iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s October 1st, which means I finally get to dig into this used bookstore find, which I’ve been holding onto since July. I think I read Frankenstein years ago, but it’s possible I only read it through societal osmosis. I guess we’ll find out!

Comic book style cover of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with the doctor and his monster looking appropriately gothic against a dark rainy background.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Holy termination “dust” Batman! (For reference, these mountains were completely bare yesterday.)

Matanuska Peak and adjacent mountains showing a full coat of new snow under a blue sky with a few clouds (spruce and cottonwood trees still green in the foreground).

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

What a ducking day at the fair! I mean, look at this lovely lady, straight out of Beatrix Potter's English countryside! (She obviously got lured away by a fox and has lost her bonnet and apron, poor thing.)

A regular old white duck with yellow/orange feet and bill, but with a big puffball of feathers on its head, standing in a cage in the bird exhibition room at the AK State Fair, looking longingly for an escape back to the countryside.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

The blueberries (and crowberries) were abundant today!

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Today’s thrift store find. Loving the hubris of Mr. Bernstein and his three faces.

Vinyl album cover: Leonard Bernstein Conducts His Three Symphonies. Mr. Bernstein’s face is depicted thrice, at different angles and distances, in flames, classical Greek architecture, and in a NY skyline, all in the surf breaking on a sandy beach.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Yes, the world is burning, but you can still get your MFA, and in Alaska nonetheless! (I mean, why not? After all, the world is burning...) Come read and write and frolic in the fireweed with me and our other amazing faculty and students this summer 😎

Info about the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Alaska Pacific University: Study fiction, literary non-fiction, or poetry; Get one-to-one mentorship throughout the program; Complete in 2 years, 3 months, with 3 summer sessions and 4 mentorship semesters. About the program: The low-residency MFA is a 36-credit program combining individualized study with an on-campus summer residency in Anchorage, Alaska, every July. Pre-residency online instruction begins May 2026. Apply today! Admission requirements: Application & $35 fee; Portfolio; Personal statement; Recommendations. Application deadline: April 1.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Just a few neighborly messages from a women’s restroom stall at the Cancun Airport, where I’m waiting for my flight to ICE infested MSP. Fun world we live in these days…

Lots of colorful bathroom stall graffiti messages, such as “Fuck Trump w/a HARD DICK” and “FUK ICE keep our Latina mamis.” Oh, and “Death to Amerikkka.”

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Love being woken up by the earth at 6:30 on a Saturday.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Whenever I get to see a good light show I like to try to get my brain to forget all the science I know and just let myself be awed by the unknown.

Northern lights in green, yellow and red shining up over a river bed and mountains, with some white human lights below.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

What fresh hell is this??? For reference, the “research” this AI has supposedly turned into an analogy is a couple of poems published in a university-linked literary journal. Like, I’m kind of curious to see what kind of “analogy” it made out of my lines… but also, WTF? Not today, Satan.

Screen shot of an email stating that Academia.edu’s AI has “turned your research into an easy to understand analogy” and inviting me to “explore impact hub.” Gross.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

We had frogs, unicorns, chickens, a capybara, and this delightful little dragon/human mixed family - all in organized, joyful splendor. How can we not win???

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Tiny fall fungus for your viewing pleasure.

Close up of grey, deeply furrowed tree bark with tiny red-orange round fungi growing in one crack.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Oh, you mean the America my forefathers created by… invading a foreign land? That one? Yeah…

Stupid propaganda from Homeland Security. Close-up picture of the Statue of Liberty’s face with the words “Protect Her” over it and text above saying, “Recapture the America your forefathers created. Prevent foreign infiltration.”

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Extremely honored to be included in this issue of Prairie Schooner alongside some truly amazing writers! (and yes, this is the winter 2024 issue… which just came out… they’re a bit behind in their pub schedule…)

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Left Alaska 5 days ago and drove the whole AK Highway just to find the ugliest camping set up ever conceived.

A cybertruck pretending to be a real camping vehicle, with a tent on its back end, hanging on for dear life.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Inside of every child (or… mine, at least) there are two wolves…

Child’s drawing of rainbow stripes on a white background, with three small happy smiling rainbows scattered around. This is the child-wolf you want, but that only shows up in glimpses.

Child’s drawing of a Minecraft style tnt block with a Minecraft person standing ready to set it off. This is the wolf-child you are given most days.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Love finding poetry in the wild! Ada Limón at the Anchorage Museum’s excellent “Cold War to the Cosmos” exhibit.

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky: the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.

"In Praise of Mystery" by Ada Limón
Released at the Library of Congress on June 1, 2023, in celebration of the poem's engraving on NASA's Europa Clipper.
Copyright Ada Limón, 2023.

(Below the photo is unreadable text about “Art in Space” and a photo of a man in a suit looking at a blue globe on a white pedestal.)

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Happy Earth Day from this tulip, who recognizes an opportunity for metaphor when she sees it.

A single green tulip leaf, sprouting up through a hole in a dead dried brown leaf on the ground. There’s a big log to the left and a rock to the right. Some grass in the background, lots of brown dirt.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

The Anchorage Museum has a Georgia O’Keefe on loan temporarily and I went to see it yesterday. It’s just a brown line on a white background, but it’s a really freakin beautiful brown line.

Photo of O’Keefe’s “winter road” in which a creamy white background is interrupted by a thick brown line that curves up from the bottom of the frame to the right and gets thinner as it continues around to the left. Just before the top left corner it curves out to the right again a few inches, then takes a sharp turn back left and up off the canvas. The whole thing gives the illusion of looking up at a pregnant belly with a small breast at the top. It’s gorgeous.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Finally got my author copies of my chapbook. Feels pretty cool to hold them in my hands 😎

A stack of 25 chapbooks spread out on a wood table, sunlight brightening their top edges.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Uh... Did Elon and his stooges somehow accidentally (on purpose) kill the Alaska ferry website?

Screenshot from the Alaska Marine Highway (ferry) website, giving the sad page face with the text "This site can't be reached https://dot.alaska.gov/amhs/index.shtml is unreachable.
ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE"

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Pretty good turn out in my little town, here in the reddest part of AK.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

It’s chapbook release day! Get my weird little hybrid prose-poem thing from @smallharborpub.bsky.social 🎶🌊 www.smallharborpublishing.com/chapbooks/wa...

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Picked up @amytan.bsky.social‘s Backyard Bird Chronicles to give to my dad, but started reading it myself, and then my 9yo started reading it and got really into it, so now I probably have to buy another copy. Such a lovely daily meditation on the world- a palate cleanse from all the other chaos.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I just saw that too. I’m glad it’s happening. Unfortunately, my state capitol is a plane ride away, and that’s just not happening for me. Maybe someone will organize a secondary location protest here on the road system.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

California burning, the south covered in snow, and Alaska flooding. Yes, in liquid water. In January. But let’s continue to pretend climate change isn’t a thing.

A main intersection of my little town of Palmer, Alaska, totally flooded and impassable.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

First art museum visit of 2025: Minnesota Marine Art Museum. Pictured is “Call to Arms” by Elana Mann, which really called to me (if you will). Here’s to art, in all forms, as a mode of resistance.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

My kid makes better lines with magnetic poetry tiles than I do with my poor old brain.

Grey metal board with magnetic poetry tiles that say “diamond was a gift from mother life yet beauty could crush it” and below, the scattered words “gown language meat”

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

On this 3-degree morning, I’m thankful for my warm living room with a mountain view and for the Alaska friendsgiving celebration to come this afternoon ❄️🍗👯

View out the window through parted curtains, showing a dawn-blue sky, outline of pioneer peak, frosty tree-branches, and one glowing streetlight.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Look at this crime-fighting duo I saw in the grocery store parking lot. Pretty sure they’re crusaders for democracy.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Seldovia boat harbor, this September. Show me a picture, new or old, of #Alaskasky

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Alaska. We got 4 stickers this morning! Two designs for the state/national ballot and two designs for the local/borough ballot.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Did the thing, on the day. No lines and all the stickers! (Lines were crazy here for early voting, so this is definitely something to celebrate.)

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

Aurora, taken from my driveway, looking straight up. Truly, though, it was not pink, just a light, beautiful dancing green. I don’t like the lies that night mode tells.

Photo of bright pink and green northern lights.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 06/10/2024

Autumn in Alaska = community potato digging. Yes, we all paid $5 to come dig our own 10lb bag of potatoes and it is the most fantastic thing! The joy is palpable each time someone unearths a starchy golden nuggets and shouts “I found a big one!” I want to bottle it.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 28/09/2024

Love to find a bit of shade thrown Steinway's direction in a book that's otherwise not piano-related 😂 (book is The English Understand Wool, by Helen DeWitt, a lovely novella that I'm reading specifically for @rachzuck.bsky.social 's next Reading with Rachel class series)

Screen grab from chapter 6 of The English Understand Wool, which begins, "Maman ordered a Pleyel from Paris because one wishes to play the pianoforte on the instrument preferred by Chopin" and later reads, "Maman bought a riad in the next street and installed a Steinway, which is regrettably necessary for the world of the concert." This last quote, beginning with "installed..." is highlighted.

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 21/09/2024

In case anyone was wondering… as per usual, not one of the cool kid early adopters, but also not the last one to the party.

A virtual certificate with text "Celebrating 10M users on Bluesky, #1,785,950, Andrea ‪@thelostintent.bsky.social‬, joined on Oct 31, 2023"

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 19/09/2024

My kid’s first pair of Docs, which I found at the thrift store earlier this summer. He’s kinda particular about his footwear, so it was a bit of a gamble… But he likes them! And wears them! And that makes my heart happy 🖤

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 05/09/2024

I love to see local authors being successful and supporting libraries with their success! My library needs help after a roof collapse last year and Eowyn Ivey is stepping up. This also supports our awesome local bookstore- a win win win situation!

Graphic showing Eowyn Ivey’s new book, Black Woods Blue Sky, with text that says For every copy pre-ordered at Fireside Books, I will donate $1 to the Palmer Public Library.

As some of you know, in February 2023 a heavy snowload collapsed the roof of the Palmer Public Library in my Alaska hometown and forced the permanent closure of the building. Since then, the library has been operating out of temporary quarters and is gathering donations for a new building. This is the library I adored as a child, and over the years I've spent countless hours there checking out books, researching and writing. The launch party for my new novel BLACK WOODS, BLUE SKY this winter will be a fundraiser for the library (more on this event soon) but in the meantime, I'm pledging some of my book income toward the cause. For every copy of BLACK WOODS, BLUE SKY pre-ordered at Fireside Books in Palmer AK, I'll donate a dollar to the Friends of the Palmer Public Library, Inc. You can pre-order by calling Fireside Books at (907) 745-2665 or visiting www.goodbooksbadcoffee.com. I'm happy to sign and inscribe your copy (make a note of it when you order), and Fireside Books will ship an

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

Also fairies. Much gourd-based magic. 🪄

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 25/08/2024

My first sighting of this invasive species in Alaska…

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 24/06/2024

Why yes, you can actually fit a whole piano in the back of a small SUV. You just have to destroy it first. Which is a really fun project 😎

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Andrea L. Hackbarth @thelostintent.bsky.social · 02/06/2024

Honestly? I hate the idea of a “starter home.” I mean, I get it that if your family grows you might need a bigger home, but we’ve also been sold this idea that a small home is not enough. That constant striving for something bigger and better is part of what got us into this mess in the first place.

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