iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Excited to announce I have a microchap coming out with Quarter Press in 2026! 🎉

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Taco Bell Quarterly @tacobellquarterly.org · 27/07/2025

I hate writing and myself. It's great, really.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

It’s live!!! 🥰 yes it’s another dnd poem leave me alone lmao a millennial has to find joy somewhere

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

I’m in this issue, #25 from @smallwondersmag.com woohooooo! It’s my first publication in a spec fic journal - hopefully the first of many 🥰 please snag a copy of the ebook if you can!

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The Trandalorian @charliejaneanders.com · 15/06/2025

If you love speculative fiction, then you owe a huge debt to @strangehorizons.bsky.social -- a magazine that successfully brought SFF short fiction online and expanded our ideas of what genre can do. It launched my career and many others. And it's still amazing. www.kickstarter.com/projects/str...

kickstarter.com

Strange Horizons 2026

A free weekly speculative fiction magazine with a global perspective.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I usually love looking out at the Potomac when driving into DC but today was different.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Looking for: an indie press to submit a poetry microchap (10 poems at its current version but could be 11-12 if that’s the min) - genre is speculative/fantasy. I’ve done some research into spec presses but much of it is fiction or fuller length collections. Would love to hear your recs ❤️

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Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

every day I have to remind myself there's only so much astonishment I have each day and I cannot spend it all on The Horrors

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Joseph Brassey @josephbrassey.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

I really want more writers to embrace “I don’t know.” You don’t have to know how all of your mythology perfectly fits. You don’t need to know how the magic works or how the lore all connects. Sometimes fantasy stories are just isolated little fables, best understood by the heart, not the head.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

A rejection after waiting months. le sigh 😔

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Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

a poem should be at least as good as a ham & cheese sandwich

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D, Hunter of the Dead 💙🌙✨ @dekubrush.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

Dec 31st Dec 31st 2016 2024

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yaoi gagarin @mel.bzky.team · 30/12/2024

the reason an MFA doesnt improve your writing is because it cant instill in you the single most important quality for a good writer to have: being an absolute weirdo who really wants to make people understand the perverse undulations of their gremlin brain

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

someone mentioned this is the last caturday of 2024 so

A massive gray long haired cat lying on a white blanket on a blue couch

A tuxedo cat on a blue blanket with white daisies stretching

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I’ve said it once about fanfic schoolwork grant apps emails poems etc etc etc and I’ll say it again: when will the writing spring fully formed from my forehead onto the screen??????? Idc about jet packs that’s what I want from science

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Angela Liu @angelaliu.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

My new flash story, “Sailor Moon Is Tired Of Fighting Evil” is out today at @hexliterary.bsky.social! It's under 500 words and is for anyone who's ever wondered what it's really like to fight evil by moonlight.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

now this is the kind of sky I’m talking about in that one poem about sunsets 😮‍💨

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Thrillhouse Ghoulin @thrillhousegaming.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Square Enix has just released a playlist on Spotify/Apple with every song from every Final Fantasy I-XVI. 2,892 songs. 1,425 hours. open.spotify.com/playlist/3hF...

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Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

when someone says they like my poem

painting of a black frazzled cat with the caption: "Unusually repulsive cat startled by a gesture of affection:

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I don’t usually read books on craft but I learn best through actual examples vs just reading about concepts (bc that is so boring) and this is chock full of em. Also really fun if your favorite part of English class was ripping pieces apart for analysis

A hand of olive complexion holding a paperback book with a white cover titled “Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading and Writing Poetey Forensically” by Paisley Rekdal. The hand and book rest on a light linen bedspread. In the background sits a tuxedo cat and a dresser.

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Angela Liu @angelaliu.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

“anything worth doing is worth doing badly” The ending of this poem brings me to tears every time.

Falling and Flying
By Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Had a poem come out today in BRAWL Lit (+ an interview) 🌅 This was such a dream - Martheaus and @taylorfthiel.bsky.social are putting some stellar work into the world and they give the BEST feedback. anyway here’s my poem, I’m 33 and the sky makes me cry!! www.brawllit.com/2024/melissa...

Green text on beige background.

asking millennials why we’re so obsessed with sunsets

because what is as striking as the end of the day? because we can’t resist a giant neon sign. because it’s nice to know someone could be held that high so low. because maybe that’s where the pot of gold is. because our swords have tarnished and we want something beautiful to look at. because we love a good pink and our turnout for the barbie movie was proof. because we love a good orange, the memory of a sunkist burning its way down our throats tasting like the summer of ’96—knees asphalt-kissed leggings teal with zigzags my freedom as long as the horizon when it bleeds. because we’re grown and we’re not afraid to cry. because for some reason we always need some kind of nature-related excuse to cry. because the sun says I’ll be here tomorrow and means it and we love that for her and we need that for us.

Green text on beige background.

because the way that clementine sugar light holds me is more sacred than anyone could ever understand. because our tangerine crayon nubs are all her fault. because when I was seven I had a windbreaker that was the same electric purple-pink. because it was supposed to protect me. because she glows and so did I once. because she won’t tell anyone I’ve been crying. because this is another kind of prayer. because I want to go back to her, that blunt-banged brown baby girl, seven years old and skinned knees, and tell her the one thing that never changes is the sky.

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Kelli Russell Agodon @kelliagodon.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

"Someone said/winter has broken windows...Today my heart wears you like curtains." Today's autumn poem... any other favorites? Feel free to add them to this thread.

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SCRAP @scrizzlee.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

“You came across my skyline” sound like some romantic shit lmao

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Haolun Xu @haolunxu.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Excited to share my poem Faint Drum, which received a BOTN nomination this week from The Arkansas International:

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Dr. Bitch @ritamookerjee.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

look at my pantoum

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Taco Bell Quarterly @tacobellquarterly.org · 14/11/2024

Die más. Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands by Felix. tacobellquarterly.org/poem-in-the-...

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

my final reshare for now: an ode to my dnd character, originally published in @emergejournal.bsky.social. shoutout to my friend (also a poet) who asked “what HAPPENED to you, to write this?” and I said girl this is about an elf + and a matching cat

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Split Lip Magazine @splitlipthemag.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Here at SLM, we hope that this list of some of the beautiful and important work from our team and contributors in recent months can help us connect to our community and move forward. buff.ly/4emv0DC

View from one end of a wooden bridge to the other side, fall foliage glowing orange arching above and falling to the bridge's boards

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🌈Dr. Frizzle @swilua.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

Starting a thread of blocklists to share (feel free to reply with your favorites)

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Querencia Press @querenciapress.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

We’re having a sale on select titles (up to 60% off)! Between purchasing inventory for festivals & returns, sometimes we just end up with too many of one book, & we need to make room. Link in the comments ✨

Pink and yellow open book with the stars and flowers that’s says overstock sale

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Just Misha things @justmishathings.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

As promised 🙏✨️ the #Creatorshare & #Artshare - any craft&writing is welcome! ☺️ Rules: - like and repost this post - post your favorite work using alt text and tell us about yourself - please interact with other participants ❤️ - tag NSFW - No A/I, N/F/T I reply&share as much as possible. Enjoy!

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The Pink Poetry Club @thepinkpoetryclub.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Today is a beautiful day to send us some poems! Be one of our inaugural issue poets? 😘 #poetry #poems #Midwest #queer #trans #lgbtq

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FrankenManda’s Monster @ajwentz.com · 12/11/2024

starter pack of everyone who stops to admire the moon

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Abra / Jessica Conwell, Carmella Creeper's Gender Doula🏳️‍⚧️ 🇲🇽🌼 @pairofclaws.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

I don't do this a lot, but BLOCK THIS MAN. Block this man IMMEDIATELY. He is a long time known predator in the #WritingCommunity on Twitter. He does his stupid "boost" posts on women without consent and then gets creepy as fuck like they "owe" him, including a few minors. Block, spread the word.

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Sue Barry-Schulz @susanbarryschulz.com · 08/11/2024

Recent work in @rustandmoth.bsky.social

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Earnest post, but: a thing I like here is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism. We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

another old-ish poem, this one was in @eunoiareview.bsky.social. no matching cat because I for the life of me could not find a bagel that worked!! (also if you play genshin you should know this is a guiping poem)

Black text of a poem on a white background. The poem reads:

I'm wrists up on the shore. I'm dizzy riding the waves in your lilac hair. You're tuning the guzheng wrong, but I'll let you—the hours to come will be spent convincing you that birds sing even in the abyss of your wildest parts. Tonight we'll dine by the lake again, a table of gods desperately pretending to be human, being highbrow about things like romance and wisteria. Nature can always be replicated, you say, and we find that to be true in the plains, debating sunrises and sunsets until we are questioning each other's mouths, a bundle of guesswork and heat.

How to explain that I could lie in the curvature of your sentences for a millennium? You argued and argued about how music is a science, but you were the taut string shivering under my fingertips. You wrote a whole thesis on the mechanics of song; I had written over and over on the slink of your spine. Too many times I tried to say that this is futile: I am right and always have been. But I would be wrong about everything had you been someone else.
In the sea of dust at the end of the world I wanted to be wrong about it all: about how night finally fell on the lake and you were already a star. How I dragged my nails through the remains of the day and wanted to do it all again.

To play that song again, whisk the notes through the plains and back again. To admit defeat. To tame those unwieldy birds. The bell tolls now in a secret place, heavy and haunted.

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Cavar 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸 ✡️ @cavar.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

An oddly apropos hopepoem from 3 years ago (!!!) in Delicate Friend. delicatefriend.com/cavar/

In the midst of it all I am trying to be

A little green onion
On the sunside sill
Below the blinds & wind chimes &
Strayblue soupblotches a d their amber
Golden dry pools of jelly —
I am trying to be a thing that comes back With enough water
I am trying so green and green and
Green They cannot take it

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

another old-ish poem + another matching cat. this one was in @beavermag.bsky.social and was a botn nominee 💕

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

another previously published poem (ppp) and matching cat “the moon is the ultimate dead girl,” @rustandmoth.bsky.social and a matching cat

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

I am here to re-share (though they are new to butterfly app so I guess just share) previously published poems (ppp) and also a cat that matches that poem “the bard remembers she has errands to run,” South Florida Poetry Journal and a matching cat

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Melissa Anne Tolentino @sometimesabard.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

Kinda overwhelmed starting from scratch/figuring out how to use this app/finding people who've "made it" from that other place (so ominous). Anyway hiiii I'm Melissa, I write poetry, have been/will be published in some places, and wrote a chapbook based on my DND campaign that was pub'd last year ✌️

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