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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 23h

People who think the idea of "give me ideas" is something genuinely creative people want have literally never experienced the absolute EUPHORIA of a brainstorming breakthrough, either solo or with a human collaborator. They don't understand what is happening when artists create, on a basic level.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 7h

There is a moment when it gets dark so early, that’s so peaceful

I’m trying to enjoy it before 6 months of it kills me

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Michael Lee Witchardson 🎃 @hrfmichael.bsky.social · 18h

Revolting children! Vee are talking about The Vitches this veek with our good Judy @robwillb.bsky.social - available verever you get your podcasts

Once Upon A VHS - 80s and 90s Fantasy Podcast @onceuponavhs.bsky.social · 1d

New episode - The Witches (1990) with @robwillb.bsky.social of @bonabooks.bsky.social

linktr.ee/onceuponavhs

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 16h

Aaaa legend!! I hope you enjoy it!

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 1d

Standin by the tuck shop puffin my candy cigarette like “Stopped playin hidey tig years ago, it’s in the pocket of Big Keysies”

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 1d

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 259:
Failure is nothing to be ashamed of. It means you tried something. No-one succeeds without failures: it’s a necessary part of the process.

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Z.K.A. @pegasusunder.bsky.social · 1d

📚 🧡 MY BIGGEST DREAM COME TRUE 📚 🧡

My debut novel, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, will be out in 2027!

Publishers Marketplace, Z. K. Abraham's My Darling Clementine, in which a Black queer woman, who, feeling lost in teh depths of an unhappy marriage, leaves it all behind, only to lose herself completely-and beyond human recognition-to a new love, to Makayla Tabron at Amistad, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in 2027, by Carleen Geisler at P.S. Literary Agency (world English). Translation: Taryn Fagerness Agency

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

remotecore @remotecore.bsky.social · 1d

You know what? Now seems a good day remind people that Gallus exists. A collective anthology by members of the @gsfwc.bsky.social community, put together for the Glasgow Worldcon. My story is about the end of the world, and witches looking for hope. #gallus #gsfwc40
gsfwc.wordpress.com/gallus/

GALLUS

Gallus celebrates Glasgow’s third home turf Worldcon and showcases brand new work from our authors. Some of the writers featured here have been around since the beginning, some are brand new. Some …

gsfwc.wordpress.com

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 1d

YISSSS omg the weight off my mind!!

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 1d

Yooooo the UK paperback is now available for preorder in Waterstones!! Go get those witches in PAPER!! 🧙✨🔮

www.waterstones.com/book/vampire...

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 6d

VAMPIRES IN PARK CIRCUS!

🧙🏼‍♀️ Your favourite queer witches return!
❤️ Multiple F/F romances
🦭 The tragic end of your giant selkie gf
🦇 “I’m a vampire, you’re a witch, it can never work, and yet…”
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 More Weegie shit
🔪 Supporting women’s wrongs

CW: death, grief, toxic coping mechanisms

Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 10d

COVER REVEAL! 🎉

After what feels like a lifetime, I finally get to show you what I've been working on the last few years! The long-awaited sequel, VAMPIRES IN PARK CIRCUS!

Coming Halloween 2025!

You can pre-order here! lukebelcourt.com/witches/two....

A photograph of the cover for Vampires in Park Circus. It is drawn in the same style as the 2025 Witches cover -- fine black lineart, but the colour scheme is red rather than teal.
A woman with long flowing black hair in a Kate Bush-esque gown runs towards the viewer. She looks behind her, afraid. Park Church Tower, a notable landmark in the centre of Park Circus, looms behind her. The same golden magic from the first book explodes from her head like psychic power.
The photograph is taken in a park, with tree cover behind it.

The epigraph to the book:

"A vampire moves to Scotland and makes friends with a local human at a bar.
'It's hard, not being able to go out in direct sunlight,' the vampire says.
'How long has it been since you've seen the sun?' the local asks.
'Since I died, nine years ago,' the vampire says. 'You?'
The local finishes his drink. 'Fifteen long years. I remember it like it was yesterday.'
- Anonymous

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 2d

October chilling is the best chilling

The creative world feels open 💕

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Dr Kat Day (she/her) @chronicleflask.katday.com · 2d

Great piece: "Anything can be rejected, and for any reason, and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. Certain rationales for rejection are forever beyond your control."

Yes! I have to send out a lot of rejections and there are So Many reasons, and none of them are personal. Keep going!

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

‘Stay true to yourself – and fly closer to the sun’: what I’ve learned from 50 years of rejection

As a writer, I have been rejected thousands of times, and it initially led to shock, denial and anger. Then I accepted it. Here’s what you can gain from doing so too

www.theguardian.com

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

H O T TO GO, snap and clap and touch your toes

a cartoon character with a mask and a headband with the letter g on it

Alt: Kakashi doing hand signs

media.tenor.com

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

AAAAA I feel so, fuckin VALIDATED RIGHT NOWWWW

I knew it!!! I fuckin smelt it in the water!!!

Thank you senpai 🙏🏽

The Wikipedia entry for the Apologetic Apostrophe

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

That’s a good name for it!

I’d been callin it “Hagrid Syndrome” in my head because Ms. Black Mold does them for every dialect more than 20 miles out of Kent, but don’t really wanna reference That Series in 2025 😂

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

Oh my god you’re right O_O How’d I miss that

Honour restored!!! (Ko)

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

(See related hill: I used the word ‘ramen’ as an example because it sounds suitably ridiculous to exoticise. But I feel as strongly about most italicisation used for loan words, or for sprinklings of a language the writer doesn’t speak — especially for minority languages. It just feels weird to me!)

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

Anyway all of this is to say there’s a single instance in Vampires where a character says the word “greetin’” (ie. with apostrophe) and it literally still hangs over me that it didn’t read right without the apostrophe 😂

So, sorry in advance about this sin which only I actually care about

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

I received a bunch of compliments for Witches saying ‘your characters sound like real people’ and while I would love to take credit for it, I can’t.

99% of it is knowing I can write a verb without swapping the trailing ‘g’ for an apostrophe, and if I did my job right, you’ll hear it without the ‘g’

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

And for what? To make sure English people know we’re self-aware that our grammar is different, that we say “no” when we mean “not”?

The ‘t’ isn’t missing, it just doesn’t exist lmao

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

As an affect, it’s unsustainable unless you’re writing that Side Character Flavour

If you’ve ever had to write an entire book where everyone is Scottish (cough cough) and you decide to lovingly render every apostrophe the style guide would demand, the page ends up more apostrophes than words

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

Ofc this doesn’t really apply to Scots where that is the accepted historical spelling. And obv there are words in Scottish English which have apostrophes for the same reason English words do — ‘em’dy’ for example is literally just a contraction the same way ‘can’t’ or ‘wouldn’t’ is

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Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨ @lukebelcourt.com · 3d

The tiny hill I will die on is that I think cramming a bunch of apostrophes into Scottish dialects in published work looks like putting italics around the word ‘ramen’.

I’m not gonna be weird about it when I come across it, and people are allowed to disagree. But I think it’s just othering.

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Reposted by Luke SPELLcourt 🧙🏼‍♀️🦇✨

Glasgow SF Writers' Circle @gsfwc.bsky.social · 3d

It's October, so it must be Gothic season! Check out this splendid new queer horror romance from our Heather Valentine, only available on The Pink Hydra.

@thepinkhydra.com @hexthervvv.bsky.social

www.thepinkhydra.com/issues/02022...

The Pink Hydra | Four Flowers in Formaldehyde - Heather Valentine

Four Flowers in Formaldehyde by Heather Valentine

www.thepinkhydra.com

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