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Marie Brennan

@swantower.bsky.social
5.6K followers 166 following 1.6K posts

THE EYE OF LEVIATHAN July 14th! Author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent. Also one half of M.A. Carrick. She/her.

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Işıl Arıcan @isilarican.com · 2h
Quick and easy guide on how to prevent sexual assault. You are welcome.
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 7h
you do want to see this
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 6h
Genuinely, one of the best revision tactics out there is simply to . . . not look at the story for a while. You come back and go "I know what my reasons were for doing it this way -- but omgwtfbbq was that the wrong choice, and I can see that now."
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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 7h
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5,000 years.
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
WE FUNDED!! AHH! Thank you, everyone!!! Now, with about 24 hours left, any additional monies means I CAN BUY MORE TIME LOOP STORIES. 👀⏳ (And subs will open in two weeks!) www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
backerkit.com
OPPORTUNITY WINDOW: An Anthology of Time Loop Stories
Deja vu doesn't begin to cover it... OPPORTUNITY WINDOW will bring you a book of brand new time loop stories (and maybe some you've seen before) from across the SFFH genres!
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Jonathan Slater @jonathanslater.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
These are stunning
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Grandiloquent Word of the Day @grandiloquentwords.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Slounge [slunj] (n.) 1. A lazy, skulking, or sneaking person; an idle ne’er-do-well. 2. A greedy scrounger that prowls or hangs about in search of food. (v.) 1. To lounge, loaf, or move about in an idle, slouching manner. 2. To skulk about in hopes of obtaining food.
A “Grandiloquent Word of the Day” meme featuring the word “Slounge” [slunj]. The definitions read: “(n.) A greedy scrounger that prowls about in search of food. (v.) To skulk about in hopes of obtaining food.” At right, an old-fashioned ink illustration shows a ragged, weary-looking man seated outdoors with his chin resting on his hand. Below, the example sentence reads: “Abercrombie was a notorious slounge—too idle to work, too sly to starve, and invariably present wherever food was freely obtained.”
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Man, you know the later Habsburgs got *fugly* when even their official portraits -- which would naturally be as flattering as possible! -- show all the weird effects of inbreeding.
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Marley Rose-Teter @marleyroseteter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Changelings have always had a special place in my heart, so of course I jumped at the chance to write about them for Reactor! Featuring fabulous changeling stories by @franceshardinge.bsky.social, @hgparry.bsky.social, @kimberlybea.bsky.social, Ivelisse Houseman, and @macarrick.bsky.social!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Tell me SOMEBODY has written a fantasy Casablanca homage about events in and around a "djinn joint." I will be terribly disappointed if they haven't (and then eagerly await someone filling that gap).
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#ICYMI, @lightspeedmagazine.com (and @nightmare-magazine.com) are running a Kickstarter right now! I have a story coming out in Lightspeed in upcoming months, so back now to fund that and a whole lot more! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lig...
kickstarter.com
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Forty-six hours to go, and this anthology is barely $100 away from funding! Don't make them come back and try again, and again, and again . . . (Even if it *would* be thematically appropriate.) www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
backerkit.com
OPPORTUNITY WINDOW: An Anthology of Time Loop Stories
Deja vu doesn't begin to cover it... OPPORTUNITY WINDOW will bring you a book of brand new time loop stories (and maybe some you've seen before) from across the SFFH genres!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Forty-six hours to go, and this anthology is barely $100 away from funding! Don't make them come back and try again, and again, and again . . . (Even if it *would* be thematically appropriate.) www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
backerkit.com
OPPORTUNITY WINDOW: An Anthology of Time Loop Stories
Deja vu doesn't begin to cover it... OPPORTUNITY WINDOW will bring you a book of brand new time loop stories (and maybe some you've seen before) from across the SFFH genres!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#ICYMI, @lightspeedmagazine.com (and @nightmare-magazine.com) are running a Kickstarter right now! I have a story coming out in Lightspeed in upcoming months, so back now to fund that and a whole lot more! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lig...
kickstarter.com
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
067
Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I see this mostly with literary poetry markets, but . . . y'all, waxing metaphorical about what kind of work you wants to see is only *barely* more useful than earnestly telling me you want poems that "illuminate human truths" or "haunt you long after you've stopped reading."
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Lydia @lunapuella.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
My husband and his friends realised they thought they were good guys but still made like, ironic-sexist jokes. They introduced the 'sexism snake' where wherever one of them made a sexist comment or joke, the others would just start hissing. Didn't need to get into an argument about it, just hissing.
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
One more day!!!!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Possibly my life would be easier if I weren't the sort of person who spends several minutes during revision verifying that the phrase "scattered like quail" isn't out of place in a story set in Spain (common quail are resident in southern Spain, breed farther north; 🌈now you know🌈 and so do I).
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Catherine Tavares @cjtavares.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
SO CLOSE!!! Back the project, get awesome stories. Your future self will thank you!
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Maria Lima aka chickwriter @thelima.myatproto.social · 28/09/2026
Look what I got in the mail yesterday! (I forgot to check until today.) Dragon coloring pages from @swantower.bsky.social's Lady Trent Kickstarter! Can't wait to have a go at them with my pencils & markers.
Coloring pages of dragonsInfo cards for each of the dragons
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We are REAL CLOSE... come back #OpportunityWindow, get some awesome #timeloop stories!! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
screenshot from the backerkit website showing OPPORTUNITY WINDOW is at 1567/2000 with 96 backers and 4 days left to go
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Tonight’s delight: finding a Sukkot tent pitched next to the walls of a Catholic church.
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Listen, we have just a few days left!! Help us fund more time loops!! (I really ALSO wanna reboot The Deer Is Messed Up next year… which is unrelated but also 👀 if this funds in time I will have more faith we can do deer next!)
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Lightspeed Magazine @lightspeedmagazine.com · 25/09/2026
We just hit 50% of our goal with 20 days remaining. Thanks again so much to everyone who backed the campaign. We also just added a new Add-On: Signed copies of The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson! Back today: bit.ly/LS-NM-26
bit.ly
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Just under a week to go 👀⏳ and we're a little over $600 away from the goal... now is a great time to back some time loop fiction! Can you join in??? www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...
backerkit.com
OPPORTUNITY WINDOW: An Anthology of Time Loop Stories
Deja vu doesn't begin to cover it... OPPORTUNITY WINDOW will bring you a book of brand new time loop stories (and maybe some you've seen before) from across the SFFH genres!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Okay, so it's going to be one of *those* days, where a rogue wave of motivation hits me broadside and drives me onto the shore of Extreme Productivity on Not What I Should Be Working On.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Don't kill characters randomly. Only kill them with malice aforethought!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm delighted to announce that @lightspeedmagazine.com just bought a new story from me -- head on over to their Kickstarter to help them fund this and more fiction in the coming year! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lig...
kickstarter.com
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
And then in December, we move onto different poetic forms, and how to tell if a form with a refrain line or a volta is right for your idea: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Forms - Swan Tower
Sonnets, limericks, haiku: a few poetic forms are widely familiar. But the field of possibilities extends well past that, through hundreds of forms all around the world -- so how is a poet to decide a...
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The same is true for the next installment in the Writer's Little Books series, where we turn our attention to rhyme: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Rhyme - Swan Tower
From time to time, a poet finds they need to write in rhyme. But what are the different types, what effect do they have on a poem, and what’s the best way to go about drafting in rhyme? In this compan...
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Two weeks until THE WRITER'S LITTLE BOOK OF METER comes out! And while this one is aimed at poets, prose writers, there's a fair bit to be said for staying aware of the rhythmic patterns of your words: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Meter - Swan Tower
Metrical verse is hugely popular when it takes the form of song lyrics, and yet its written cousin has fallen out of fashion in recent decades. To help guide writers unfamiliar with matters metrical t...
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Mari Ness, writer of things @mariness.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
....and while you're there, you can ALSO buy Vol. 10 of @oldmoonquarterly.bsky.social , which has my poem, Ogre, in ebook and print!
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
You can now buy Vol. 9 of @oldmoonquarterly.bsky.social, with my alliterative Norse-style Huginn and Munnin poem "Thought and Memory"! Available in ebook and print: www.oldmoonpublishing.com/product-page... www.amazon.com/Old-Moon-Qua...
oldmoonpublishing.com
Old Moon Quarterly Volume 9 | Oldmoonpub
Merlin Ambrosius meets a sorcerous foe amid dragon-haunted Broceliande. Nimue, lady of the lake, offers a sword to the doomed knights of Camelot. Arthur, newly crowned king of Britain, hunts the fores...
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm delighted to announce that @lightspeedmagazine.com just bought a new story from me -- head on over to their Kickstarter to help them fund this and more fiction in the coming year! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lig...
kickstarter.com
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
0232
Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Two weeks until THE WRITER'S LITTLE BOOK OF METER comes out! And while this one is aimed at poets, prose writers, there's a fair bit to be said for staying aware of the rhythmic patterns of your words: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Meter - Swan Tower
Metrical verse is hugely popular when it takes the form of song lyrics, and yet its written cousin has fallen out of fashion in recent decades. To help guide writers unfamiliar with matters metrical t...
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Lightspeed Magazine @lightspeedmagazine.com · 21/09/2026
We've reached 40% of our funding goal & we added a bunch of new add-on rewards, including signed books by Chuck Wendig, Daniel H. Wilson, Ken Liu, Paul Tremblay, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Stephen Graham Jones, Veronica Roth, Victor LaValle, Olivie Blake, P. Djèlí Clark, Seanan McGuire & Martha Wells.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Having already named one of my least favorite tropes ("it was all a dream!"), let's make this an open question: what trope or plot device would you fire into the sun, never to be seen again? (Take it as a given that offensive tropes like fridged women and magical Negroes are already on the rocket.)
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Reactor Magazine @reactorsff.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
M. A. Carrick's The Eye of Leviathan reimagines the Spanish Golden Age in rich detail, folding the fae into a story of magic, religion, and brutal colonization. @vanessa-armstrong.com reviews a new series from the authors of The Mask of Mirrors:
reactormag.com
Changelings, Catholicism, and Conquistadors: The Eye of Leviathan by M.A. Carrick - Reactor
Vanessa Armstrong reviews a fantasy-imbued alternate history of the Spanish Golden Age.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Are there *any* good iterations of the "it was all a dream" trope? By which I mean, cases where that's actually better than those events having happened to the character for real? (I hate this trope with the burning heat of a thousand suns, in case you can't tell.)
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Mixeduppainter @mixeduppainter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Go go go! Back the thing! And then back it again And again And again
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Lightspeed Magazine @lightspeedmagazine.com · 16/09/2026
WOW, what a first day! In our first 24 hours, nearly 150 backers pledged more than $11K, putting us 22% of the way toward our goal. Several of our limited signed books and collectibles are already gone. If you haven't checked it out yet: bit.ly/LS-NM-26
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Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Did you know that New Jersey’s radical 1776 constitution gave women the right to vote? That & much more in my new column on the Constitution Day inspirations we can take from the Revolutionary state constitutions! 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social
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Merc Fenn Wolfmoor @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It’s Monday!! Have you gotten your time loop fix yet???
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Kass G. @anarkass.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Also worth noting that like, three people requesting something at a library will get a library to buy it. And it doesn't take many holds to make it "we should buy more copies."
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Lightspeed Magazine @lightspeedmagazine.com · 17/09/2026
We've reached and then quickly surpassed 25% of our funding goal and are now closing in on $15K and 30%. 178 of you have pledged your support so far. Thanks so much to all of you for backing and spreading the word... and being a part of the LIGHTSPEED + NIGHTMARE story. bit.ly/LS-NM-26
bit.ly
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE: Award-Winning SF, Fantasy, & Horror
We've published nearly 10 million words of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction. Help us write the next chapter.
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Lightspeed Magazine @lightspeedmagazine.com · 15/09/2026
The 2026 LIGHTSPEED + NIGHTMARE Kickstarter is NOW LIVE! Check out our star-studded lineup of authors & peruse our rewards: subscriptions, signed books, rare magazine collectibles, t-shirts, mugs, and other fun stuff. Thank you in advance if you're able to offer your support.💖 bit.ly/LS-NM-26
LIGHTSPEED & NIGHTMARE Kickstarter graphic. Left side: Bright light blue background with rays (as of light) bursting out from the center. Central image is an open book with a rocket blasting up out of it. Below the book is the LIGHTSPEED magazine wordmark; the word lightspeed is rendered in a orange-to-yellow gradient, with a white outline around it and dropshadow underneath it.
Right side: Bright light yellow background with rays (as of light) bursting out from the center. Central image is an open book with a haunted house emerging from it. Below the book is the NIGHTMARE magazine wordmark; the word nightmare is rendered in a dark red to lighter red gradient, with a white outline around it and dropshadow underneath it.
Top: the words "LIVE on Kickstarter"
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I wonder if this will be as rigged to produce the "see? people are terrible!" result as the original experiment was. Oh wait, that's basically "reality" TV in a nutshell. So yeah, we can assume so.
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And if you missed 'em, all the previous WRITER'S LITTLE BOOKS are still available! READINGS: www.swantower.com/writing/the-... RESEARCH: www.swantower.com/writing/the-... PLATITUDES: www.swantower.com/writing/the-... and NAMING: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Readings - Swan Tower
Authors are often expected to read their work in public, but all too often, they’re thrown into the deep end with very little guidance. Whether you’re a novelist, a poet, or an academic reading a pape...
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Er. November. I meant November. Which comes after October. Unlike September. Then, in December, we put those together with other features (like refrain lines and turns) to take a look at poetic forms, and how to match form to content! www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Forms - Swan Tower
Sonnets, limericks, haiku: a few poetic forms are widely familiar. But the field of possibilities extends well past that, through hundreds of forms all around the world -- so how is a poet to decide a...
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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
That one's out in October. Next, in September, comes a brief but deep dive into the varieties and arrangements of rhyme, and tactics for working within that constraint: www.swantower.com/writing/the-...
swantower.com
The Writer's Little Book of Rhyme - Swan Tower
From time to time, a poet finds they need to write in rhyme. But what are the different types, what effect do they have on a poem, and what’s the best way to go about drafting in rhyme? In this compan...
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