E.A “Nick” Harkins
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dreadwrites.bsky.social
E.A “Nick” Harkins
@dreadwrites.bsky.social
11 followers 20 following 3 posts
i write horror/thrillers with a literary bend
queer author, he/him
i also work full-time with bacteria and own a horse. and a few dogs. and two cats. and mice, once!

https://linktr.ee/dreadful_musings
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dreadwrites.bsky.social
listening to my coworkers who both beta-read my novel debate the likability of the main character and the themes underneath the horror is, in fact, what makes the struggle of writing and the pain of rejections worth it
January 23, 2026 at 5:03 AM
dreadwrites.bsky.social
some writing excerpts from various projects i’m zero drafting & editing this novel writing month 🌟

#writing #thrillerwriting #horrorwriting #novelwritingmonth
Your father is always drunk. The stench of it rolls off him when he gets home after being gone overnight, thick on his breath, clinging to his unkempt facial hair. Usually he sports vomit down the front of his clothes. How many shirts has your mother bagged after one of his benders and left by the road alongside your garbage bins? The heaviness of your father's footsteps shakes the house and you miss when the tennis ball bounces back to you. It rolls into the dark space underneath you bed, where you keep the dead bugs you've scooped out of the office lamp, and toys you used to play with when you were younger. And Valeska had heard tales of what awaited those who prayed to no deity. A gray sea of nothingness, a vast wasteland of neither pain nor joy. Auster told her when she was a small girl that this plane between life and afterlife was the glue holding the two together, filled with souls with nowhere else to go. The ones disparaged by their Gods, or those who devoted themselves to nothing and thought death would never come knocking for them. This purgatory, Auster said, was composed of mold and rot and teeth and hair. Luke hung upside down for what felt like an eternity. His eyes were open, staring at the parking lot over top a chain link fence, and the sunlight reflecting off the metal. People were screaming. Some girl's leg was pressed against his, her ankle very close to looping over his own like she was subconsciously seeking comfort. He wiggled his foot, pulling it away from her own and crossing his ankles. Kieran reached into his pocket, rain-slick fingers trembling. "Fuck. Would it kill you turn the heat on?" he mumbled, fighting to free his phone. When it finally slipped into his palm, he unlocked it and pulled up a photo. He thrust it towards Luke. On the screen was a picture of Kieran's car, sagging hideously in the parking lot of his apartment building. All the tires but one were completely flattened.
November 7, 2025 at 4:41 AM
dreadwrites.bsky.social
the lab, lately

#microbiology
October 22, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by E.A “Nick” Harkins
adwills.bsky.social
Writing is funny because both my biggest brightest dream and stomach churning dread is having people read my book.
August 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM