iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Henry Dumas was an excellent short story writer and poet. Toni Morrison was a fan of his work. The Arkansas International's short story contest in his honor is open now. I published a piece in the journal last fall and had a very good experience. www.arkint.org/henry-dumas-...

arkint.org

Henry Dumas Fiction Prize — The Arkansas International

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Stop in for an evening of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to celebrate the virtual launch of volume 10 of the Best Spiritual Literature anthology on Saturday, December 13, 2025, at 7 PM Eastern. Registration for the online reading is free: secure.givelively.org/.../best-spi....

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Chantal James @chantalalive.blacksky.app · 14/10/2025

Things are coming together for my novella FES IS A MIRROR to come your way soon! Check out our first blurb from novelist Robert Jones, Jr. He thinks you will dig this!

On Fes is a Mirror by Chantal James
Out October 28, 2025 from Willow Books

I hate how quiet it's kept that Chantal James is one of the most brilliant writers writing. I read Fes Is a Mirror faithfully, amazed at the level of skill, of world-creation, and of wisdom contained within its pages. James is so careful with her characters, no matter how reckless their situations. She's so intentional with her language and every sentence is delicious. It's the kind of book you throw across the room because it pierces your heart, but you pick back up again and cradle because it's so beautiful. No lie: Fes Is a Mirror is a masterwork.

- Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets, finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction

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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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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

I did an interview about keeping notebooks / diaries / journals in @kellymcmasters.bsky.social newsletter. Thanks again, Kelly, for allowing a member of the journaling tribe to share. kellymcmasters.substack.com/p/show-me-yo...

kellymcmasters.substack.com

SHOW ME YOUR DIARY

featuring writer Stanley Stocker

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Joris Lombaert @j357l.eurosky.social · 08/05/2025

The kids are ok.

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Delighted to have a story "The Hunt" in the latest issue of African American Review. Thank you to editors Aileen M. Keenan and Nathan L. Grant. @hopkinspress.bsky.social @projectmuse.bsky.social "The families of the old men would gather at Front Camp to see whether their people would be let go."

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

An invaluable guide to applying for writing residencies from Prince Shakur. Also, if you are member of the global majority, please consider applying for the Baldwin for the Arts fellowship. open.substack.com/pub/princesh...

open.substack.com

How to Master The Writing Residency Application

An ESSENTIAL Checklist for fine tuning your application every time to make the process faster and to get more acceptances

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Brecht De Poortere @brechtdp.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Please, please, please, I need your help! (it's for next year's rankings...) Does anyone have a copy of Best New Poets 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023 and/or 2024? If not, could you please retweet? Thank you so much! 🙏

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

"Through the peep hole I saw a harried-looking white woman. Though she appeared younger than me, her hair was brittle and frizzed and her cheek bones stuck out painfully. She was curled over a package buried against her chest. It was wrapped in a blanket and had the form of a human."

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Eliane Boey 🕷🥩SMALL BITES 🥩🕷11.11.26 @elianeboey.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Here goes nothing. CLUB CONTANGO is eligible for the Hugo awards (novel) if you're so inclined. 🎲🔥 Single mum on a corporate-owned space station has three jobs and zero fucks left to give until murder, and union scabbing, breathe too close for comfort.

‪Thomas Ha‬ ‪@thomasha.bsky.social‬
·
43m
*whispering under breath* also included in UNCERTAIN SONS AND OTHER STORIES coming Sept. 2025 from
@undertow.bsky.social
and available for preorder and may be an important keystone/throughline story that links with others. *cough*

undertowpublications.com/shop/uncerta...

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories (PRE-ORDER) — Undertow Publications
Sept. 2025 Cover art by Ove Tøpfer Trade paperback (284 pages) Uncertain Sons is a startling and masterful collection exploring familial love and trauma; societal and technological anxieties; ...
undertowpublications.com

‪ZD Dochterman‬ ‪@zddochterman.bsky.social‬
·
55m
From 2022, but my favorite story I've read this year.

An eerie, almost spectral, minimalist prose. It builds suspense not around the question of "what will happen?" but rather "what is happening?" A land of intangibility & memorylessness.

From
@thomasha.bsky.social & @bourbonpenn.bsky.social

Thomas Ha > House Traveler > Bourbon Penn
The five of us were gathered on the floor of one of the last houses, trying to decide which of the group would be the one to go outside. Sitting around an electric camping lantern, our legs crossed li...
www.bourbonpenn.com

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‪Ivy Grimes‬ ‪@ivygrimes.bsky.social‬
·
10h
The new bookstore
@eveninghouse.bsky.social
run by
@johnchrostek.bsky.social
and Amanda is great for book-hunting! Check out the helpful curated lists. I ordered two fascinating books from here that I hadn't heard of before visiting the site.

eveninghousebooks.com

Evening House Books
eveninghousebooks.com

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‪Elias Eells- Bar Cart Bookshelf‬ ‪@eliaseells.bsky.social‬
·
1d
It's #MAR10Day! And also six months of COCKTAILS AND CONSOLES out in the world. I'm sipping a Mariogarita this evening to celebrate and I hope you will to!!

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/elias...

Self-portait with COCKTAILS AND CONSOLES and a Mariogarita
ALT

The reference photo for the illustrat…

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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

…your art comes out of your life, and you have to keep living until you have enough to write about. Read, read, read. Art begets art. Jane Kenyon

BRADT: What do you take that to mean?

KENYON: You really have to turn your complete attention to something large, something that makes you forget who you are and where you are and what you have and what you don't have. You have to bring your awareness completely to this new thing.

BRADT: Suppose you were a modern-day Rilke, and let's say a Ms.
Kappus wrote you for advice. And suppose she had at least a glimmer of talent. What would you say to her?

KENYON: I'd say that your art comes out of your life, and you have to keep living until you have enough to write about. Be patient if you can. Find friends whose judgment you trust and work with them on everything you do. Read, read, read. Art begets art, and you need to read - not just English poets but poets of other cultures and times and traditions. Don't be discouraged if the world doesn't beat a path to your door. If anyone had told me when I was beginning to write poems with serious intent, in my twenties, that it would be another ten years before I published a book, I would have said, "I just can't take that kind of time. I'm running on a different timetable." I think I've become more patient with the years; I'm learning to take the long view.

BRADT: Suppose Ms. Kappus asked you, "What's the poet's job?"

KENYON: The poet's job is to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in such a beautiful way that people cannot live without it; to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so im-portant, and yet so difficult to name. The poet's job is to find a name for everything; to be a fearless finder of the names of things; to be an advocate for the beauty of language, the subtleties of language.

A Hundred White Daffodils Jane Kenyon

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Love what Joyce Carol Oates had to say about the forms a short story can take. She basically said there are no rules except one: it can't be boring.

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Finally cracked the code on a short story paragraph that I've sweating over for a while. Gonna celebrate with some ice cream.

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Aysha U. Farah @ayshaufarah.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I’ve been hit with the gun that lays you off so… hello, I’m Aysha, I write for games. Experience with both indie and AAA, along with IP writing and worldbuilding. I’ve lead teams and i’m great in a room. Hit me up

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Ever feel like you'd kill a mf for harming a fictional character? Listening to Joni Mitchell's "Cherokee Louise" had that effect on me. But then maybe she wasn't a fictional character? Mitchell seems to have often written about real people. So much the worse if she was real.

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

There are, seriously, a thousand more worthwhile things you could give your money to, but if you want to close out 2024 with a subscription to keep my little Degenerate Art newsletter resurrecting the past, spitting fire, and bossing everyone around in the coming year, it would delight me.

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

Degenerate Art

Andrea Pitzer on politics and history, the Arctic, and Appalachian exile.

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

This Li article resonates with me about a story of mine making the rounds now. "The journey of one particular story ... especially frustrated me: for two years, it traveled around in the mail and gathered some of the kindest rejection letters I have ever received." apublicspace.org/news/detail/...

apublicspace.org

A Letter from Yiyun Li

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Just learned that astronaut means "star sailor" from the Greek and it started out as a science fiction term from the 1800s.

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Weird when folks says an artist is overrated. Why not just say you don't like them very much? Overrated implies that there is some objective standard that they do not meet. That does not exist. Folks snipe so steady. They snub so snide. So ripe and ready to diminish or deride, as Joni reminds us.

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

“A single black tea with tapioca pearls from Boba Guys contains more BPA than a person can safely consume in a year” and other brands are no safer. This report is going to rock Bay Area teen culture sfstandard.com/2024/12/28/b...

sfstandard.com

Your boba tea is full of plastic chemicals

A new study has found high concentrations of plastic chemicals in products from Boba Guys and other local chains.

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✨👁️Withkindereyes👁️✨ @withkindereyes.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Heya my commissions are open! Only form of income rn. Sharing helps a ton

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pamlhouston.bsky.social @pamlhouston.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

What if a million men marched on DC on behalf of women’s reproductive freedom/bodily autonomy and/or human rights/protection for immigrants. I know lots of men are working for justice, as individuals. But what if a million men marched on behalf of the rights of non men. Wouldn’t that be something?

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

So is the state of Virginia mourning no longer being considered a southern state the was Pluto mourns no longer being a planet?

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Karla Huebner, Author @karlahuebnerwrites.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

If you're in the DC area, fellow-author Sedigitus Swift will be at Georgetown's Just Paper & Tea on Sunday with his quirky medieval fantasy series. #BookSky #authors #reading

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Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

As long as I am living in language, as I like to put it, I count it as writing. This is why reading, for example, is so important—is maybe the most important part of writing. If I'm reading, I'm also at some level taking in language's capacities... —Carl Phillips, from "Silence"

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Sandra Newman @sannewman.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Writing tip: Write a book you can sell to publishers for a lot of money. You can then use the money to buy the things you want.

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Solomon @solomonrmissouri.com · 26/11/2024

A rap battle is two men writing poems about each other

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Adrienne Westenfeld @awestenfeld.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

After nearly nine years at Esquire, I’ve been laid off from my role as Books and Fiction Editor. I’m looking for a new full-time role where I can use my storytelling skills, in the book world or beyond it. If you know of anything, I’m at adriennewestenfeld@gmail.com. (🧵1/10)

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A.J. Bauer @ajbauer.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Damn and now Drake is going to have to pay a 25 percent tariff on that beef?

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Dreamt about matchmaking two of my friends earlier this week. I realized yesterday that it was a metaphorical dream. I was telling myself something about a story I'm working on which was: What you have to do now is bring together these two ideas and let them live together in the story.

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Wes Blake @wesblake.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

We can build the #literaryfiction community beyond the starter packs. Here’s how: First, hit the like button, reply with #literaryfiction, and most importantly, hit the REPOST button. Then, follow each other back. The easiest way to do so is to follow everyone who reposts. Here’s how:

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I was today years old when I learned that Bluesky's CEO Jay Graber's first name "Lantian" means "blue sky" in Mandarin. Unrelated, "Stanley" means "handsome, suave dude" in old English so there's that ...

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Martha S. Jones @marthasjones.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

DC followers! Come out Wed. eve Nov. 20. Join me and Georgetown’s Nadia E. Brown (⁦‪@BrownPhDGirl‬⁩) as we talk Black women’s politics: Past, Present, Future. At the new JHU Bloomberg Center (555 Penn) Humanities on the Hill. krieger.jhu.edu/humanities-i...

krieger.jhu.edu

Humanities on the Hill: Martha S. Jones | Humanities Institute

Humanities on the Hill: Hosted by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute and East City Bookshop A conversation with Martha S. Jones and Nadia E. Brown Event Location: JHU Bloomberg Center – 555 Penn...

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Jay Moné @jaymone.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Hey, yall! I have a literary magazine that's available for purchase! You can also donate if you wanna support but don't wanna buy a copy: suspendedmagazine.org

suspendedmagazine.org

Suspended Magazine

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

"On the Nature of Good and Evil" out now in Harvard Review 62: "A man rises up a saint in the morning and lays down a sinner. Or the other way around: he lays down like an angel and something takes a hold of him and - BAM! - up jumps the devil come morning." secure.touchnet.net/C20832_ustor...

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Stanley Stocker @stanleystocker.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Remembering the great Cuttyhunk Island Writers Residency from last fall. #AddtoBlacksky

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