Beth Gilstrap (she/her)
@bettysueblue.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.7K following 370 posts
Author. Editor. Copywriter. Anti-fascist. EIC & Publisher of Black Lily Zine. Living w C-PTSD & vocal about ending the stigma surrounding mental illness.
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bettysueblue.bsky.social
It’s been a minute since I’ve published anything so I’m super honored & grateful to have one piece from my forthcoming hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River (@riverriverbooks Feb’26) out today @pitheadchapel.bsky.social pitheadchapel.com/volume-14-is...
Volume 14, Issue 10
COVER ART BY NATALIE NEE   FICTION ANY MAN’S BETTER THAN NO MAN AT ALL BY BIZZY COY DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG BY KATIE BURGESS HIGH DESE…
pitheadchapel.com
bettysueblue.bsky.social
Prepping cherry tomatoes for slow roasting & a very important novel epiphany & a few lines of dialogue arrived. Love it when that happens. Can’t wait til I have time to work on it again.
A pan of sliced cherry tomatoes drizzled in olive oil & salt & pepper, ready for roasting in the foreground. A stainless teapot, a tray of drying heirloom cayenne peppers & a jar sourdough starter in the background.
bettysueblue.bsky.social
It’s my backup plan since the universities wouldn’t hire me FT, but my experience in school has been positive so far and I’m on the pastry side of things from here on out. Plus, I’ve healed enough not to take any shit at this age thank goodness.
bettysueblue.bsky.social
This response was my favorite lol
Reposted by Beth Gilstrap (she/her)
bettysueblue.bsky.social
It’s been a minute since I’ve published anything so I’m super honored & grateful to have one piece from my forthcoming hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River (@riverriverbooks Feb’26) out today @pitheadchapel.bsky.social pitheadchapel.com/volume-14-is...
Volume 14, Issue 10
COVER ART BY NATALIE NEE   FICTION ANY MAN’S BETTER THAN NO MAN AT ALL BY BIZZY COY DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG BY KATIE BURGESS HIGH DESE…
pitheadchapel.com
Reposted by Beth Gilstrap (she/her)
bettysueblue.bsky.social
It’s been a minute since I’ve published anything so I’m super honored & grateful to have one piece from my forthcoming hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River (@riverriverbooks Feb’26) out today @pitheadchapel.bsky.social pitheadchapel.com/volume-14-is...
Volume 14, Issue 10
COVER ART BY NATALIE NEE   FICTION ANY MAN’S BETTER THAN NO MAN AT ALL BY BIZZY COY DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG BY KATIE BURGESS HIGH DESE…
pitheadchapel.com
bettysueblue.bsky.social
Got notice that I don’t have to pay student loans while I’m back in school. Think I’ll just stay in school til I’m ☠️. Can’t get me then.
a man in a black and white striped suit and tie looks scary
Alt: Beetlejuice in a black and white striped suit brushes self off
media.tenor.com
bettysueblue.bsky.social
This evening was the annual lighting of Glen. Welcome, back buddy. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
An approx 2 foot tall, cartoonish, & kinda sweet looking replica of a grim reaper smokes with his scythe.
Reposted by Beth Gilstrap (she/her)
bettysueblue.bsky.social
The proof of @blacklilyzine Issue 3 has been sent out to our contributors. While we’re all making sure everything is as it should be, check out this killer TOC.
The TOC for issue 3 of Black Lily:

POETRY BY VANESA PACHECO
ART BY KATHY LOU SCHULTZ
FICTION BY CLAYTON BRADSHAW
.. POETRY BY RHY ROBIDOUX
... ART BY PIPER CORMAN
... POETRY BY DEE ALLEN
POETRY BY SHARON DENMARK
POETRY BY EVELYN BERRY ...POETRY BY RHEA MELINA
...... ART BY VICTORIA SHEN
POETRY BY MORGAN WRIGHT
POETRY BY COURT HARLER
. POETRY BY JEN KROPINAK
ART BY IRINA TALL NOVIKOVA FICTION BY MIKE MCLELLAND
.. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW R. HUMPHREY
POETRY BY MEGAN MCDERMOTT
NONFICTION BY KRISTINE LANGLEY MAHLER
NONFICTION BY GRAYSON BUCKLEY
POETRY BY DAVID BAYLISS
POETRY BY LILYANNE KANE
FICTION BY JAMES R. GAPINSKI
... ART BY PAUL. LUIKART
. FICTION BY PAUL LUIKART POETRY BY RENEE SALMON POETRY BY CALEB EDMONDSON FICTION BY HEATHER BELL ADAMS
POETRY BY CAL FREEMAN
POETRY BY JEREMY MICHAEL REED
POETRY BY JOSHUA LILLIE
POETRY BY RONNIE JACKSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTEN HAVENS
NONFICTION BY JORDON BRIGGS
.. POETRY BY J.L. ABBOTT
POETRY BY HUNTER HODKINSON
.. ART + PHOTOGRAPHY BY KARAH TULL
.. FICTION BY DAVID BRADY
POETRY BY GENEVIEVE BETTS
bettysueblue.bsky.social
I've returned to the mountains since and the trauma is still visible & felt around every corner. My heart goes out to every soul lost—human, animal, plant—and everyone touched by the trauma, & the survivors most of all.
bettysueblue.bsky.social
I don't think most people in this country understand that Helene was WNC's Katrina. No one who's ever lived anywhere close or visited this area ever expected a fucking hurricane to hit the mountains like this.
bettysueblue.bsky.social
It’s blurb request time for There Is News Along the Ohio River, a hybrid flash CNF collection forthcoming from @riverriverbooks in February. It’s a quick & I hope, impactful read about my life & life in general at the Kentucky/Indiana border/ Louisville from 2020-2022. Details below. HMU.
An image of a typewriter w a paper in it w “typed” note that reads: “Hey y'all-the time has come for me to seek blurbs for my forthcoming hybrid flash/CNF collection. I'll be
sending emails this weekend but hey if anyone out there is interested for real, please reach out be that makes it much less mortifying
Cheers,
Beth” A screenshot w book description that reads, “There Is News Along the Ohio River is a paean to careful attention and riverwalks. Beth Gilstrap locates the trauma and grief and gratitude of everyday life in the landscape and history of the Ohio River where it separates Louisville, Kentucky, and Jeffersonville, Indiana. This book offers readers the experience of taking a daily walk along the same path - on the surface, each day is much the same; yet if one looks closely enough, each day also holds new beauty, unexpected strangeness. Written in vignettes that exist somewhere between micro-essays and prose poems, Gilstrap explores personal loss and how it intersects with the world one inhabits: the flora and fauna and human-wrought damage at the space between the urban and the natural, the personal and the profound.”
Reposted by Beth Gilstrap (she/her)
riverriverbooks.bsky.social
Happiest of joint publication days to FIELD NOTES by E.G. Cunningham and ENCOUNTERS FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD by Jameela F. Dallis! 🎉🎉🎉

We could not be prouder of our fall titles and their authors. Congratulations, Liz and Jameela!

riverriverbooks.org/store

@egcunningham.bsky.social
Liz Cunningham holding a copy of Field Notes in a soft pastel light Jameela Dallis sitting at a desk, shelves behind her, in a pink and silver dress, Encounters propped in the foreground
bettysueblue.bsky.social
I’m not sure Chef knows he’s opened a can of worms in asking me to write 1,000 words on Anthony Bourdain. I’ve never mentioned him in class. Maybe it’s the semicolon tattoo on my wrist. 1,300 words later, I suspect I’m at the start of a much longer personal essay I’ve been avoiding since his death.