iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michelle A. Chikaonda

Ash⁷ @arajellybean.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

We ain't gonna come save you from your mess. Sorry, America. (Also you realize that is just a different way of demanding we do what you want, which...we don't want to do?)

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.

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Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 26/08/2026

Just saw Facebook antivaxxers speculating that 80-year-old Dolly Parton’s death was hastened by the COVID vaccine she helped fund the development of and received—half a decade ago—and am thinking about how the past decade spent catering to these people has been nothing but a waste of time.

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Kendra, spooky version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Tim Curry and Dolly Parton have taught us not only that you should be bigger, weirder, gayer, and freakier, but also that those qualities are what people will love about you. The things that make you strange and amazing are the things that will resonate with other strange and amazing people

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Toss @stevenspoints.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I really cannot think of a greater honor than to have the Muppets say this about you upon your passing

Instagram post from the official Muppets account: Few humans have earned the title of honorary Muppet more than the legendary Tim Curry. As a performer he was unparalleled - witty, charming, unnerving, and deeply funny. We will always consider it one of our greatest treasures to have been part of Long John Silver’s crew. Thank you for everything, Tim.

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

None of this shit is worth our lives.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Casual reminder that the myth of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is a cruel hoax designed to convince poor people from all walks of life that the injustices they face are a result of their own actions, rather than an oppressive system rigged against them.

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emma burnett @slashnburnett.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

It's the day after the day before, and Ex Partum is wild and free. I'm wrung out and will now embark on a month of snooze. If you haven't yet got a copy, but you're dying to know what Panya is doing, you can order now direct to your device or your doorstep: emmaburnett.carrd.co #booksky 📚🪐 #scifi

Pale yellow box superimposed on an image of glass and wood walkways. The text on top reads: Panya! What the everloving fuck are you doing?

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emma burnett @slashnburnett.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Ex Partum is officially out TODAY! Which is exciting enough. But also, @boriscrito.bsky.social says it's intense and flows kinetic (and we all know he does the MOST GRIPPING stories). You can get your book now through any local or online retailer! emmaburnett.carrd.co #booksky 🪐📚

Pale yellow box superimposed on an image of glass and wood walkways. The text on top reads:
Ex Partum is a near-present science fiction novella that charts an unsettling course for the future, a quiet dystopia that emma burnett sketches with suffocating intensity. In prose that favors gripping immediacy and kinetic flow, burnett tells a story of the future that is so believable that it feels, at times, mundane, rather than extraordinary - a masterful sleight of hand to bring this future closer to the present.
—E.G. Condé, author of Sordidez

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Atthis Arts @atthisarts.com · 06/05/2026

We usually aren't mentioned in the indie novella discourse, but we'd really love the community to see our work, because reviewers sure are. Here are three for 2026. Do they have your eye? Please let people know. Boosts always so appreciated. ❤️

Hornytown Chutzpah knows exactly when to hit the comedy beats and when to become more serious. And it knows when to hit you in the heart and soul. - Paul Weimer, Multi Hugo Award winning genre writer

Ex Partum is *Phenomenal*. Couldn't put it down. Neither words nor scenes are wasted in this tight, touching narrative. The world she's created is so close we can hear its breath—and that is this story's frightening, compelling beauty. —Michelle A. Chikaonda, award-winning writer; image shows surreal depiction of a repetitive interior. Ex Partum by emma burnett, sci-fi novella, coming June 2026, Atthis Arts, Detroit Michigan

Over deep sea illustraion by Matthew Spencer, text: Nobody writes solarpunk like Clara Ward. Dream the Deep is a shimmering, geeky delight of a story about the profound connections between humans and our ecosystems, as well as the promise of the unknown. —Annalee Newitz, bestselling author of Automatic Noodle and The Terraformers, Dream the Deep by Clara Ward, 30 June 2026, Atthis Arts, Detroit, Michigan

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SeaTea @tierno158.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I just did some quick math. I should be able to complete all the Substack articles I've signed up for by my 287th birthday.

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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

If I grow up I want to write this well www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/b...

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Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Monthly reminder: Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.

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Michelle A. Chikaonda @machikaonda.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

I got to read @slashnburnett.bsky.social 's novella, Ex Partum, this winter. *Phenomenal.* Couldn't put it down. Neither words nor scenes are wasted in this tight, touching narrative. The world she's created is so close we can hear its breath—and that is this story's frightening, compelling beauty.

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Dan Diffendale @diffendale.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Messaging 200 MB Word processor 150 MB Background processes 800 MB Open browser tabs 3600 MB Music player 150 MB someone who is good at the computer please help me budget this. my laptop is dying

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Morgan Jerkins @mjerkins.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

If we ever go to a formal dinner and shots are fired, I don't care if we have on make-up and gowns, get in the car, bitch. We're going to Popeye's

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Mega👻Thee🎃Tron @valarmordollars.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

To the point where folks will present you with triggering stuff just so they can experience your anger.

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Sarah Spain ✨ @sarahspain.com · 31/03/2026

Why are PROFESSIONAL WRITERS using AI to write? C’moooon. This is your job — your alleged expertise! — and you’d rather take a word salad cooked up by every dumbass on the internet?

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kelly jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

One of the few outlets still talking about books can't even get a writer who gives one solitary fuck about doing their own work. There are thousands of excellent, skilled reviewers who'd do anything for this opportunity. But sure, okay. Fuck AI. Fuck the plagiarism machine.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

That line drives me absolutely BONKERS. It’s up there with the canard that “racism isn’t profitable!” Money is a consolation prize for not having total power. It is actually very rational to pursue that power at the expense of profit.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

The new thing is landlords using ai photos for their property listings. Totally legal. Total scam. The whole economy is oil and scams.

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k’eguro @keguro.blacksky.app · 21/03/2026

Remember: Octavia Butler wrote we should save seeds to plant, pick up skills like sewing and carpentry, learn how to shoot guns, practice how to fight, and create the futures we need, even as we look to the stars.

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Zoe The Tsitsa @zoethetsitsa.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Here I am with another art tip no one asked for. Know when to stop! I get it. You want your art to be beautiful. Already beautiful? More beautiful! But! There's a point when your work is exactly where it needs to be. Put down the damn brush or pen when it's time. Do not risk ruining sth perfect.

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Ashley C. Ford @smashfizzle.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

The people with the most money-fueled power have always been envious of what can’t be bought, and sought to diminish and destroy it.

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Nichole @tnwhiskeywoman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Gonna hold on to this croissant metaphor for the rest of my creative life

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emma burnett @slashnburnett.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I sometimes think about all the work I could get done if I only just did it.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 13/03/2026

fundamentally a big part of growing up is realizing there’s nothing special about being an asshole it doesn’t make you superior, it just makes people not want to spend time around you because you suck

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emma burnett @slashnburnett.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

A little overwhelmed to see ‘25 Peppercorns’ on the BSFA’s Best Short Fiction shortlist. I cried for three days when this story came out. It meant so much to me to be able to give life to these feelings, and I’m grateful to all the readers who voted for it.

White and blue (link) text on a black background, in a grid. The text reads:

Title Author Publisher Link

One Step at a Time
Rick Danforth Vivid Worlds (Slab Press)

The Life and Times of Alavira the Great as Written by Titos Pavlou and Reviewed by Two Lifelong Friends
Eugenia Triantafyllou Uncanny Magazine

25 Peppercorns Emma Burnett Mythaxis

Of Seagrass Fins and Slippery Fingers A. J. Van Belle Augur Society

Godzilla as a Young Man Named Mike E.M Faulds Podcastle (Escape Artists)

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🎃 Matthew Jack-o'-lantern 🎃 @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Me: I love books. I will never stop buying them. I will die buried beneath them like a cairn. Me while packing: whose shitass idea was this?

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

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Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

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Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Smart people have already written about the many problems of generative AI better than I could, but I’ll tell you this about the thing I know: writing is about writing. It’s an action. A verb. It’s what we do. I write, you write, they write. Skip that and you’re not a writer.

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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 09/02/2026

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

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Mark Bould @markbould.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Just had to send another of those replies to a request for peer review: "The book sounds interesting, but I’m afraid I don’t exchange my labour for free e-books. The amounts paid in cash for such work are pitiable enough.” sigh

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Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

the Post news is gutting for many reasons, but I can’t help focusing on the books section—how great it was, and how essential. So many worthy books barely get reviewed. I’ve had authors reach out to thank me because mine was the only post-pub coverage they got. Just awful for readers & for writers.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 04/02/2026

U-Haul Unveils Live-In Trucks To Sleep In While You Sort Some Shit Out theonion.com/u-haul-unveils-live-in…

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🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 30/01/2026

Bondi directed federal agents to arrest four journalists. Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, Jamael Lundy, and Trahern Crews. All Black. All doing their jobs.

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Novelty Cistern @noveltycistern.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

hey Mom can you come pick me up. yeah everyone on the niche microblogging website is arguing about who has the correct emotional posture to the unknowable future again

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Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

We all need an occasional reminder, so listen up. Write that book. Send that story. Query that agent. Ask for that blurb. Maybe it doesn’t work out, but there’s a chance it will, and that chance—however small you think it is—is all you need.

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𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐤𝐨 & 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧 @quietblkgrl.blacksky.app · 12/01/2026

I want us to not want white validation for Black art because while it looks nice to have the amount of times I’ve written something that a white person didn’t understand just for a Black person to pull me to the side and tell me how much they loved or needed it.

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Ashley C. Ford @smashfizzle.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Our government functions like a rich nuclear family with an abusive dad. You don’t even have to look too deeply to see it. It’s After-School Special shit.

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Tina Smith @smith.senate.gov · 08/01/2026

We cannot be more clear. Leave us the fuck alone.

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

…it should break your heart to kill.

Sadiq
by Brian Turner

It should make you shake and sweat, nightmare you, strand you in a desert of irrevocable desolation, the consequences seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline feeds the muscle its courage, no matter what god shines down on you, no matter what crackling pain and anger you carry in your fists, my friend, it should break your heart to kill.

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Hang in there, y’all.

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.

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Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 04/01/2026

This man don’t miss.

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Despite what we are often told, this line from Mamdani’s inauguration speech is what true pragmatism actually looks like: “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”

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