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Brian Hugenbruch

@the-lettersea.com
719 followers 265 following 271 posts

Speculative fiction author | Rhysling and Pushcart nominated poet | Cryptographer by day | No, I don’t know how to pronounce it either. the-lettersea.com

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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 10/09/2026
Or listen, if so inclined, here: www.youtube.com/watch?reload...
youtube.com
4LPH4NUM3R1C2.0 Episode #27: Blythe Spirits
YouTube video by Zoetic Press
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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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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 26/08/2026
…..pation.
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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 · 18/04/2026
New blog post: "New Story Day, and Catching Up." Whereupon the wayward author realizes he has a pile of announcements to make that he should have been doing all this time.
the-lettersea.com
New Story Day, and Catching Up
It would appear the first chunk of the year got away from me (again). I've learned to accept that January through April get a bit silly for me, schedule-wise. But it's not like that's advertised here. So for those who were wondering: I'm okay, I'm still here, and I bring word of words. Biggest news: "Camino Mundo" is part of the May/June 2026 issue of…
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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 of course, since even poets need to eat more than cigarette butts, here's the obligatory link to the chapbook order page. 😇 bottlecap.press/products/whi...
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 · 05/01/2026
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
Also, just to up the fear factor: more iambic pentameter. Because nothing screams “I’m being drawn inexorably into the gaping maw of an elder god” than the unceasing, plodding rhythm of human progress.
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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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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 30/12/2025
As it should be! I really hadn’t leaned into HoH as a metaphor (or a talking point), but sometimes life gives you poetry, if you’re paying attention?
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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
(It’s not actually that bad, to be clear. Just had this moment of odd clarity, like I needed to go out and find a cat pin for my lapel.)
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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
Fun fact: I've crowd-surfed once in my life, and it was for the end part of "True Dreams of Wichita."
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025
I'm perversely glad "Dissolved Girl" was left off the Matrix soundtrack. I had to go looking for it, to figure out what the hell that one song in that one scene was, and fell down a refracted onyx rabbit hole.
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025
Bonus round:
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/12/2025
🥁 Seriously, though, the 90's came in swinging hard.
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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 · 28/12/2025
Was honestly coming online to post this.
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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 · 29/11/2025
The Bottlecap website isn’t working right now (I hope it’s because they were overwhelmed by shoppers this weekend). So to tide you over, here’s “a season for seasons” in its entirety.
A poem by Brian Hugenbruch— free verse with dark text on a mocha background.
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/11/2025
I should point out that Jennifer has a stunning chapbook of her own out this month, which you should nab and read during shopping excursions this weekend. #poetryeverywhere #poetryanywhere
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/11/2025
Beaming this morning because a poet I really admire, @writerjencrow.bsky.social, wrote a glowing review of ‘While Changing Lanes’ on her Patreon.
patreon.com
Review post: While Changing Lanes by Brian Hugenbruch | Poetry from a Crow
Get more from Poetry from a Crow on Patreon
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 29/11/2025
Thanks! The Concordance is a big place, so the connection's not something to beat the casual reader over the head. But I do have a few sectors of that galaxy mapped out, and plans to return again someday...
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Brian Hugenbruch @the-lettersea.com · 28/11/2025
For those who keep track of such things, this is a predecessor and sister-story to “The Princess (NP),” which came out over three years ago at @escapepod.org:
escapepod.org
Escape Pod 856: The Princess, NP
I sat in the Commander’s office at Hexa Station, in clothes that stank of subspace, and the only polite thing I could do to drown out the universe was compute obscene sums in my head. It didn’t stop…
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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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Lesley Carhart @hacks4pancakes.com · 14/11/2025
I have an AMA starting now on Reddit. www.reddit.com/r/SecurityCa...
reddit.com
From the SecurityCareerAdvice community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the SecurityCareerAdvice community
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