalized).
Et Sequitur: 4-day R.
death kit: 7-week R.
Biome: 2-day R (personalized).
Biome: same-day R (personalized).
Rotting Leaf: 18-day R.
Escape Pod: 18-day R.
Biome: 2-day R (personalized).
Chestnut: 10-day R.
Biome: 1-day R (personalized).
Cult magazine: 6-week R.
Consequence Forum: 10-week R.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 21/09/2026

Accidentally took a somewhat artsy picture while fumbling with my camera. 🙃

A blue-tinted photo of a plastic bath foam container against a mirror, with infinite recursion.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 19/09/2026

Unexpected art on a random bus in Phoenix. :) This is simple and goofy, yet it touched me more than anything I saw in New York's Museum of Modern Art.

On the back of a black styrofoam divider on a bus, there are three small sparkly hearts that somebody had attached - perhaps yesterday, perhaps a millennium ago. They are pink-white-pink, and sparkly, and beautiful. The white heart has an almost-faded ink inscription that says "Sam."

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 18/09/2026

Scottsdale, Arizona. Very strong "Welcome to Night Vale" vibes. 🙃 (The big cactus is just outside the frame.)

A big white building that says, "CACTUS PARK AQUATIC & FITNESS CENTER"

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 17/09/2026

A sneak peek at the rough sketch for the cover art for my first-ever novelette! 🥳 It'll be published through @foofarawpress.bsky.social — look for it at an online bookstore near you on October 1st! :)

A black&white drawing of a man looking in his reflection in a cup of coffee, with a banana and a bowl of soup in front of him.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 16/09/2026

Earlier this year, I sold my first-ever poem. 🥳 It came from a dark thought experiment... What would humanity's anthem be like if today's billionaires had a warp drive? 👀 "To the Stars!" is my cynical answer. And hey, if you have a vacant slot for a speculative poem for the awards season... 😉

To the Stars!

by Lily Lachance

Onward, upward, and to the stars!
Leave behind our decrepit home,
So polluted and trashed and bleak,
Hardly worth cleaning up at all.

To the stars! To the grand frontier!
Stake your claim, plant a flag, live big,
Raise a homestead and then lean back
As your robots do all the work.

To the stars! To the brave new world!
Meet the aliens, earn their trust,
Seize their land, drain their lakes, go hard,
Kick their teeth in if they object.

To the stars! Where your freedom rings!
Join our ranks even if you're poor
With this simple repayment plan
And a contract you needn't read.

To the stars! Where our fate awaits!
Holy scriptures foretold this day,
When we'll take what is ours by right,
Spread forever amid the black.

To the stars! To the endless growth!
To be legends and live like gods
With these words as our guiding light:
We're humans, and we'll prevail.

(copyright 2026 all rights reserved)

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 15/09/2026

And now, a word from our sky reporter: "It's so fluffy! 😍"

A very big, very fluffy white cloud at sunset.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 14/09/2026

"We've planted our flag on the oddly spherical asteroid, expanding Her Majesty's dominion over the galaxy. There is no revelry among my men, however. They spread strange rumors about a giantess, She Who Devours. What nonsense." (from the diary of Captain Ülric Aalberg, Starship Captain First Class)

A lone Swedish flag laying claim on one meatball in particular on a platr full of food.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 12/09/2026

Some Napoleon quotes from my personal collection... He fascinates me. He was basically a stranded time traveler (though his approach to slavery was horrific 😱) — a brilliant administrator, reformer, organizer... Our current higher education system is based on his design. I wish he had a podcast. 🤣

A screenshot of a note-taking app. It reads:
"There is a joy in danger."
("Il y a une joie dans le danger.")
Napoleon Bonaparte

"The only conquests that are permanent and without regrets are our conquests over ourselves."
("Les seules conquêtes qui soient permanentes et sans regrets sont nos conquêtes sur nous-mêmes.")
Napoleon Bonaparte

"If few men have the moral force to resist impulses, most men do carry within themselves the germs of virtues as well as of vices, of heroism as well as of cowardice. Such is human nature — education and circumstances do the rest."
Napoleon Bonaparte

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 10/09/2026

A really cool anthology featuring one of my stories will get released soon 😀 so of course I took that opportunity to update my author bio. 😉

Lily Lachance (she/her) is a trans woman, immigrant, award-winning filmmaker, author, poet, nomad, and adventurer based in Montreal. She's been published in the Antifa Lit Journal, Gavagai, and multiple anthologies. She enjoys bakeries, museums, stealing energy drinks from babies, and hiking from Mexico to Canada. Her blog is the same as her Bluesky handle: lilylachance.com

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 09/09/2026

Behold the age of cyber-miracles, where even mythical creatures can go to a coding school! 💻🐦‍🔥

A large sign on a white building. It says, "PHOENIX CODING ACADEMY"

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 09/09/2026

The scandalous sunset sky whispered its secrets...

Remarkably vivid bright-purple stratiated clouds against the fading blue sky.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 06/09/2026

I believe birds should be allowed to go on strike.

meme painting: man stands up to speak his truth at a public meeting.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 06/09/2026

And because I'm a firm believer in full disclosure, here are all the rejections I'd received since my previous short story sale, which was, um, 3 days ago. 🤣

Rejections since September 2:
Radon: 6-day R.
Bround Hound Press: 2-day R.
The Han Bandon Review: 1-day R.
manywor(l)ds: 4-day R.
Exquisite Undead anthology: 3-week R.
Fabula Argentea: 4-week R, personalized.
The Daily Tomorrow: 2-month R.
Waxen: presumed 6-month R.
Interzone: 3-day R.
Biome: 1-day R.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 05/09/2026

Babe, wake up! A new retirement plan just dropped! :)

A picture of a camouflage-coloured pokeball. The caption says, "I was caught in a safari ball. *rattles cage* "

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 04/09/2026

I call this piece... "Environmental Storytelling." 😌

A brick of Swiss cheese with bite marks in it.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/09/2026

Behold the book loot I got at Worldcon! 😍 (And that was me exercising considerable self-restraint hahaha)

A bunch of books and magazines laid out on the floor. They include Analog/Asimov, 2 novels each by Frank Herbert and Spider Robinson, the giant A.R.C. graphic novel, Octavia Butler's Imago, and more. :)

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 03/09/2026

Oh hey, nice AI pic on your landing page. And the best part? You clowns actually titled the image file "ai-generated-IMAGE.jpg" (your capital letters, not mine) What's the matter, couldn't find a public domain picture of a library anywhere?.. Here's the pic: static.wixstatic.com/media/6cabe4...

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 02/09/2026

And because I believe in transparency: here are all the rejections I'd received since my previous sale while awaiting this new one. 🙃

Screenshot of a note-taking app.

Rejections since 8/17:
nachtljocht: 1-month R.
Cryptic Frog Quarterly: 2-month R.
Dodo Eraser: 1-day R x3.
trampset: 3-day R x3.
Liminal Tales: 1-month R.
Fraidy Cat Quarterly: 5-month R.
Fahmidan: 3-week R.
Tales to Terrify: 2-month R.
Die Laughing: 7-week R.
Space & Time: 3-week R (personalized).
4 L P H 4 N U M 3 R 1 C: 3-week R.
After Dinner Conversation: 6-week R (personalized).
Crooked Spine: 1-week R (personalized).
StarShipSofa: 5-week R.
Small Wonders: 5-week reprint R.
Radon: 5-day R.
Whim&Wander: 4-week R.
PodCastle: 4.5-month R (personalized).
Asimov's: 18-day R.
Smokelong Quarterly: 1-week R.
Isele Quarterly: 2-month R.
Weird Lit Magazine: 3-week R x3.
Mudroom: 2-month R.
Rat Bag Lit: 1-month R (personalized).
Baneberry Lit: 3-month R.
Cosmic Horror Monthly: 2-month R.
Eggplant Emoji Lit: 4-month R.
Clarkesworld: 2-day R.
Haven Spec: 5-week R.
StarShipSofa: 1-week reprint R.
Liars' League: 2-week R.

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Lily Lachance 🏳️‍⚧️🚀✍️ @lilylachance.com · 02/09/2026

Good news: the ancient prophecy is true! Arizona Iced Tea does, in fact, cost only 99 cents in Arizona. Bad news: each can has 59 grams of sugar. 😱

A shelf with two types of Arizona Iced Tea: raspberry and ginseng/honey. Both cost 99 cents per can.

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