Katie
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ktonbsky.bsky.social
Katie
@ktonbsky.bsky.social
300 followers 310 following 100 posts
Poet. Writer. Co-founder / EIC of Spark to Flame @s2fjournal.bsky.social

https://www.katherineschmidt.com
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Katie @ktonbsky.bsky.social · Aug 2
Excited to have a poem published in ballast ~ check it out here! 💕
Reposted by Katie
lindzmcleod.bsky.social
I spent over a year of my life writing this collaborative craft book with eleven other (fantastic! talented! good-looking!) writers.

"Sometimes a story emerges fully formed in your mind, and sometimes it’s an onion, requiring several ‘peels’ to get to the real, eye-watering heart of the matter."
The cover of the book is a vintage, slightly foxy red, with white font beside a large black and white ampersand.
November 5, 2025 at 9:12 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
This 🔥
November 5, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Katie
ezhang77.bsky.social
leonliteraryreview.com/issue-32-ele...
Ghost Nebula On the night your space shuttle launches, I walk outside to my backyard and tilt my head heavenward. I imagine seeing the stellar nurseries glowing pink and red, pulsing with newborn stars, as heavy as my love for you, as weightless as your nebulous body will soon be. You were once so small, just clumps of dust gathering together to spin a gravity. How I wish I could still see the shimmering past, the twinkling of your laughter. I run my fingers over my belly, still marked with the ridges and craters of your arrival. You told me not to worry, but I just shook my head and smiled. That's what mothers do, I said. I think of my own mother up there, a neutron star bursting into radio waves. And then I hear it. That faint lullaby. The song I hummed to you as you slept in your crib, a song I sing to you now, one billion years old.
October 30, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Katie
gr8earlofhell.bsky.social
it's your last chance to register for next wednesday's workshop, centered around submitting to literary magazines!

natraum.com/workshops
October 23, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Katie
janezwart.bsky.social
I could not have written this poem were it not for my students in the Calvin Prison Initiative. For them, I am immeasurably grateful.

And my thanks, too, to the folks at Muzzle. Link to the full issue in first comment.
For a more accessible version, including audio: https://www.muzzlemagazine.com/jane-zwart-3.html For a more accessible version, including audio: https://www.muzzlemagazine.com/jane-zwart-3.html
October 21, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Katie
autumnhousepress.bsky.social
Pub day for The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe by Lauren D. Woods (@ladiwoods.bsky.social)!

So proud to share this stunning debut collection with the world. 💖

#shortstory #fiction #indiepress
October 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Katie
davidrosenthalpoet.bsky.social
The world is falling apart and we’re going to read some poems.

But we’re going to do it together and for a great cause.

Join us. Register here:

beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
Bearded Bards Of BlueSky Online readings to raise funds for Tans Lifeline. November 8, 2025 Featuring: Todd Dillard Brian Spears Matthew E. Henry James McConachie David J. Bauman Jonathan Everitt https://beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
October 18, 2025 at 12:41 AM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
This means so much 💕
thebrokenspine.co.uk The Broken Spine @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 24d
@S2Fjournal.bsky.social has been featured in our #IndieLitMagGala 2025 series—a journal that proves poetry doesn’t have to be solitary. Collaborative, experimental, and full of care.

The nomination came in anonymously—and we took it in good faith.

Read the full piece:
#IndieLitMagGala 2025 Spotlight: ALOCASIA Journal - The Broken Spine
Some journals are built to publish poems. Others are built to make connection happen.Spark to Flame is the latter—part lit mag, part poetic matchmaking
thebrokenspine.co.uk
October 17, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Katie
s2fjournal.bsky.social
Wow 💕

Thank you so much for the nomination, for the kind words, and also to everyone who takes part in our collaborative process—who makes this journal what it is 💕
thebrokenspine.co.uk The Broken Spine @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 24d
@S2Fjournal.bsky.social has been featured in our #IndieLitMagGala 2025 series—a journal that proves poetry doesn’t have to be solitary. Collaborative, experimental, and full of care.

The nomination came in anonymously—and we took it in good faith.

Read the full piece:
#IndieLitMagGala 2025 Spotlight: ALOCASIA Journal - The Broken Spine
Some journals are built to publish poems. Others are built to make connection happen.Spark to Flame is the latter—part lit mag, part poetic matchmaking
thebrokenspine.co.uk
October 17, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Katie
aaronburch.bsky.social
Here's the story:

ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/the-writin...
October 16, 2025 at 10:41 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Thanks to @rejectionlit.bsky.social for publishing my poem “Guns, Sex, Phones” today:

rejection-letters.com/2025/10/16/g...
Guns, Sex, Phones (Katherine Schmidt)
My friend says let’s go to the shooting range and I tell her I don’t know anything about guns. About hunting. About how fun it is to let loose. To pretend we don’t eat microwaveable Mac and cheese …
rejection-letters.com
October 16, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Katie
andrewbertaina.bsky.social
What is morning and what if it doesn’t arrive? One morning mother dropped an egg and asked me if God was the same species as we are? Smear of light at five a.m. Sound of Weber’s sheep flock and sandhill cranes across the road, burble of irrigation ditch beneath my window.

Jim Harrison
September 9, 2025 at 12:43 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Beautiful
janezwart.bsky.social Jane Zwart (she/her) @janezwart.bsky.social · Sep 2
Thank you to Wendy Lesser for making a spot for "Being and Time" (my poem, not Heidegger's treatise) in Threepenny Review.
Extra happy because my poem gets to hang out with one by @toddedillard.bsky.social.
See a more accessible version at https://www.threepennyreview.com/being-and-time/
September 2, 2025 at 8:14 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Yeah this is great.
August 28, 2025 at 1:37 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Excited to have a poem published in ballast ~ check it out here! 💕
August 2, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Katie
ballastjournal.bsky.social
Contributor Features from ballast 3.3:

Next up: Katherine Schmidt and “Above all else”

@ktonbsky.bsky.social

www.ballastjournal.com/katherine-sc...

#contributorfeature
#poetry
#poem
#poems
#ballast
#KatherineSchmidt
Text from Katherine Schmidt’s poem “Above all else” from ballast 3.3. Picture of calm water with dark blue text overlaid.
August 1, 2025 at 5:45 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Excited for this! 😎
andrewbertaina.bsky.social Andrew Bertaina @andrewbertaina.bsky.social · Jul 25
DMV folks: 804 lit salon on August 16th at 7p. Always lmk if you need an invite or want to be added!

We will have readings from @vjoshuaadams.bsky.social @Amanda Newell Allie Barkmeier, Molly McGinnis, Bailey Blumenstock, and @ktonbsky.bsky.social

www.eventbrite.com/myevent?eid=...
July 26, 2025 at 3:57 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
This was great.
havehashad.com HAD @havehashad.com · Jul 19
really great short lil essay today from Joey Hedger about trying to find Malört in DC!

"The liquor store is a maze of shelves; it’s overwhelming, so I ask the cashier if they have what I’m looking for. She doesn’t know what I’m talking about."

https://www.havehashad.com/zwjwb
Her Jesus Year by Joey Hedger
She likes a themed party, so I am on Capitol Hill looking for a bottle of Malört from the only place in the city that sells it while she makes hotdogs and frozen deep dish she got at Safeway. She…
www.havehashad.com
July 23, 2025 at 3:41 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
This piece 🔥
tiatashiro.bsky.social Tia Tashiro @tiatashiro.bsky.social · Jul 2
New words in this month's Clarkesworld! Check out "Missing Helen," a story featuring clones, identity, and a number of poor romantic decisions :)

clarkesworldmagazine.com/tashiro_07_25/
July 20, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Katie
andrewbertaina.bsky.social
DMV area folks: Happening tonight at 7p @kramerbooks . Going to be reading and chatting with @andrewporter01.bsky.social ! Come out.
July 18, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Katie
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
cannot wait for this tomorrow!! 🔗 in quoted 🧵 to register & listen in live :)💡
tomsnarsky.bsky.social Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · Jul 8
I am so excited to announce that the launch reading for A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems officially has a lineup!! register at the 🔗 in 🧵 to hear Lauren Parker, Jude Marr, Zoe Mitchell, Amanda McLeod, C. T. Salazar, Beth Gordon, & Tom Snarsky on Thursday, 7/17! 🎤💌⛰️💡
NIGHT LIGHT THURSDAY 7/17 9PM EASTERN ZOOM ANIMAL HEART PRESS / LAUNCH FOR TOM SNARSKY’S A LETTER FROM THE MOUNTAIN & OTHER POEMS LAUREN PARKER JUDE MARR ZOE MITCHELL AMANDA MCLEOD C. T. SALAZAR BETH GORDON TOM SNARSKY
July 16, 2025 at 8:43 PM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
Excited to have a piece out with ballast! Check out the issue ☺️
July 15, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Katie
tomsnarsky.bsky.social
Sally Fisher
The Letter A I have always thought I lived on the edge, always believed it. And that something would tip the balance, something small, like a fact— one cool fact and I’m over. Then the arbitrary things come clean; types of buildings in their privacy articulate their rightness, and the two-finger gesture of Christ, the necktie, the octave, the claw-and-ball chair leg, the ace of spades. Just as the letter A swivels from the oxhead, all our forms made naked as knife, fork, spoon. This enlightenment spreads daily. I strive for long life. Home becomes endless. That town? I was born there.
July 8, 2025 at 4:31 AM
Reposted by Katie
alinaetc.bsky.social
I still love this poem by Kristin Robertson.
Portrait of Love as Failed Vocabulary Quiz Kristin Robertson May I call you endeavor? May I call you gingerly? I haven your sleek and luminous ovation. My ardent of the mercenary, I'll infinite the wrangle, hovering and turbulent, for you. Sublime citadel, listen to this intricate as it teems. Let's muse your decipher like a serene, a voracious. Let's just connoisseur. Is this an awry between us or a crusade? Say era. Say epoch. I gather handfuls of the panoramas and the culminate: Say yes. I will comb your legendary, straighten your desolate. My mouth staminas ever ever for your succumb. Don't you hear the fluster, that sweet forfeit? You still phenomenon me. Together, we phenomena.
July 9, 2025 at 2:39 AM
ktonbsky.bsky.social
This 🔥
June 17, 2025 at 1:58 AM