Todays Date Is The 3rd? Whats Next, The 4th? The 5th? The Minor Fall, The Major Lift?

today’s date is the 3rd? what’s next, the 4th? the 5th? the minor fall, the major lift? 

 — E. E. Cummings, Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems of E.E. Cummings

[text ID: But I’ll live my life if it kills me]

WIP INTRO - Seventh Virtue

Genre: Adult contemporary fantasy

Status: Currently drafting / 155k words (summer 2021-present)

Synopsis: After being tormented by nightmares of his ex-boyfriend, Lonan, Harrison seeks a magical intervention from old friend, Reeve. But when she reveals she and Lonan are members of the Seventh Roost, one of seven magical families that coincide with the 7 Holy Virtues and 7 Capital Sins, she also unveils another secret: Lonan is part Virtue, the immortal bird that represents each house, and her family is holding him captive in hopes of extrapolating his power. Harrison must choose to continue life as he knows it or rekindle relationships he thought he’d left behind to save someone he once loved.

Setting: Manhattan NY, Buffalo NY

Vibe: Candles burned to the stump, indigo raven feathers, early 2000s pop, snowy woods at blue hour, dawn fog, a bloody lip, the clatter of city traffic, the singe of gasoline.

Characters:

Harrison Frost (narrator - 25) | loyal, impulsive, dependable, stubborn

Reeve Aldaine (narrator - 23) | persistent, observant, reclusive, unreliable

Lonan Clark (25) | logical, introspective, ambitious, impulsive

Darren Peterson (26) | sensible, focused, compassionate, reliable

Foster Creed (24) | empathetic, intuitive, wistful, unassuming

Excerpt (CW: gore):

Don’t blink when in an instant, none of this—the lake, the bodies—is there. When all there is in sight is a bird heaving in the centre of a concrete room. Approach him. Know him–and quickly. His black feathers so slick, they gloss indigo in the single floodlight fluorescing him. Notice he’s injured. Notice he has hands, fingers, that he grips something small, polished. Notice the blood, how it gels everything—his skin, feathers, the floor. Notice how he holds it all: the knife, the blood, his skin, the feathers, the floor.

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when florence welch said 'those heavy days in june when love became an act of defiance' she was talking about enjolras and grantaire dying hand in hand in the june rebellion

My short story, How Does an Orca Pray, is out now and free to read in the latest issue of Reservoir Road Literary Review! This story has gone through loads of edits to get to where it is now, and I can’t thank the editors enough for believing in the story and helping me with that final push. 

This is story about the complexities of faith, gender and co-dependency. It follows a trans narrator trying to understand their dysphoria and disconnect from their womanhood, trying to understand what masculinity is with the limited image of it they grew up watching, and ultimately realising that masculinity and gender can be whatever they want it to be. It also follows the unique relationship they have with the boy they’re arranged to marry, and the way they bond over their shared discontent. I love this story with all my heart <3 

content warnings: christianity/religious trauma, pregnancy, childbirth and child loss 

[image description: a screenshot of a short story opening, written in a black serif font against a white background. the text reads: 

Mama told me that the Baptism is the most important part of girlhood, because it’s when we stop being girls. I was twelve, still tucked snowdrops into my bonnet. My body shapeless, my prayers humble, I thought it was good to be a girl of God. Moonlight spilled through the curtains when my sisters woke me.

Fall leaves lily-padded the water. The girls hung rosaries around their necks and braided each other’s hair, and I imagined their braids as eels. Delilah held my hand to the lake and I kneeled in the grass with Mama as the girls kneeled in the water, pointed prayer hands to the sky and bowed until they submerged. Mama said my sisters were ready to be mothers, so they needed to be cleansed, to float like babies in utero. I was quiet, but I smiled, because one day I would be a mother. But the Baptism, as I understand now, was a prayer to the water as it stung your lungs, as it embalmed you in your womanhood. /end id]

we've had hot girl summer. now it's time for deranged girl autumn. meet me in the woods behind goody proctor's house.