M. A. Holland
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maholland.bsky.social
M. A. Holland
@maholland.bsky.social
250 followers 570 following 62 posts
Reader/writer. Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia.
Probably misses his old glasses.
#amrewriting: RAVEN QUEEN'S FLIGHT/RAVEN QUEEN'S RETURN, YA Ornithopunk Duology

mrkhllnd80.wixsite.com/maholland
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maholland.bsky.social
M. A. Holland @maholland.bsky.social · 20d
My #QuestPit pitches, a thread:
Reposted by M. A. Holland
emiliayoung.bsky.social
#Editors THE THINGS WE RUN FOR ( #OnSub 2026!)

Emma Bridge ran to find a safe home, but the town she picked is anything but. When she gets wrapped up in a cold case that threatens her siblings, who can she turn to while keeping her secrets safe?

#WIPPIT #YA #R #M
#OWN #LGBT #agented
Editor’s Guide To: The Things We Run For YA Drama Mystery Projected 90k Words Work in Progress 4/13/1994 Run. What a powerful instinct. Emma Bridge had wanted nothing more than to be with her two siblings in a home that felt safe, but those wishes never came true. With nothing left to lose, Emma runs away from the spotlight of the Hills to a small town across the country, but this new home is anything but the safety she’d been after. The weight of the world has fallen on her shoulders, and she can’t carry it alone. But with her old name in every police station and her new name on every tongue in town, she’s not sure who she can trust to help carry the burden. What we know: -Runaway in Hiding -Fake Identity (turned real identity) -Mental Health Rep -LGBTQIA+ Rep -Found Family -90s Small-Town Nostalgia “We’re in this together now” 6/23/1994 “The Hills have Eyes” There’s a collage of pictures. Picture one is of two people, one sitting on the counter with the other in front of them. Picture two is go a small-town street with buildings to either side. Picture three shows a row of high school desks. Picture four shows a box of police evidence. Picture five shows a group of kids sitting behind an abandoned building. Picture six shows someone flipping off a police car. Picture seven shows a paper with the words “Child Custody Hearing” printed on it. The last picture shows the back of someone’s head, their hood is pulled up and they’re wearing a backpack.
November 23, 2025 at 5:01 AM
maholland.bsky.social
THE ENGINES THAT DIVIDE

Sometimes the easiest decisions to make are the hardest to live with.

A YA/NA dieselpunk novel about two sisters, one a mechanic, the other a pilot, following different paths through a world at war.

#WIPPIT #YA #NA #SFF
A mock cover for the novel THE ENGINES THAT DIVIDE, with the title over art of a dieselpunk fighter plane (art by Ryan Li), with the tagline 'Sometimes the easiest decisions to make are the hardest to live with', and the byline, 'A Novel By M. A. Holland'.
November 23, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
ocumeghalu.bsky.social
When sickness kills a third of the kingdom’s people, including the king himself, the scepter is passed to the next heir in line. But there’s something off about the king’s only son—and someone’s hellbent on finding out what.

MULAN x DAWN OF YANGCHEN x APOTHECARY DIARIES x 🇳🇬 culture

#YA #F #WIPPIT
photos of a person with their face covered by golden beads, a nigerian masquerade, poison powder besides a cup of tea, catacombs lit by lights, the phrase "secrets and lies", hands being dipped in golden liquid, old scrolls, a traditional igbo mask, the silhouette of two people about to kiss
November 23, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
samuelclark3.bsky.social
#WIPPit #A #FantsayNoir

X Files x Dark Souls

Gelmir, a mage who can only dispel magic and a wayward graduate of the Cyan academy, Gina Spectre investigate a series of anomalies, outbreaks and mages gone bad, culminating in them trying to stop a plot to bring about the 3rd extinction of magic.
November 23, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
haleypatricia.bsky.social
🔥 After dying, Alexandra wakes up in a redemption competition set in the past.

🪦 To win her life, she must relive her worst choices & fix every mistake over the past month.

⏰But history is being rewritten and one of the friends she died with might win first. #wippit #YA
An Agent’s Guide To Roses Are Dead After dying in a fire, Alexandra wakes up a month in the past in a redemption competition for resurrection. To win her life back, she must relive her worst choices and fix every mistake she’s made over the past month. But history is being rewritten and one of the friends she died with might win first. After a fire kills them all, sixteen-year-old Alexandra, her siblings, and the girl she loves are given a choice: stay in the afterlife forever or compete against each other in a redemption competition set in the real world a month before the fire. To win, they must take part in the Rebirth Trials, where they’re tasked with becoming better people, solving their own murders, and undoing the choices that caused their tragic fate. The catch? Only one of them can return from their grave, and the rest will be erased from existence forever. When Alexandra discovers that the survivor will be the one who fixes the most of their past mistakes—and proves they’ve truly changed—she’s sure there’s already a grave with her name on it. Her temper has already cost her a basketball scholarship, ruined friendships, and convinced her father she’s a destructive mess. But dying again means losing the chance to redeem herself. The problem? Her hope is as dead as she is, and winning also means losing her siblings and the love of her life. Permanently. Angel, the mysterious ruler of the afterlife, sends the teens back to Earth one month before the fire. There, the competition begins. But the past is constantly changing. The gaps in Alexandra’s memory suggest history is being tampered with, and the culprit isn’t rewriting it in her favor. If the offender succeeds, she’ll stay dead forever. To win her life back, Alexandra must keep the fires inside her from burning, while fixing history and stopping the person responsible for changing it. And she can’t do it alone. But trusting the others could be a trap, and one of them may be altering the past to rig the competition. One month. One mystery. One survivor. Chapter One (The Past: After Death) In less than one month, three of us will burn again. Literally. Flames on skin, smoke in our lungs. Real pleasant stuff. I still don’t know who lit the match that ended our lives or why it’s supposed to happen again. And I doubt I ever will. In the afterlife they call this a rebirth trial. Four dead teens. One month back on Earth to fix our past mistakes. One survivor. And no bets are on my train-wreck ass. Unless I fix what my rage fire burned. Ha. Yeah, right. The wall next to my bed has a goddamn hole left over from my last explosion. Right next to the dent in the flimsy Walmart nightstand I bought myself because I’m cheap. My hand trembles as I tease the hole with my fingertip. I laugh, but nearly choke on a sob anyway. The ache in my bloody knuckles says it all—if you Google “person most likely to set their life on fire,” yeah, I’m your girl.
November 23, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
authorrjwebb.bsky.social
Introducing my Sapphic NA Romantasy, THE SIREN'S KNIGHT.
🐚 seashell and siren magic
🐉 tournament dragons
🌹sapphic romance from beginning to end w/HEA
🏰medieval fantasy
💖established relationship
#WIPPIT #NA #RF #OWN #LGBT
November 23, 2025 at 5:05 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
quietsnooze.bsky.social
BLOOD ON OUR NAMES: a fey courtly murder plot where a trio of strangers with secrets that could betray one another flee fate, only to end up in the arms of destiny.

Magic. Meddling. Monstrosity.
Three implausible allies.
Only one second chance.

#WIPPit #F #A #Dis #LGBT
BLOOD ON OUR NAMES by Vanessa Stefaniuk A book cover illustration with the silhouette of a many eyed raven perched on a rocky surface in front of a grassy hill. Juxtaposed in the sky is a smirking man with dark hair and the pointed ears of an elf. There is an overlay on the raven silhouette of three characters: an elf in the front holding up an axe as she prepares to stripe, her hair orange, her eyes focused, her earasaid plaid wrapped over her shoulders. A half-orc with ear caps to point out her ears looks upward in anticipation, ready for a fight. The hag child is a man turning to look over his knitted sweater covered shoulder, his ears wreathed by rowan berry and flowers and leaves as he turns his red eyes upward. The fight has a dnd quality of having just rolled initiative.
November 23, 2025 at 5:25 AM
maholland.bsky.social
THESE CURSES WE BEAR

If the cursed won't help the cursed, who will?

A dark, fairy-tale inspired YA fantasy.

#WIPPIT #YA #F
A mock cover for my NovelNovember project, These Curses We Bear. A dark forest background with ragged edges, a gothic script in blue reads: These Curses We Bear, with white subtitle at the bottom: If the cursed won't help the cursed, who will?, and my name: M. A. Holland at the top.
November 23, 2025 at 7:34 AM
maholland.bsky.social
Twenty days down, ten straight days over 1000 words, almost 2000 words ahead of my goal currently.

Ten more days to go, and I'm quietly confident I will make my goal of 30K.
A word count tracker for CursesWIP, with a calendar tracking daily word counts superimposed over a picture of a dark forest.
November 20, 2025 at 11:35 AM
maholland.bsky.social
At the halfway mark of November, and I'm on program. I'm as shocked as anyone...
A tracker for CursesWIP, with a calendar tracking daily wordcounts superimposed over a dark forest. The total for November is 16383 after 15 days.
November 15, 2025 at 8:24 PM
maholland.bsky.social
Productive day today! 1100 words on CursesWIP, taking it past 15K total (12K this month). And then in addition to that, I wrote another 1000 words on a short story project currently underway.

2000 words in a day? What's going on here?😆
November 12, 2025 at 11:51 AM
maholland.bsky.social
Tonight was a struggle, and I sense it will get more difficult from here - but ten days in to November I'm tracking for 30K words!
A tracker for CursesWIP - a photo of a dark forest, with a calendar superimposed over the top, with word counts marked accordingly.
November 10, 2025 at 11:47 AM
maholland.bsky.social
Love the vibe of this!
duaceren.bsky.social Dua Ceren @duaceren.bsky.social · 20d
Spirited Away x Shutter Island

Reality and fantasy blur when an anonymous invitation sends a burnt-out chocolatier spiraling to hunt down a serial killer she thought she made up as a child.

🥀Found family
🥀Secrets
🥀Ghosts

🪻Mental health rep
🪻Disability rep
🪻LGBTQIA+

#QuestPit #W #A #F #T #PR
“Life tried so hard to cling to this place that all it did was make death sink in deeper.” “You can bury your past but don’t be surprised when it comes back to haunt you.” “Everyone lived in their own world, even when they were right next to each other.” Collage of photos: girls in dresses sitting in the grass, boat in blue waters, curtains at dusk glowing orange, melted chocolate poured over stacks of chocolate chunks, field of blue flowers with sun shining, girl in dress spinning in circles on grassy hill, messy pile of old photos, woman and child holding hands, rose bush, sunlight through tree leaves, a woman submerged in dark water reaching out, a woman in a white dress running away from something while barefoot in grass, restaurant with blue chairs by the sea at sunset, graves in the middle of a dark forest, girl in dark water with a white dress and arm over her chest and white roses over her torso, a man peering through the woods with a flashlight at night, a man and a woman dancing under a starry night, field of blue flowers in a forest, hands reaching up from water through lily pads, dragonfly wing close up, shadows of two friends back-to-back making finger guns
November 6, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
qqueenlyart.bsky.social
A Certain Hunger X Diavola

Critical Position's first #Agentguide

🫀Why choose love triangle
🫀Misogyny in chess
🫀Eat the rich like that one Dutch minister
🫀Too many beds and using none of them

#H #R #A #W #Questpit
Title "Critical positions" with subtitle "a horror novel (with romance)" over a background of a filled dinner table On the left is a brown and red moodboard and on the right is a pitch for the novel critical positions
November 5, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
isagoblin.bsky.social
Over the Garden Wall but make it Adult High Fantasy, a lil collage of inspirations and comp tittles for BLACKWELL'S MASK!

🎭Hidden Identities
☠️Monsterous Forest
🕯️Cursed Candlemaker FMC

#questpit #Q #A #F
A collage of movie posters and book covers: The Cruel Prince, Over the Garden Wall, Flowerheart, The Teller of Small Fortunes, Howl's Moving Castle, Labyrinth, The Secret of Nimh, Pan's Labyrinth
November 5, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
sarahdorko.bsky.social
After 500 years, Tal will do anything to revive his lover. But when he finally creates a Wishing Stone, it ends up with a human girl lost in his world. Tal will have to help her friends on their rescue mission if he wants a chance to make his wish. #QuestPit #YA portal #F #Q
The upper two thirds of this moodboard feature a warm orange and black palette while the bottom third with more black and white with a close of on a fencing sabre’s guard, light shining down into a cave, and a crystal. The top two thirds have dice falling, an orange sub at sunset, abstract images that look like silhouettes casting magic, and in the center are three silhouettes backlit by an orange sunset, looking off into the distance.
November 5, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
thefoxandrose.bsky.social
The theft of a dragon's egg leads to a hunt gone awry and a choice that could open the doors to death and unravel the world in this slowburn M/M fantasy.

✨a blood knight trapped
✨a thief looking to save him
✨a shadow world in waiting

#QuestPit #W #A #F #RF #LGBTQ ( #Q in December!)
Morally gray characters Dual POV Cycles of trauma Empire and war Death and shadow magic Otherworldly creatures and forgotten gods M/M romance Slow burn Harm him and die “Elios…” That was a warning. Eli grinned and set himself back against the knight’s chest more firmly. A small act, but making of himself something entirely and undeniably present. “Eli. I’d rather you call me that. Only you, though. I'm not too sure about the rest of them yet. And my point still stands. Also, I was quite correct about you being the fearsome sort.” That finally earned him a glance from the knight. Eli exhaled, the sound edging toward a whistle, low but unmistakably impressed. “You have a very intense stare.” A blink greeted that comment. Genuine surprise. The hand on his hip settled a little heavier against it like a bird finally committed to roosting.
November 5, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
castlemantra.bsky.social
To win her best friend's love and heal her uncle, May will risk everything to steal HealthCorp's miracle pill. But when the CEO's disinherited son offers to help - and teach her the art of seduction - she'll learn just how deep a stain power and control can leave on a soul. #QuestPit #A #SFF #R #Q
November 5, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
sirbenjaminjr.bsky.social
📜 #QuestPit 📜

In a kingdom where every fairytale prince is perfect, there's an exception.

✨Magic, mischief, & accidental heroism await in KINDA CHARMING - a hilarious, heartfelt twist on happily-ever-after.

#Q #AmQuerying #Upper #MG #Fantasy #authors #writingcommunity
Vintage fairytale poster with a muted olive/sepia palette and a yellow scrollwork frame over a faded illustration of a castle. Along the top are three icons with captions: a crown over “A FAIRYTALE PRINCE,” a sword over “AN EPIC QUEST,” and a heart over “SELF‑DISCOVERY & FAMILY DRAMA.” Centered, large cream title: “KINDA CHARMING,” with the line “A novel by B. G. Jones” beneath it and a decorative flourish. Body text reads: “An upper middle grade fantasy‑adventure for fans of Percy Jackson and The Land of Stories, blending fairytale tropes, awkward heroes, and laugh‑out‑loud mishaps in a magical kingdom where being kind‑of‑charming might be enough to save the day.” Bottom tagline in caps: “COMING TO A QUERY NEAR YOU.”
November 5, 2025 at 7:25 PM
maholland.bsky.social
As the resource-hungry Sovereignty expands unchecked, two sisters find themselves at odds: one a Sovereign pilot, the other a rebel. Their paths collide over besieged Iskar, where magically engineered weapons are unleashed by both sides—at great cost.

#QuestPit #W #YA #NA #SFF
A moodboard for The Engines That Divide, setting a dieselpunk theme with gloomy factories, mechanical walkers, magical science, and unique races.
November 5, 2025 at 10:56 PM
maholland.bsky.social
My #QuestPit pitches, a thread:
November 5, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
arumiwrites.bsky.social
KPOP DEMON HUNTERS x CRESCENT CITY

Three realms: one of light, one of shadow, and the modern world of mortals caught between. She walks them all — half valkyrie, half death-cursed maiden — healing the pain of the dead, hunted by the man who can’t stop haunting her dreams.

#A #SFF #R #F #QuestPit
November 5, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
katiekrohnauthor.bsky.social
A teen outcast from a secret line of Irish plant magicians must harness newfound powers, with the help of an oak tree portal, to protect herself from a poison-wielding ancestor who hunts her family across time. #questpit #amquerying #ya #f

🌿 Plant magic
🍄 Elixirs + poisons
🎂 Magical baking
November 5, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
sallybromley.bsky.social
Presenting my #agentsguide for
'Beauty is a Brittle Glass'
BLUE SISTERS X THE PUSH X THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.
🪞 Adult 82k
🪞 Dual POV
🪞 Speculative Elements
🪞 Beauty & Fashion
🪞 LGBTQ
🪞 Friends to Lovers
🪞 Disability Rep
#questpit #A #Q
Green background. Images of a woman's face in a gold picture frame. Splashes of gold. A woman with long dark hair turning sideways, hair blowing in the wind, eyes closed. Splashes of gold paint. A gold handprint. Background is the close up of a woman's face, splashed with gold paint. Three bookcovers. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, a young woman's sad face, The Push by Ashley Audrain and The Picture of Dorian Gray and a young handsome man with a partially diseased face. Green background splashed with gold paint. Images of a model on a Catwalk, a woman having injections in her face, a group of spooky trees, a photographer and an evil hand reaching out for a pale woman's hand.
November 5, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by M. A. Holland
jenknowsprose.bsky.social
ALCHEMY OF A BLOOD MOON 🌙
The dreams that once consoled wall-flower Selene have mutated into blood drenched nightmares. Now she must seek the guidance of her coven and forgive the man that betrayed her—or be swallowed alive in the dark. #questpit #q #pr #litagents #amquerying #WriteSky #agentguide
November 5, 2025 at 5:30 AM