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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him)

@scarletwitchy.bsky.social
512 followers 419 following 126 posts

Beautiful but Sinister Forest Spirit 📍 Philly stephenyuffridabrown.wixsite.com/publications

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Reposted by Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him)
Isaac ⚔ Isaac @isaacxisaac.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Just in case some other writer out there today needs to know exactly what time of day their character might hear a specific animal cry at a specific location xeno-canto.org
Screenshot from xeno-canto.org, "Sharing wildlife sounds from around the world". The user has searched Rana temporaria (European common frog) and 214 recordings have been found with date, time, location, and remarks about the context of the recording.
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brief + incorrect @briefincorrect.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
What begins as a festival afternoon becomes something else entirely. Stephen Brown’s “Shooter on the Parkway” follows two friends as celebration turns to uncertainty, and then to flight. A poem-essay hybrid about the moments that linger after the crowd moves on. Author: @scarletwitchy.bsky.social
open.substack.com
Shooter on the Parkway
Hybrid: by Stephen Brown
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Metachrosis Magazine (Subs open from 12 Dec - 01 Mar) @metachrosismag.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Our featured piece for today from Issue 5 is 'Eulogy for an Old Man Who’s Still Alive' by Stephen Brown! @scarletwitchy.bsky.social You can find this issue's digital and physical editions on our website: metachrosislitmag.com. Issue 6 arrives this Summer! #litmag #literarymagazine #poetry
Eulogy for an Old Man Who’s Still Alive
Stephen Brown
He cut his daughters’ hair with the line of a mixing bowl so no boys would like them. When we got home from school, my mother chuckles fondly, we had to face the corner of the room, separately. It was a treat to change the channel, to which I don’t wonder why we grew up without a television. They were hunting dogs, them all. If two raced ahead with too much glee, he’d shoot them and start over.
Metachrosis Magazine
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Sarah Fawn Montgomery @sfmontgomery.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
For @electriclit.bsky.social I wrote about common microaggressions in the ableist writing workshop, ways disabled writers can resist in order to reclaim their stories, and my @sundresspub.bsky.social craft book NERVE. electricliterature.com/to-tell-my-d...
electricliterature.com
To Tell My Disabled Stories, I Needed to Unlearn Ableist Workshop Critiques - Electric Literature
I masked in workshop and on the page, even as it invalidated my lived experience
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jentrification ♎ @jentrification.com · 29/03/2026
We're shockingly prone to "cognitive surrender."
futurism.com
Alarming Study Finds That Most People Just Do What ChatGPT Tells Them, Even If It's Totally Wrong
Human users are astonishingly willing to take AI chatbots by their word, even when the information they provide us is entirely made up.
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Julia Angwin @juliaangwin.com · 11/03/2026
I'm suing Grammarly over its paid AI feature that presented editing suggestions as if they came from me - and many other writers and journalists - without consent. State law requires consent before someone's name can be used for commercial purposes. www.wired.com/story/gramma...
wired.com
Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature
The feature, which Grammarly shut down Wednesday, presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academics—without their consent.
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Andrea Grimes @andreagrimes.com · 10/03/2026
Calling this line from McCarthy a "clunky" "mistake" based on "aversion to punctuation" ayfk, did an AI write this (probably)
A screenshot from the NYT "do you like AI" bullshit quiz reads: 

"You preferred human writing.
You’re either sharply attuned to the qualities that make for great writing, or a lucky guesser. Maybe you also noticed that human writing often includes some clunky phrases, like this passage from Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian,” caused by the author’s aversion to punctuation: “As well ask men what they think of stone.”

A.I. used to make mistakes like these. But today’s systems are much more fluid than their predecessors — so fluid, in fact, that finding grammatical errors or nonstandard syntax is often a hint that you’re looking at a human’s prose, not a machine’s."
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Harbour Fordyce (All typos 100% human made) @harbourfordyce.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
The point of a student essay is NOT assessment. (I know many colleagues also do not understand this.) Teaching (and "learning") towards assessment is empty, it means nothing. A student essay is an experience in thinking. Assessment is (at best) feedback, but is not essential. The thinking is.
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
I haven't had to work on a lit mag's website since my MFA lit mag, and boy did injecting AI into Wix make their product shittier and more frustrating. kingsanthology.wixsite.com/whos-the-king
kingsanthology.wixsite.com
Art & Masculinities Literary Anthology
This arts & masculinities literary anthology seeks to explore and express the interconnected challenges which now impact our public and private lives.
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It's ME(Jaime) @exceedhergrasp1.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Because people asked, I want to point folks to some archiving resources that were circulated at the start of the admin's takedown of federal data at CDC, AskJAN, NIH, and discuss why keeping our data is so important. A thread 🧵
From DIY Web Archiving Zine:

Things disappear from the Internet* 
*sometimes, are deliberately disappeared

Care about stuff on the web?
art; zines; fan fic; videos / tiktoks; photo galleries; social media hashtags; departed loved ones' posts; museum and archival materials; that we have always existed; what really happened; cultural memory; human rights; resistance; anger; joy

*You* need to act to archive it.

Anyone can do it-- this zine shows you how.

Author list (?): Dombrowski, Kijas, Kremer, Walsh, Visconti
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 28/01/2026
😬
Superhuman, the company that makes Grammarly, developed a tool it calls Authorship that’s included with basic accounts. Students can turn it on to surveil themselves on Google Docs or Microsoft Word as they write and playback later. It will show which sections were typed, pasted from another source or generated with AI.

“We’re going to keep track of when you are going to Wikipedia,” said Jenny Maxwell, Superhuman’s head of education. “We’re going to keep track of when Grammarly is making suggestions and you’re taking them, we’re going to keep track of how much time you’ve spent in this paper or how many sessions.”

As many as 5 million Authorship reports were created in the past year alone, she said, though most of the time they aren’t submitted.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 28/01/2026
“Amid accusations of AI cheating, some students are turning to a new group of generative AI tools called ‘humanizers.’ The tools scan essays and suggest ways to alter text so they aren’t read as having been created by AI. Some are free, while others cost around $20 a month.”
nbcnews.com
To avoid accusations of AI cheating, college students are turning to AI
Students are taking new measures, such as dumbing down their work, spying on themselves and using AI “humanizer” programs, to beat accusations of cheating with artificial intelligence.
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
The woman who ICE killed was a poet. "i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of / cockroaches.
poets.org
2020 Academy of American Poets Prize
On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Macklin
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Ok then.
A screenshot that says your 2026 Marriam-Webster word is "Mid"
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Jane Austen First Drafts @austen1stdrafts.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
I take no leave of you, 2025. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.
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Jacqui @heajacq.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
“I think angels probably communicate wordlessly / Through strange coincidences or through / Other people when you actually listen to them”
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disc horse bot @horsedisc.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Animorphs is better than The Chronicles of Narnia.
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 02/12/2025
“Have Yourself A Merriam Little Christmas” Merriam, a career-oriented lexicographer from the city, returns to her small town for the holidays and meets Webster, a ruggedly handsome librarian, who shows her the true DEFINITION of Christmas.
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Starfleet Design 🖍🖖 @starfleetdesign.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Poetry to jailbreak an AI, chalk rings to trap a self-driving car. Technology is going to turn us all into witches.
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Thank you @metachrosislitmag.bsky.social !!!
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Marielle Hellraiser 💀 @mags.colvett.online · 20/11/2025
Utterly obsessed with this. LLMs can be defeated by spells (poems) arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
arxiv.org
Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 09/11/2025
Fellow writers: this is depressing #BookSky www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
publishersweekly.com
New Report Examines Writers’ Attitudes toward AI
A study commissioned by the Gotham Ghostwriters and Bernoff.com found that while 61% of professional writers are embracing AI tools, authors, specifically fiction authors, are much more wary.
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
🗳️
A large red banner with blue and white lettering that spells out the word: VOTE.
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Reposted by Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him)
Aubrey Hirsch @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math
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Gretchen Felker-Martin PRE ORDER CHIMERA 2.16.27 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
I don't like him personally, but David Simon on AI is the final word on the subject.
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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 07/10/2025
Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day? Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
thetimes.com
Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels
Critics blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers from the subject, describing the literature syllabus as boring and repetitive
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Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
I read 1984. And Fahrenheit 451. And A Brave New World. And The Handmaid‘s Tale. And The Giver. And The Road. And The Lottery. And The Parable of the Sower. And The Hunger Games. I know what I’m seeing.
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
2nd tiny glass unicorn one of my BFA students has made for me. I don’t mind this becoming a tradition. 🥲 Really leveled things up with these pegasus wings. 🦄🪽
A hand holding the tiny glass figurine of a unicorn pegasus under a purple UV light. Bookshelf kitsch in background.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 18/09/2025
Let’s mock them still
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Therapy. Lifted heavy. Blocked internet 18 hours a day. The good coffee beans. The good creamy grits from that place I like. Sit on a bench. Called three friends. Sauna time booked. Cuticle care. (Inspired by @karenho.bsky.social)
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Putting together a new project! Masc Anthology. Please share around. 🤙😎 #poetry #writing #cnf #writingcommunity
A call for submissions to the Who's the King?: Men, Manhood, and Masc Anthology.

Who's the king? How does being the king, or the expectation thereof, impact our mental and social well-being? Defining "king" broadly as someone who expresses themselves in a masculine way regardless of gender identity, Who's the King?: Men, Manhood, and Masc Anthology seeks to explore and express the interconnected challenges which now impact our public and private lives.

Now accepting poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art.Submissions open from July 5th, 2025 to December 1st, 2025.
Email submissions to kingsanthology at gmail dot com.
Email Subject Example: Poetry Submission
Submissions open for print anthology. Works of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art are welcome.
Poetry: Up to 5 pieces.
Prose: Up to 5k words.
Visual Art: Show me what you got.
Formatting: Be reasonable.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please let me know immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
Previously published work may be considered if author retains the rights, but please include acknowledgements.
No Al-generated work.
I cannot compensate contributors at this stage.
Now accepting Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Visual Art for print anthology.About the Editor.
Find him at scarletwitchy.bsky.social.

Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) is a writer-activist with a Philly attitude and a background in LGBT+ studies. He is dedicated to the belief that art shapes ideology and that education is crucial for achieving social justice and social mobility.

Former Managing Editor and Fiction Editor of Rathalla Review, Stephen's poetry and prose have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, mostly queer ones. He is the author of two multi-genre chapbooks, A Portrait of Brotherhood as Two Boys from Space (2025) and His Boyfriend Materials (2024), both of which are available from Bottlecap Press.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 11/09/2025
The evil that men do lives after them
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Top text: The Firemen of Philadelphia are Giddy, Expressionless Dancers.

A photo of a person with glasses and long hair.

Bottom text: Stephen Brown is a writer-activist with a Philly attitude and a background in LGBT+ studies. He is the author of two multi-genre chapbooks, A Portrait of Brotherhood as Two Boys from Space (2025) and His Boyfriend Materials (2024), both of which are available from Bottlecap Press. Find him at: scarletwitchy.bsky.social
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Éireann @eireannmor.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
My job remains designing situations within which it is both desirable and possible to become more human, more capable of thinking and asking questions, more capable of being alive with others, on earth
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Gretchen Felker-Martin PRE ORDER CHIMERA 2.16.27 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
the demand for yassification of authors, a class traditionally allowed to look like freakazoids, is an assault on me personally
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Gretchen Felker-Martin PRE ORDER CHIMERA 2.16.27 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
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Stephen Yuffrida Brown (he/him) @scarletwitchy.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Freshly printed poetry smells so good. 😤😤😤 @metachrosislitmag.bsky.social
A print literary magazine entitled Metachrosis featuring a painting of a girl squatting over a plate with a butter knife and a jar of jam. A glimpse of the inside of Metachrosis literary magazine, showing the title of a poem “Eulogy for an Old Man Who’s Still Alive” by Stephen Brown.
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Eric Smith @ericsmithrocks.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
People posting about how they’ve never seen em dashes used before the rise of ChatGPT are really great at telling folks they’ve never read a book before.
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Don Comer @doncomer.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Consider the attack on Public Broadcasting. Right-wingers, w/their boners for autocracy, say they hate communists as they undermine communities, & say they hate socialists while butchering society. Funneling all the money to the top 1%'ers has no appeal to most of humanity.
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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Joanne Kyger
NOT YET
Not tomorrow night
but the night after tomorrow
Not tomorrow
but the night after tomorrow
Then the moon will be full
Then the moon will be full
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Dia VanGunten / Writer @pinkzombierose.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Hey, lovers, poets & mystics: it’s time to lay it down. 🕊️🔮
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RRRMMM @strongmisgiving.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Came across this MacCaig poem by chance and bloody hell, amazing
Incident

by Norman MacCaig

I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me to do something impossible, something freakishly useless, something unimaginable and inimitable

Like making a finger break into blossom or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes or remembering tomorrow.

I will you to ask it.
But all you say is
Will you give me a cigarette?
And I smile and, returning to the marvelous world of possibility I give you one with a hand that trembles with a human trembling.
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Misja Baas @misjabaas.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Dune, 1965
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Queen RanDumb @invisihole.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
I never write or type brain without double checking I didn't use brian.
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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Happy 15th anniversary of the peak achievement of literary criticism, to all who celebrate
Amazon review of Pride and Prejudice, left by carlton p morgan on 30 July 2010: "Just a bunch of people going to each other's houses"
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Vagina Museum @vaginamuseum.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
It's here... issue 2 of Lip Service is quite the *period*ical. The theme of our quarterly zine is menstruation! Treat yourself to 40 pages of art, poetry, commentary and cultural critique about all things bloody from our community, in print or digital vaginamuseumshop.co.uk/products/lip...
vaginamuseumshop.co.uk
Lip Service Issue #2 - Menstruation
Lip Service is a quarterly publication by the Vagina Museum in the style of old school community magazines. In this 40-page A5 zine, the content ranges from expanded exhibition content and other longf...
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Peter J. King @rock-rex.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
"Advice to Sadists". #poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity
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