#new england writers

[mother-lee]

almost heaven

[ohrevienssoleil]

I understand why it wasn't possible, but it's such a shame we couldn't get Jenny back for The Wish. She and Giles fighting a losing battle side by side and being hardened from it, but remaining each other's solace. Them piecing together the puzzle Cordelia presents to them and having faith in a world better than this, only for Anyanka to try and throw them by hinting at Jenny's death should they return. Giles faltering at the thought of losing her and Jenny, once again, sacrificing herself and destroying the necklace. The way she sees it: she'll either be dead by The Master's hand or by her own, and only one of those inevitabilities gives the man she loves a chance of survival. She kisses him as she plunges herself into the abyss, wanting the last thing she experiences to be his love.

Giles waking up the following morning, the pang in his heart he always feels whenever he remembers Jenny accompanied by a newfound feeling of emptiness, and he's not quite sure why.

[nothwell]

Do you have time to read three romance novels?

Are you able to judge without bias?

Are you ready to have fun?

Serve as a judge for the New England Readers’ Choice Awards Contest!

Readers, librarians, booksellers, and unpaid bloggers/reviewers are all welcome to judge the NERW contest.

(Published romance authors and paid reviewers are not allowed to serve as judges.)

Judges will be asked to read and score 3 novels/novellas. Ebooks will be sent out one at a time; once judges have submitted their scores for their first book, they will be sent a second, and then a third, book to judge. If judges submit scores for all three books early, and wish to judge more entries, additional books will be sent out if they are available (up to a limit of 10 per judge).

Our contest coordinators will assign books based on reading preferences indicated by judges on the judging intake form.

Books will be sent out between March 2024 and April 2024, as they are received by the contest organizers. Judges will need to submit all scores by April 30, 2024.

Visit NERW dot org to sign up!

[onbearfeet]

Everyone please enjoy midnight research and bitching with Mysterious Gay New England Buddy. I knew I could rely on him to know the local favorite trophy-wife brands.

Yes, Elsa has "Burberry camo".

[angeloftheodd]

Wearing a Lana Del Rey shirt to Mark Twain’s house just felt so *right*. 💖

Lana and Mark Twain both inspire me as a poet. 💘

🍒 My Instagram (angel0fthe0dd) 🍒

🫐 My Xitter (GhiaWasHere) 🫐

[michaelbaileywriter]

Station Identification Time

Who Am I? I’m a writer originally from Falmouth, MA who now lives in Oxford, MA with my awesome wife Veronica, two dogs, and four cats who don’t like to let us sleep in. After 15 years with the Falmouth Enterprise, where I worked as a general and political reporter, blogger, and editor, I left the news industry to focus on my creative writing. In addition to my novels (more on that in a…

[bykpas]

don’t fret.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

I’m about to graduate law school, and every single day I wonder if I should have tried to make a creative career work first.

I don’t know a word for it either.

I just graduated law school and passed the bar and I’m honestly really good at the attorney thing but every single day I think of a life where I’m writing full time instead.

A part of me still thinks we’ll find our way back around.

[mother-lee]

almost heaven

[boscofuller]

[rosieposie1002]

[agentx8d]

EXTREMELY URGENT- PLEASE SHARE

Basil is a medical student from Gaza who’s worked as a volunteer in Al-Shifa and Al-Aqsa hospitals. He needs help to evacuate his 6 siblings from Gaza. Basil wants to be able to follow his dreams, continue his studies and live a SAFE life with his family like we all deserve! Please help me share his message to evacuate his family from Gaza!

[dyllard]

A refugee in

Strange hearts

Backpacking

A forest of

Drifting souls

In search of

A “one”

Yet doesn’t count

His own value

Never knowing

He’d always

Be just

A half

And a void

Chasing a

Modern

Starved romance

Through the

End of economy

Where no mortgage

Fits the check

And despair

His dreams of

Youth faded

To cracked

Terracotta

Just thirsty roots

Stretching for

Wine, never finding

The truth

Only inebriated

Visions of

A slivered dream

But I travel

Alone into the dawn

I’ve caffeinated

My pain to

A jittering halt

The undeniable

Fact is

Every ugly

Broken

Bitter piece

Of a shattered

Childhood

Lives inside

This 32 year old

Frame going

Through the motions

Spending time

Chasing payments

Wearing credit like

A badge of honor

Observing outcomes

Losing fire

Desire to

Witness something real

Unapologetic life

In all it’s raw glory

Let it be present

Let it be imperfect

Let me sink into it’s

Earth like the

Molecules of a

Dying tree

Let my feet ache

Knees press on

So this spine will

Rise again

As a mountain

A ridge line

Of vertebrae

Steaming

In the morning sun

A place where

A tired wanderer

May lay

Between a crook

Of granite marrow to gaze

Upon the beauty

Of living as

It was meant

To be shared

Unyielding wonder

For the beauty

That bore us

And I will

Hold us there

In a place

We’ll think

Of often

A precipice

Against sky

Two eyes

And a full heart

One

“One” - poetry by dyllard

[edwardianblouse]

Lily

All that summer, we lay like dogs in the long grass, waiting for something to happen. That day, Lily and I had been hunting for a mythical beast said to prowl the moorlands near where we lived. All the lodgers who blew in and out of her house had seen it, Lily said, she’d made them spit-shake on it, and she believed anyone who exchanged bodily functions with her. 

We spent most of that summer talking about the beast and boys and what we would do when we were famous actresses. We searched pictures of Dartmoor sheep killings on the internet, zooming in on their open, filmy eyes. We read news articles about a satanic cult slaughtering farm animals in the area. We jumped into sparkling rivers and stuck out our thumbs down tree-tunnelled roads, hitching for rides. Lily did all the talking. At thirteen, her green eyes glittered with a confidence I rarely saw in girls our age. I longed to be like her. I longed to be grown-up and full of secrets. Existing in a world where impossible things could happen to me. Where I could make things happen. Instead, I sat at the back of cars, wiping my clammy hands on clothes my mum picked out for me. 

The legend goes a large dark beast skulks the heather-topped moors in Devon, where I grew up, killing livestock and roaring into the night. There have been hundreds of sightings. In the 1800’s, it was believed to be a spectral pack of hellhounds that rode out with the devil. In 1978, a circus owner claimed to have freed three of her pumas on Dartmoor. There are still reports of sightings to this day. I google them in my lunch break, staring at blurry phone images of furry, featureless shapes. Lily and I are now strangers. And I did grow up and become a woman with secrets. Impossible things have happened to me and I can make things happen. Back then, the latter felt like a luxury. Lately I’ve been trying to remember that. 

I admit I am not the person I hoped I’d be when I was younger. They never tell you that the ache of letting go of a life you will never live, of a person you will never become, can be as winding as heartbreak. Late at night, film reels flicker in my head showing the imagined woman, an effigy of everything I am not. The imagined woman follows things through to completion and makes her parents proud, she is a better friend, partner, sister, dinner party guest; she earns better money and has thicker, prettier skin. She is disciplined, consistent, happy. The imagined woman is as elusive as the mythical beast I once searched for all those summers ago. I have a deep desire for her to be real and yet disbelieve in her all the same. 

Last year I turned thirty. The number felt like an anchor, tethering me to Earth, to the child who’d come this far, and the mirror reflection of the woman I am. I may not be the person I hoped I’d be when I was younger. But that’s okay because I’m starting to outgrow the two-dimensional figment trapped in my mind. Like shedding baby teeth to make way for something stronger, deep-rooted, these days I have loftier ambitions: to be a good person, to have a good day. I take comfort in tomorrow, that you can always be just one day away from something wonderful happening. I find myself exchanging smiles with strangers. I laugh til my ribs hurt. I cry at films and no longer avoid mirrors. My unfinished projects are a testament to trying. I have friends who know what I'm thinking before I open my mouth. If that’s not magic, then what is? Maybe things are going to be okay. 

Late that afternoon, Lily sat up suddenly. ‘Do you hear that?’ 

The sun was slipping in the South. Lily’s head was in the last of the sunshine, catching in her hair like a cloud of light. I saw her shadowed face shift, but I couldn’t make out what expression she was wearing. My own face twisted in terror. 

There was a loud rustling coming from the forest. Close, getting closer. I strained my ears. There was the bone-snap of twigs, the thunder of steps. 

‘Definitely an animal,’ Lily whispered in nervous excitement, ‘a large one.’

We huddled closer, hands met wrists, sticky and sweet with sun cream and blackberries. I couldn’t look. I buried my face into Lily’s neck like a child. I thought of my parents. Of jagged teeth. Fairy tales. 

‘Oh.’ Lily’s shoulders slumped. I peeked out through strands of her dark hair. A cluster of cheery, red-cheeked hikers emerged from the forest. One of them waved. 

‘Damn,’ Lily said, with a little huff. Then shrugged. ‘Oh well.’ She untangled herself from me and stood up, brushing dirt off her jean shorts. In the fading light, a hand reached out to me. 

‘Tomorrow?’

 Tomorrow.

[angeloftheodd]

Lego My Daddy 📖💖

I ❤️ you, Lego Twain! 💘

🍒 My Instagram (angel0fthe0dd) 🍒

🫐 My Xitter (GhiaWasHere) 🫐

[janeblr]

little inaccuracies in a fic completely RUIN it for me. 1) waterford mi where larks is from is nowhere NEAR lake michigan. its like an hour northwest of detroit. closer to huron or superior but still over an hour inland from either or. 2) you do not just “float around” in lake michigan. that will kill you. CRINGE eugh.