Physical copies of The Cancer Cantos have arrived! 🥳 Global distribution is still pending, but the ebook and paperback are currently available through Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jllongwrites.
Cosimo Galluzzi
art blog(derogatory)

No title available
Acquired Stardust
cherry valley forever

pixel skylines
Jules of Nature
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
No title available

Origami Around
wallacepolsom

oozey mess
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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AnasAbdin
will byers stan first human second

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
noise dept.

izzy's playlists!
Monterey Bay Aquarium

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@jllongwrites
Physical copies of The Cancer Cantos have arrived! 🥳 Global distribution is still pending, but the ebook and paperback are currently available through Lulu Books: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jllongwrites.
Queerlective
Very proud to have one of my poems included in this wonderful resource!
Happy Pride, y'all; I don't have anything new t'share, alas, but I did at least want to put my Pride pics from last year together in one place as at least a little show of Support.
PIC-A-WEEK, May-sters of the Universe
Part Three: A Bit Of An Artist
"Just so you know: I'm a hugger."
Some people might say it's cheating to use a "She-Ra" character in a "Masters of the Universe" theme month. I say screw that, I want Scorpia.
hamlet’s “i did love you once” and ophelia’s “indeed, my lord, you did make me believe so” is such an underrated gut punch. it’s betrayal it’s heartbreak it’s vulnerability it’s so over. truly no one is doing it like shakespeare
State of the Reader: Oops All Horror Edition
In early April I attended a literary festival in Exeter, NH, and I was able to visit Water Street Books for the first time. It was an absolute goddamn delight, and if you're into books and live anywhere in the northern New England region, I recommend adding it to your bucket list. It was while wandering the very charming aisles of the store that I spotted this:
The cover caught my eye immediately, and the book blurb's description of a mystery/horror/thriller about house floor plans intrigued me. Strange Houses was a quick read, being a short novel that features a lot of diagrams of floor plans, and I devoured it in a single sitting. Then I went into my Hoopla account to see if I could borrow any other Uketsu books and read Strange Pictures next. Strange Buildings, the direct successor to Strange Houses, wasn't on Hoopla, so I bought it as an ebook. It's been a while since I've fallen so in love with a series of books or with an author. I am tempted to begin reciting all of the reasons I shouldn't love the books, all of the very valid criticisms that readers can and have made, all of the ways these books are different from many of the other novels I love. But you know what? I'm not gonna do that.
Instead, I'm gonna say that I love the mix of mystery and horror in these books, how each new plot development just makes you hungry for the next twist or turn, the sense of restrained melodrama that reminds me of being a teenager and everyone passing around V. C. Andrews books. I think Strange Pictures probably has the most plausible plot of the trio, while Strange Buildings probably has the strongest characterization. But I enjoyed the hell out of all three books.
Heh, "Strange Buildings" was a recent Book of the Month at the Barnes and Noble where I work, and we even got an appropriately creepy standee of "Uketsu", so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the whole series so much. ^_^
Ahh, that's so cool!
you have this superpower! BUT you have this side-effect
is it worth it?
yes!!
the side effect is bad but ITS WORTH IT
meh it's okay
the side effect makes it unusable/not worth it
Results/option I didn't think of
"There is no hard-and-fast definition of what either a novel or a short story is—at least not in terms of word count—nor should there be. But when a writer approaches the 20,000-word mark, he knows he is edging out of the country of the short story. Likewise, when he passes the 40,000-word mark, he is edging into the country of the novel. The borders of the country between these two more orderly regions are ill-defined, but at some point the writer wakes up with alarm and realizes that he's come or is coming to a really terrible place, an anarchy-ridden literary banana republic called the 'novella'."
— Stephen King, Different Seasons (Afterword)
State of the Reader: Oops All Horror Edition
In early April I attended a literary festival in Exeter, NH, and I was able to visit Water Street Books for the first time. It was an absolute goddamn delight, and if you're into books and live anywhere in the northern New England region, I recommend adding it to your bucket list. It was while wandering the very charming aisles of the store that I spotted this:
The cover caught my eye immediately, and the book blurb's description of a mystery/horror/thriller about house floor plans intrigued me. Strange Houses was a quick read, being a short novel that features a lot of diagrams of floor plans, and I devoured it in a single sitting. Then I went into my Hoopla account to see if I could borrow any other Uketsu books and read Strange Pictures next. Strange Buildings, the direct successor to Strange Houses, wasn't on Hoopla, so I bought it as an ebook. It's been a while since I've fallen so in love with a series of books or with an author. I am tempted to begin reciting all of the reasons I shouldn't love the books, all of the very valid criticisms that readers can and have made, all of the ways these books are different from many of the other novels I love. But you know what? I'm not gonna do that.
Instead, I'm gonna say that I love the mix of mystery and horror in these books, how each new plot development just makes you hungry for the next twist or turn, the sense of restrained melodrama that reminds me of being a teenager and everyone passing around V. C. Andrews books. I think Strange Pictures probably has the most plausible plot of the trio, while Strange Buildings probably has the strongest characterization. But I enjoyed the hell out of all three books.
obsessed with this bookshop in stratford-upon-avon having WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE listed as a ”local author”
What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself
I’ve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into “princesses is saved by a prince and nothing else”, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because she’s a strong female character! (Implying if you’re in a bad situation, it’s because you’re not strong enough to get out)
Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like… a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella going from ‘Haha nice I really like you’ to ‘oh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UP’ it’s good shit ‘I have just met you but ON GOD I’m gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery woman’ cinderella makes desperately yelling into the night ‘how can I find you again!??!’ when she’s taking off that much more poignant really
He’s been trained to read the room. To read the context clues. To read politics and scheming and planning and people. He’s a Prince, it’s either that or accidentally drink poison by age 15. And he reads her and …
She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.
All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.
Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.
He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.
The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.
And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.
Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.
And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.
The way he sees it, sometimes even the strongest people can be brought low and need just… a little help. She had enough in her to do whatever she had to do to free herself of those evil relations if she had to, but she shouldn’t have to. There’s no glory in blood. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending to be happily ever after.
Here is one of the poems from my new chapbook, The Cancer Cantos. I will be sharing some of the other poems tomorrow evening at the official book launch at the Rochester Public Library!
🚨 Get ready for a Game Changer: Home Edition — LIVE NOW on Kickstarter until June 5!
From the team behind Game Changer comes a chaotic, fast-paced party game where you never know what’ll happen next.
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An unpredictable party game where the rules change every round. Coming soon to your home.
"If you accept any food from the fae, they shall never let you go" is a human belief. The fair folk stand by the principle that if you feed 'em, you gotta keep 'em. If wildlife learns to rely on you for food, you have already fucked up, and you can't just stop feeding them cold turkey. That human is your responsibility now. Because you left your peach cobbler unsupervised.
two of them
what a beautiful, beautiful phrase
J. L. Long, established Rochester author and the host of the monthly Rochester Writers Night literary salon, has just released his second po