Hey there. My name is Brennan (he/they) I'm a Queer 30-year-old Métis poet and author and this is my dedicated writing blog.
✏️ Writers: I'm starting a low-cost online writing class called Fireweed Writing School, the pilot cohort will be in Summer 2026. Join the waitlist! (and message me, since people from Tumblr will get an exclusive discount.)
⛰️ Looking for a clean, writer-focused Tumblr theme? Check out Foothills! A minimal, accessible theme I built specifically for poets and writers. It's free and open-source.
📚 I have published 8 books independently, including poetry collections, creative non-fiction, and academic work, available on Amazon and as digital downloads on Gumroad (ePubs & PDFs).
🍓 I'm co-founder and lead developer at Berry House, a values-driven web studio building fast, accessible JAMstack websites and thoughtful content for independent creators and mission-led organizations.
If you'd like to donate, click here.
If you're a writer, like this post or send me a message and I'll be sure to follow you! And if you wanna get to know a little more about me, feel free to keep reading after the cut. 💖
Collections
Juvenilia (2011---2013)
The Hyacinth Boy (2014---2017)
The Pine Draft (2018---2020)
Last Call (2020---2023)
Poetics of Grace (2025---Present)
One of my favorite quotes is an (alleged) Chinese proverb, which goes like this:
"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."
That's essentially the philosophy behind this blog. It's something I should have started a long time ago, but hey, I might as well start it now. This is difficult for me to do—I'm taking a large step out of my comfort zone with this. I'm not used to displaying my real self publicly, but I believe it's a good thing to do. Creating this blog helps keep me accountable and focused on what I ought to be doing.
A little bit more about me: Over the past decade, I have been writing under several pseudonyms such as: b.k. blayze, the Hyacinth Boy, the Pine Draft, and Warsaw Mountain.
In September 2022, I founded Write Club, a Queer-led and Indigenous-led creative collective that has grown to over 100 members. We hold weekly meetings, organize fundraisers for the Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation, host author readings and poetry slams, and published our first anthology in 2024.
I'm a Mahayana Buddhist/Progressive Christian syncretist who loves black decaf coffee, films on Kanopy, and mycology. My writing explores themes of Indigenous spirituality, ecological consciousness, disability justice, and what I call "bloodwriting"—writing from the body rather than just the mind, breaking academic constraints to create medicine through words.
In the past, I have worked as a cook at a children's hospice for several years, created music as a soundtrack producer for an indie game, freelanced and started open-source projects as a web developer specializing in JAMstack and Eleventy, and love experimenting with 35mm film photography outdoors.
My favorite poets and influences are mainly from 19th and 20th century America, including: Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, as well from the Beat Generation such as: Herbert Huncke, Lucien Carr, Gary Snyder, Neal Cassady, Bob Kaufman, LeRoi Jones, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Leonard Cohen.
sorry about people being jerks about the fanfiction.lol stuff. please do not let it demotivate you, I think its already looking pretty awesome!
the same thing was said about ao3 itself when it first came out (fanfiction.net users basically harassing ao3 devs). i guess that's just the internet's nature to get pissy about new things which they barely even know about.
thank you for the kind words :) I am very appreciative of the many people who have been supportive and kind, which far outnumber hostile bad-faith detractors. I am excited to keep improving the site and prove myself through my actions.
Hello, I love your stuff! Thanks for all the work you been doing.
I was wondering if you have any tips on indie book publishing? Thanks ahead!
Thank you! I gave a fairly detailed answer a few years ago here: https://bkpoetry.com/post/669057673701064704/what-was-it-like-publishing-your-first-book-its
Nice to see another fanfic site pop up! And uh sorry that some peeps are being weirdly assholeish about fanfiction.lol. Don't get why people are so worked up about it. Can't wait to see what other plans you have for the site!
aw, thank you so much :)
honestly, I'd say 80%-90% of the feedback I've been getting has been positive and kind. I've seen a lot of people defending the site and I'm very grateful and thankful. I'm fine with discourse but again I'm just not interested in it. Fandom is good, people are good. I know this to be true.
Anyways, I have been making a doc with all the bugs and feedback I've been getting and going one-by-one
hi, due to the amount of accounts that have been created so quickly, I have exceeded the free limit of SendGrid's email API. I will resolve this shortly.
hi, due to the amount of accounts that have been created so quickly, I have exceeded the free limit of SendGrid's email API. I will resolve this shortly.
i wanted to contribute something clever to the omninonous anon, but such that it is, being that i am in a deep rut of my own, the best i could do was: i adore your writing! it is omnipresent... omni... omniform... ( i was about to offer omniscent and then shut myself up, thank you )
I still don't understand how fanfiction.lol differs from AO3. The only two key things I could find in your article were volunteer burnout and the fact that AO3 has a signup queue.
How do you plan on preventing burnout on fanfiction.lol? And if the site gets too big too fast, how will you avoid implementing a signup queue?
(Fwiw I don't think the queue is a problem at all. I joined AO3 mid last year and was not waiting longer than a week)
the key difference is that it is different, it is by me instead of OTW.
anybody can fork the otwarchive source code and make their own version of AO3.
I have many different projects on the Internet, I just think it's fun to do things and see what happens.
[hubris] I don't see me getting burnout from this, since it's mostly just bug fixing which I deeply enjoy, and I have multiple helpful amazing mods/wranglers already.
[hubris x2] I also really don't see the site getting big enough that I would have to worry about queueing. There are more people getting into the weeds of the discourse than have actually signed-up (and the whole reason I made it was because I really don't care about discourse).
are you not concerned that disallowing AI fics will just mean that people will post them without tagging them so they dont get removed, meaning people will end up reading them unknowingly? As much as I dislike it, there is no 100% certainty way to find out if a fic is ai or human made - how do you plan to handle these reports in that case?
I've been around genAI for a long time, you can read by thoughts on it here: https://Brennan.day/ai
TL;DR unless there's direct evidence (prompts in the story, for example) I give benefit of the doubt if the author says they didn't use genAI. The entire project is built on Good faith and trusting others.
"if it's free, you're the product" goes the saying.
so pray tell, how much is fanfiction.lol selling me for?
I am the one paying for it, which isn’t much since I already owned the hardware. I just had to buy the domain.
You can check the source code, there are no trackers or analytics or anything that would be selling data. I keep the bare minimum required of personal information.
I made this project out of love and I enjoy the challenge, if you look at my website Brennan.day, you can see I have a track record of making things on the Internet for fun
i’m very sure there would be much easier ways to make a lot of money with the software development skills I have, but I really don’t care for them
