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Kelly Heard

@meankellyjean.bsky.social
429 followers 344 following 1.2K posts

novelist - semi feral housewife & mom of 3 - appalachian hiding out in the marshes of virginia’s middle peninsula. I write upmarket women’s fiction but for weird girls. my books: BEFORE YOU GO, THE SILENT GIRL, more.

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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 5h
happy enough with Adelaide’s scissors for now — might add some branches or a word or two (but what?!)— Auntie Whispers’ bell is proving trickier to finish. I’m a little out of practice, since I put my embroidery mostly aside in favor of finishing the manuscript for the last few months
an embroidery hoop featuring a pair of sewing scissors sits next to a book and assorted seashells on a brass platter
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 23h
time for my annual spider lilies after the rain post
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
for any writers, organizers, people who are knowledgeable about events—a friend is planning a book festival, the sort where you set up a table to sell your books to attendees. she has asked me for advice and I just don’t have the expertise. thoughts, advice, ideas welcome 💗 feel free to share.
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Sunday morning, coffee in bed, and my new embroidery project
two small unfinished embroidery hoops, white thread on black fabric; on the left is a pair of stork scissors, on the right Auntie Whispers’ magic bell from Over the Garden Wall (2014)
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
#lithodgepodge Visual art isn’t my talent, but I couldn’t let the day pass without saying how impressed I am with all the art and visuals I’m seeing of your characters. How does it feel to not only be able to invent characters and stories but also to depict them? Such a wealth of talent out here 🙌
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I’m pleased with this draft for now and plan to do a final round of line edits in a week or so. It’s chilly and rainy and I’m going to make a cup of tea and work on some hand embroidery
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thank you Teresa 😭😭😭
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My debut is almost 7 years old! With rights reverting back to me at the end of this month, the book will no longer be available to buy as of 10/30 (in its current form, for now). So if you think you might care to read this story about a grouchy fortune-teller with a heart of gold, now's the time 🌟🌙
bookshop.org
Before You Go: A heartbreaking page turner about love, loss and family
"I was hooked from page one... my heart was broken... So beautifully written... extremely beautiful and emotional!" Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The bond between a mother and daughter is meant to be unbr...
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
answers to this one are a joy to read, well done everybody 💗 since a good deal of my manuscript has higher emotional stakes I enjoyed imagining what it would be like to see my characters on the Great British Bake-Off. the meltdowns and tantrums would be hilarious. #lithodgepodge
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
moonflowers really showing off this year. love a night-blooming flower
large, open moonflower (ipomoea alba) next to a woman’s hand
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Reposted by Kelly Heard
Mike Wiser @drmikewiser.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Remember: Darwin's note of "I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything" was written on Oct 1 (1861). Thus we are free to celebrate Very Poorly And Very Stupid Hatred Day today.
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
#lithodgepodge I’m Kelly, I write upmarket contemporary that usually lands somewhere between women’s fiction (whatever that is) and southern gothic. I like ghosts and trees. I am heavily invested in the pathetic fallacy. I’ve got 4 published novels and working on a 5th (two chapters left in edits!)
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
#5amwritersclub, I have just four chapters left to edit before I’m (almost) done with my manuscript. I will be scarce on here until it’s through because I am so easily distracted but the end to this project may actually, finally be in sight, let’s GO
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
please, distract me before I cause more emotional damage to myself by hyperfixating on finishing chapter 39 *collapses onto fainting sofa* ask me things about writing craft, books, music (or birds, you know I love birds) and I will do my best to answer ask.zyntaks.ca/ask/meankell...
ask.zyntaks.ca
Ask meankellyjean.bsky.social!
Ask meankellyjean.bsky.social a question on BlueAsk!
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I put dishwasher soap in the carpet shampooer and now the living room is just bubbles. I may be a mediocre novelist but I’m also a terrible housekeeper
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
ch38: No girl, no!!!! Go get your man! (I do think the moment when a certain type of hero finally chooses courage lands better when we have to wait for it, but it hurts watching her choose to be a coward when the stakes are what they are)
"I just need a yes or a no," he said. "Don't we
deserve that much?"
What Vale knew about Nick was that he was kind,
even when it cost him dearly. Strong even when nobody was looking. But she could see a future for them, too, one that he was too good to imagine. With time, her chaos and hurt, all the things she could not wash off, would leave watermarks on him that nothing would scrub away.

And maybe Piper had been right. Maybe people were more than patterns. But it wasn't a wager Vale could afford facing a mirror.
"You're right," was all she could say. "You should
go."
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Once at preK dropoff, a mom said “you’re so sweet and kind, I bet you write love stories. Which one should I read first?” 😬 Okay, do you want the love story where the ghost tries to drown her sister in the swamp, or the one with the opium poppies and the talking stained glass window?
static.klipy.com
Disney Princess Ariel's Embarrassed Smile
ALT: Disney Princess Ariel's Embarrassed Smile
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“I can adopt a rescue cat, as a treat? Just one?”—“Yeah sure thing if you stay on task for once in your life until the major plot action concludes”
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
just eight more chapters to edit (okay, some of them need some light rewriting) and I’ll be done with this pass. the feral cat is in quarantine until the last chapter
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
this protagonist is determined to adopt a feral cat
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
several years of bad choices and metaphorical deals with the devil
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I suppose when you get down to it we don’t need to talk about ghosts here in chapter 34. That’s me, killer of darlings. 800 words lighter and moving on
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
turns out if you play Joan Jett loud enough you can just forget you were in a weird mood to begin with
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
do you ever get so tired of feeling like a weathervane all the time that you just go on autopilot for three hours getting all the housework done and then suddenly snap to and find you’re crying into the dishes over all the orphaned subplots? good, me neither
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
a woman’s place, etc
three-year-old child (face obscured) wearing a lilac hoodie with white star print and a silhouette of leia organa with white lettering reading “here comes the general / rise up”
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
tonight is the first night it’s been temperate enough to sleep with the windows open since March. God bless Libra season
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
ch33 is a downer but thankfully it’s mostly fine as is, just needs polishing and a few copy editing tweaks, so I don’t need to spend much time in sadness world) then it’s on to 34 (and 35—I’d like to somehow reshape both of them into one singular chapter)
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
the gorgon at her day job (kidding, I’m working on my Halloween costume)
white woman in a green top, black skirt, & sunglasses wearing a wig made to look like snakes)
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I’m late to this one, but easy answer—the backstory is sadder, harder, etc. She’s a post-ruin type of heroine. We’re emotionally post-apocalyptic. This isn’t even really a love story. It’s a regret story, as in: how will you leverage your regret for good, when it is all you can salvage?
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I deleted a couple of dead-end false start subplots from my first few chapters, rewrote ch7, edited ch33, and then: woke up before 6, made breakfast, got the children off to school, and started the laundry. I may have only slept for four hours but I am extremely pleased with myself
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
today in 1923 an anonymous critic wrote of T S Eliot’s The Wasteland that “he can no longer refuse to recognize the limitations of his medium; he is sometimes walking very near the limits of coherency.” The occasional bad review really is part of the fun
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
i am absolutely inconsolable that i already used the line "go throw your jacket over a puddle for someone else" in my fourth novel because it is perfect for this scene
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
edited through ch32. those noises in the library? not ghosts. there is someone in the house. it’s not what she thinks. the rest of the story is maximum stakes and drama from here on out (maximum stakes in terms of my gentle, southern gothic, deeply-feeling stories) so, I think, the rest will be fun
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
just a former manic pixie dream girl and all-around tempestuous relationship haver, humming “called a problem child cause I got too wild, but now that’s how I’m gettin paid” every time I get a royalties check for my books about modern-day sirens and sailors and real life monsters
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
when I look back at my notes from grad school these days it’s no wonder I didn’t finish the program - my heart was really somewhere else entirely. Not somewhere completely unliterary but certainly not somewhere academic. Anyway, on this date in 2011:
badly drawn sketch of a round little guy labeled Harold Bloom, waving a sign that reads “genius,” wearing a party hat, with a birthday cake and banner on the right
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
is it even a camping trip if you don’t metaphorically limp home swearing you’ll never go camping again
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
you can never have too many dogs or silk scarves at the beach
white woman wearing a black scarf, pink top, and black skirt sits on the sand petting two dogs
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
From a review of THE SILENT GIRL 💗💗
I am partial to Kelly's work for all the qualities in each of her books and this story is no exception. Beautiful lyrical language, gripping storytelling, and characterization that keeps me on the edge of my seat.
I can't start a new book of hers unless I have enough time to binge because I don't want to put it down once I start. What strikes me oddest about this story is how it is advertised vs the story it actually tells. To me, it is more along the lines of Southern Gothic love story and I feel Bookouture missed out on advertising it as such, instead of as a thriller. Regardless, this story is masterfully told and I cannot say enough good things about it. Get a copy!
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
and the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words when across the sky sheet the impossible birds in a steady illiterate movement homewards (from “this side of the blue” by Joanna Newsom)
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
she reads classics. it’s a strange coincidence but her favorite books and poems are all in the public domain and can be quoted in a novel without jumping through any copyright hoops. in my zero draft she toted around a copy of The Virgin Suicides but I felt it was a little heavy-handed
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
ceramic ghostie posed with firewheel blooming on a sand dune ceramic ghost sits in the window of a ferry boat
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I love the #songsofseptember game. So impressed with the level of detail I see in the responses! I wish I had, like, a playlist or something so I could participate. I’m just not that organized, and when it comes to music it’s more a question of what strikes my fancy on any given day
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
i’ll be living in a tent on the beach this week so either mute me now or enjoy this interruption to your usual programming 😘
a ceramic ghost posed next to a sandcastle on the beach, ocean in the background middle-aged white woman wearing a headscarf and a yellow gingham dress smiles from the single of a black excursion
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I’ve often had to tell myself very sternly that extended descriptions of trees, water, sun- or moonlight on water, birds, you get the idea, that those lengthy and plot-irrelevant descriptions have their place and all, but they don’t sell
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Buttons is a delightful prompt and do I ever have the passage for it but I’m sorry I’m trying to keep this account PG-13. I’m not blushing, you’re blushing
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I didn’t know how badly I needed Star Wars dialogue bubble stickers but I guess the world still has things to teach us. They’re all over the house, needless to say
a ceramic ghost with a dialogue bubble sticker reading “I have a very bad feeling about this”vintage he-man radio toy with a dialogue bubble sticker reading “never tell me the odds!”Miniature Russian ikon painting with a dialogue bubble sticker reading “I’d just as soon kiss a wookiee!”painting of women dancing in a circle in a meadow at night with a dialogue bubble sticker reading “try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
maybe my workflow is never going to be steady and predictable maybe I will always have bursts of inspiration followed by a few days of exhaustion maybe it’s just my destiny and I’ve been wasting energy trying to be a different writer than the one I am
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
without saying your age, what is your favorite movie that came out when you were 20 years old? (the way this movie became a part of the emotional lexicon for a certain type of sad girl back then almost defies explanation. I guess you just had to be there)
static.klipy.com
Kate Winslet as Clementine Kruczynski: Excuse Me?
Alt: Kate Winslet as Clementine Kruczynski: Excuse Me?
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Turns out I pasted one chapter into my new document twice over but without a heading so searching the word “chapter” wasn’t finding it 🤡
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Kelly Heard @meankellyjean.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
feeling optimistic that the end is in sight during #5amwritersclub today: ch26 cleaned up easily; nearing the end of act 2; manuscript is at 60k/90k words edited
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