iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 10/09/2026

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a poet in want of an idea will eventually write a poem about their cat. This is mine. (About our late cat, not one of the two new lunatic kittens.) Live now at 4LPH4NUM3R1C 2.0 from @zoeticpress.bsky.social: Enjoy!

zoeticpress.com

AN 27 Blythe Spirits — Zoetic Press

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 25/08/2026

it's possible to live a life where everyone grieves its end

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Diabolical Plots @diabolicalplots.com · 23/06/2026

I excavated sufficient executive function from somewhere in the depths of my brain to be the 64th backer on @BackerKit Crowdfunding for [RECORDED] — An Anthology of Found Media Fiction!! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...

backerkit.com

[RECORDED] — An Anthology of Found Media Fiction!

Weird videos you didn't take showing up on your phone... Haunted books no one else remembers reading... Strange audio cassettes that won't let you stop listening... [RECORDED] showcases weird, spooky,...

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Small Wonders @smallwondersmag.com · 13/05/2026

Next time you're feeling ennui, pick up "a moment on the lips" by Brian Hugenbruch and remind yourself of the giddy delight that comes from devouring the world:

smallwondersmag.com

A moment on the lips - Small Wonders

My irises open like an infant’s gaping maw / as I smash this over-ripened world / into my face

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Two hooded figures with lamps approach a moonlit, isolated cottage.
A woman answers the door.
We have come for the child, says the hooded figure
So soon? she asks
It is time, says the hooded figure.
The woman is distraught. We should never have got him a library card!
What is done cannot be undone, says the hooded figure
We couldn’t see the harm! We just wanted him to enjoy reading!
For most, it ends there, says the hooded figure, turning away and walking into the wilderness
Oh lord, What have I done! says the woman,
the child walks past her and out into the darkness with them.
Do not cry mother.
I am a writer now.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 17/04/2026

--this is me: I'm "and more!" My story "Camino Mundo," is buried somewhere in that nebula; it's a mash-up of hard sci-fi and western, told from the perspective of someone who's worked hard and is ready to pass the torch along. I'd have started advertising it sooner, but, y'know: work.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/03/2026

Sweet merciless iambs, drawing you into the gaping maw of some stellar beast… I may or may not have been hangry when I wrote this. 🤔

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 26/03/2026

Serious question for @colbertlateshow.bsky.social about the new #LOTR movie: will it feature the Fox? And if so… will it be a Fox + Bill the Pony buddy comedy where they solve crimes in Bree? #badboysforlife

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 08/02/2026

No need to bug me — I’ve come prepared. Image of the poem (through award season only) can be found at: the-lettersea.com/wp-content/u... (And thank you @deborahldavitt.com!)

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Tony Lee @pigasuspress.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Noticed this on FB.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 05/01/2026

And finally, on the 12th day of #12DaysOfPoetry, I offer a poem from my chapbook, Whiles Changing Lanes, which came out last year from Bottlecap Press. "Riddles of the wind" is a bleak and unsparing free verse poem (even moreso than "Homecoming" was), but sometimes we find variation in greys.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 05/01/2026

I missed the 11th day of the #12DaysOfPoetry, because Reasons. So let's make up for lost time. "Homecoming" appeared in @analogsf.bsky.social last year, and it was on their poetry page for a while. Now it's gone. Which is on-theme for the poem, honestly.

Text on a gradient background that moves from black to grey to brown, suggesting sunset sky over the desert. The text is the poem, "Homecoming," by Brian Hugenbruch, and he apologizes for not trying to fit the whole poem into the Alt text, but he'll create a text page for this poem someday.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 03/01/2026

On the 10th day of #12DaysOfPoetry, I return to “wind through a long-forgotten outpost,” published by @penumbricmag.bsky.social in 2023, and demand of the world a day for when it’s neither pertinent nor applicable.

penumbric.com

Penumbric October 2k23, Wind through a long-forgotten outpost

Edgy speculative fiction magazine

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 02/01/2026

For those curious! My eligible poems are listed on my website in a few places. My personal favorites were: * “Homecoming” (Analog) * “Citation may be required” (Baubles from Bones) * “Fire in the blood” (SpecPoVerse) …and “Riddles of the wind” from my chapbook.

the-lettersea.com

2025 Awards Post and End of Year News

We’re here at the end of a long and brutish sort of year, and we had more funerals than I had story publications this year. (I wish that were hyperbole.) But as much effort as it consumes, it…

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 02/01/2026

On the 9th day of #12DaysOfPoetry, I’m sharing my second of three favorites from 2025. @bfbzine.bsky.social picked up this blank-verse rumination on AI and the soul of art, and now I’m happy again to share it — “Citation may be required.”

baublesfrombones.com

"Citation May Be Required" by Brian Hugenbruch

An AI society searches for harmony in the echoes of a church. By Brian Hugenbruch. Featured in Baubles From Bones: Issue 6.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 01/01/2026

Day 8 of the #12DaysOfPoetry is a new year, a new poem day, and a new issue of @kaleidotrope.bsky.social! This is “Face to face” — because why not start off the new year with eldritch SF horror?

kaleidotrope.net

“Face to face” by Brian Hugenbruch

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 31/12/2025

It’s Day 7 of #12DaysOfPoetry, and the last day of a brutish year. So today’s poem acknowledges your travails (past and future). This is “Look Again,” from @kaleidotrope.bsky.social’s Winter 2023 issue.

kaleidotrope.net

“Look Again” by Brian Hugenbruch

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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

With Day 6 of #12DaysOfPoetry, we move on to my 2025 publications! First up is the meditative tale of "Hermit of the Crossroads" in @havenspec.bsky.social, with an anchorite whose presence protects the realm: www.havenspec.com/hermit-of-th...

havenspec.com

Hermit of the Crossroads by Marie Brennan, Haven Spec Magazine

Fiction and Poetry for the 21st Century!

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 30/12/2025

Day 6 of #12DaysOfPoetry coincides with New Hearing Device day for me. To that end, I offer “Worlds I Didn’t Hear,” which bowed last year at @strangehorizons.bsky.social. There’s probably a whole collection here somewhere. 🤔

strangehorizons.com

Worlds I Didn't Hear

I did not hear the sky crack open

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/12/2025

I’ve just been bashed in the head by my garbage bins and a windy day. There’s a lot of blood. If this is how I go, I call dibs on regenerating into Sylvester McCoy.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/12/2025

For Day 5 of #12DaysOfPoetry, we exchange fire for ice! Not because I nearly broke my neck walking the dog this morning (or not *just* because of that); we also moving from free to blank verse (iambs). @sfpoetry.bsky.social's Eye to the Telescope published the crystalline "Under the Skin" in 2021:

eyetothetelescope.com

Eye to the Telescope

Eye to the Telescope, the quarterly online journal of SFPA, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, an international organization of speculative poets.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025

2025 Round-Up and Awards Eligibility for #Poetry: nine (9) short poems, and one chapbook that, at 40 pages, straddles the line between chap and full-length.

Text inset and imposed over the picture of a clear-sky sunrise somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic, with a road leading down into a fog-filled valley. The words are a list of poetic works by Brian Hugenbruch published in 2025.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025

For Day 4 of the #12DaysOfPoetry, I'm pulling one of my three favorites from 2025. "Fire in the Blood" 🔥 is available in Issue 1.2 of SpecPoVerse (Pages 36-37). It was written on the 10th anniversary of the passing of someone who departed far too early. Sometimes unfinished stories leave a wake. 🐉

heyzine.com

SpecPoVerse | PDF to Flipbook

An International Journal of Speculative Poetry. PDF to flipbook converted using heyzine.com

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025

post a perfect album from the 90's that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains

A blurry close-up photograph of a guitar being played, tinted deeply magenta, with the words 'my bloody valentine' in the bottom left corner.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 27/12/2025

Day 3 of the #12DaysOfPoetry seems like it needs a bit of a pick-me-up, so I'm pulling out a golden shovel from 2021 that's nominally about coffee. ...or is it? If you wander over to Abyss & Apex, you'll find "That is not what I meant at all."

abyssapexzine.com

That is not what I meant at all | Abyss & Apex

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 26/12/2025

For Day 2 of the #12DaysOfPoetry, we move to free verse, light of touch, and a poem that presaged a lot of what I put in my chapbook. This is "droplets," from the October 2021 @penumbricmag.bsky.social:

penumbric.com

Penumbric October 2k21, Droplets

Edgy speculative fiction magazine

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 25/12/2025

I love @swantower.bsky.social’s idea of the #12DaysOfPoetry, so for Day 1, please enjoy a time-traveling villanelle from @havenspec.bsky.social — “For the attention of my future self” (And Happy Holidays from my present self!)

havenspec.com

For the attention of my future self by Brian Hugenbruch, Haven Spec Magazine

Fiction and Poetry for the 21st Century!

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/11/2025

I’m sure this won’t get drowned out by Capitalism Day, but: “In All Its Infinite Variety” is live over at @hellitself.bsky.social. I still enjoy this story, even after all this time, and I’m glad it found a home!

hellitself.com

In All Its Infinite Variety – Hell Itself

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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

As I always do with boycotts, I urge: be tough with corporations, gentle with individual buyers. For some people, Black Friday sales are the way they get their kids jackets that fit, shoes that hold up to the weather. Yelling at them doesn’t help the cause.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/11/2025

I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/11/2025

Happy “Mass Unsubscribe from Mailing Lists” Day to all who celebrate #nopemas

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 24/11/2025

tfw you nearly hit a deer when you’re pulling into your driveway. #countryliving

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Olivia Just Wants Tech To Be Fun Again @kingdomfantasy6.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Remember folks. The original bluesky ethos by us bluesky elders (apparently I count?) is block and move on. Don't quote dunk, don't pick fights. Block, and move on. This is what made this site unpalatable to the right early on, and we can continue to make it unpalatable to them.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 02/10/2025

Welcome to October — care for a mind-bending sci-fi cocktail? I have a recipe for one in the current issue of Abyss & Apex, if so…

abyssapexzine.com

Mixing Your Own Apotheosis | Abyss & Apex

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 12/09/2025

My advice to people, as it has been since the USENET days, is simply this: Everything that can be made public on the Internet one day will be made public. Say what you want and what you feel is necessary, and remember it will be found.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 08/09/2025

For the Monday morning crowd: my first-ever poetry chapbook is now available from Bottlecap Press! While Changing Lanes is a long commute, and bad weather, and eldritch horror, and moments where the sun finally comes out. 19 poems, 40 pages. Check it out!

bottlecap.press

While Changing Lanes, by Brian Hugenbruch

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features. WHILE CHANGING LANES is the story of a commute that leads through eldritch horror, the lands of the dead, skies on fire, and people who drive slowl...

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 05/09/2025

Reading contracts isn't the most awe-inspiring part of this work, but it is one of the most important. Please go read this thread up and down and remember that this stuff all matters, whether we're talking individual haiku or brick-sized doorstoppers.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 31/08/2025

Also: two (2) new poems available just this morning in Issue 2 of SpecPoVerse! One about a life trying to begin; the other about ideas trying to live after the end.

specpoverse.org

Specpoverse

Join us in our mission to create a multicultural vision of speculative poetry.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 31/08/2025

I'm a little late in posting this, but I had to dust and disinfect my promotional drum before I started the beat. New poem today at @bfbzine.bsky.social! "Citation may be required" is blank verse, and about A.I., but don't let either of those scare you.

baublesfrombones.com

"Citation May Be Required" by Brian Hugenbruch

An AI society searches for harmony in the echoes of a church. By Brian Hugenbruch. Featured in Baubles From Bones: Issue 6.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 16/05/2025

There's a spider outside the bathroom window this morning, working on a web in the fog. It's an architectural marvel, and large enough to catch a bear. I don't know what they're procrastinating on doing, but it's working wonders.

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 12/05/2025

What's better than one new issue of Worlds of Possibility? That would be *two* new issues. Check them out! (I'm in the one on the right, but this isn't Left Twix v. Right Twix -- they both look amazing.)

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 05/05/2025

My villanelle "Lesson's End" (Samjoko, Summer 2024) is a finalist for the Rhysling Short Form category! You can find it at www.samjokomagazine.com/beyond-the-d... -- it's the one in the middle.

samjokomagazine.com

Beyond the Dome — Samjoko

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/04/2025

show me a picture on your phone that has your energy that isn’t a selfie

Text which reads: “Note to self: Stay out of your mind!”

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