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JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

"How Monogamous Are Humans Actually?"

Cambridge spent time and money studying this across 7,000 years and multiple species.

nautil.us/how-monogamo...

Did we need a grant for that?
Guess my evolutionary cohort missed the memo.

#Anthropology #Evolution #ScienceWriting

a line drawing of two hands, one placing a yellow band on the finger of the other hand, on a pink gradient background.

December 11, 2025 at 8:08 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

“Stop and hear. The sky is speaking.”
Some listened long enough to turn wonder into evidence.

New essay: Pictographs and Poetry That Doesn't Use Words read.jltooker.com/p/pictograph...

#poetry #Substack #archaeoastronomy #astronomy

"The Sky is Speaking" written over the photograph of a red hand print and a red crescent moon painted on sandstone by Ancient Puebloans in Chao Canyon, New Mexico

December 11, 2025 at 2:15 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

The Muse has returned with a letter to Santa ...
read.jltooker.com/p/wednesday-...

#humor #muse #creativity #AmWriting #WitersLife #AuthorChat #WednesdayWhimsy

Wednesday Whimsy #30

The Muse Writes to Santa

read.jltooker.com

December 10, 2025 at 2:53 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

sky pressed into stone
memory held by pattern
Petroglyph (phaiku)

#SFF #poetry #haiku #phaiku #SkyPoet #Creativity #SpeculativeFiction #BlueSkyPoetry #AmWriting #AuthorChat

read.jltooker.com/p/petroglyph...

a haiku written atop an image of a spiral petroglyph on a high-desert rock: pec peck peck repeat / observe align peck repeat / sky pressed into stone

December 9, 2025 at 2:14 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Writing, wandering, and what’s next.
Echoes From the Wander — free weekly.
Subscribe. The echo rings back.

read.jltooker.com

#AmWriting #WritingCommunity #SpeculativeFiction #Poetry #Creativity #SkyPoet #SFF #Haiku #BlueSkyPoetry #AuthorChat

December 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Ancient sky-watchers saw shapes they had no words for.
Lightning without a name.
Aurora without a story.
Dragons formed from awe alone.

Read my new essay: Dragons in the Sky read.jltooker.com/p/dragons-in...
#haiku #poem #SFF #AmWriting #SkyPoet
A phaiku sprang from my essay—Raw and Awe is below.

Two dragons/serpents in watercolor blue framing a philosophical haiku or phaiku: raw with awe - dragon / swirling serpentine of sky / myth before monster

December 4, 2025 at 10:09 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

In 793 CE, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded: “Dragons were seen in the sky.”

Comets?
Aurora?
Awe with no vocabulary?

My new essay discusses how early sky-watchers named what terrified them & why “dragons” make sense today.

Read: read.jltooker.com/p/dragons-in...
#astronomy #mythology #SkyPoet

Dragons in the Sky: When Celestial Events Become Myth

Author’s note:

read.jltooker.com

December 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Another day of thanks. Another day of truth. Another day to remember.
#AmWriting #Philosophy #SkyPoet #WritersLife #Cosmos #SpeculativeFiction #emoetry

November 27, 2025 at 4:17 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

The Muse has been found … in Taos, New Mexico … on the edge of a sentence …

#AmWriting #Humor #Muse #AuthorChat #WritersLife #SkyPoet #SpeculativeFiction

read.jltooker.com/p/wednesday-...

Wednesday Whimsy #29

Muse Found ... at the Edge of a Sentence ...

read.jltooker.com

November 26, 2025 at 7:34 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

“What creature eats a sky, I wondered.

Who would save the moon?”

That’s a line from my newest poem “Eclipse.” You can find it at the end of my newest speculative essay: The First Astronomers Were Poets.
read.jltooker.com/p/the-first-...

#AmWriting #Astronomy #Poetry #SkyPoet #BlueSkyPoetry #sff

The First Astronomers Were Poets

The Star Archive: How Poetry Saved the Sky

read.jltooker.com

November 25, 2025 at 1:29 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Free will flickers.
Neurons whisper.
Destiny breathes.
My new poem lives in the space between.

read.jltooker.com/p/crones-cai...

#Psychology #Poetry #SkyPoet #PoetsofBlueSky #AmWriting #Crone

Crone's Cairn - When the Brain Reigns

A Stone Turned in the Crone’s Cairn Series | A 'Journey' Stone

read.jltooker.com

November 21, 2025 at 3:33 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

"A star explodes once. A poem can remember it forever. New speculative essay series starts here:
read.jltooker.com/p/the-star-a...

#astronomy #SpeculativeEssays #Cosmos #SkyPoets #SciFiPoetry #Poetry #AmWritingScienceFiction #AmWriting

THE STAR ARCHIVE: HOW POETRY SAVED THE SKY

Before astronomy was science, it was poetry. The oldest surviving sky poems record real celestial events—from meteor fireballs to Sirius rising.

read.jltooker.com

November 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

“She was carrying a motel key, a coyote feather, and a plot she swore she’d quit.”

#humor #AmWriting #Muse #WednesdayWhimsy #WritersLife

read.jltooker.com

A faux newsprint article about the Muse who haunts JL Tooker

November 19, 2025 at 4:08 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Can reading more literary fiction change how we view others or increase empathy?

Some studies suggest so. Read about it alongside my newest phaiku … read.jltooker.com/p/phaiku-no-...

#haiku #poetry #philosophy #poetry #LiteraryGenre #AmWriting

imagined image of literary consciousness a dreamlike brain with pages of text flowing into it as it connects to a book below; image is overlaid with a haiku titled Minded and reads: slow literary / pages - something in the self / loosens, widens, feels; written by jlynn at Substack's Wander Words by JL Tooker

November 18, 2025 at 6:10 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

I subscribe to James Clear’s newsletter. Today, his words resonated more than usual:

jamesclear.com/3-2-1/novemb...

#WritingCommunity #AuthorChat #Writer #WritersLife #WriteSky #AmWritingScienceFiction #SpeculativeFiction

A quote from James Clear -Atomic Habits on a pink background with blue quote marks: You have to run your own race. Problems begin the moment you start comparing your results to someone who is playing under different conditions.
The 40-year-old entrepreneur with three kids has different constraints than the single 27-year-old.
A painter with 20 years of practice shouldn't be the benchmark for someone in year two.
Someone caring for aging parents is not in the same position as someone with no obligations outside work.
Play your own game. Emphasize gradual progress and keep the comparison internal.

November 14, 2025 at 6:54 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

I finally wrote about why it took me half a lifetime to do the thing I love. Hint: writer’s block wasn’t the culprit.
If you’ve been saving your best for “later,” maybe this is your nudge. read.jltooker.com/p/i-wrote-fo...

#WritingCommunity #AuthorChat #AmWriting #WriteSky #WritersLife

I Wrote for Fifty Years Without Calling Myself a Writer

Fifty Years Before I Called It Writing

read.jltooker.com

November 13, 2025 at 6:26 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

The Muse has escaped from the Sanatorium for Sense and Structure ... It's Wednesday's Whimsy!!

#WritingCommunity #AuthorChat #Muse #WritersLife #Humor #WriteSky #AmWritingScienceFiction #SpecukativeFiction

a faux newspaper article about JL Tooker’s muse escaping the Sanitorium for Sense and Structure, hitchhiking west in Texas, with an inset photo of a woman in snakeskin boots and tattered gown standing in the middle of a two-lane desert highway, facing down the moon

November 12, 2025 at 8:24 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

#WritingCommunity #AuthorChat #Writer #WritersLife #WriteSky #AmWritingScienceFiction #SpeculativeFiction

background is a yellow orange sunset lowering into a shadowed mound on which there are dancers and drummers in black silhouette, overlaid with the statement: Good writing is in the rhythm, not in the rules - Julia Cameron sentiment.

November 7, 2025 at 4:43 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Happy WHIMSday! The Muse has a case of Post-Plot Stress Disorder ... read.jltooker.com to catch up with the Muse and her antics.
#WriteSky #Humor #Muse #AuthorChat #WriteSky #WritersCommunity #WritingCommunity #Writer

A faux newspaper article headline reads: MUSE CHECKS INTO REHAB FOR CREATIVE DISORDERS. An inset photo features a shadowed muse consulting with her therapist

November 5, 2025 at 5:01 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

#AuthorChat #AmWriting #WriteSky #WritersCommunity #WriterProblems #TakeABreak

Ian image of the popular farming sim, Stardew Valley, showing a pixelated barn and chickens, with the added text of "It's where I go when my body and brain are screaming for a break. Now if I could just pair it with some Haunted Chocolatier. Thank you @ConcernedApe!"

November 4, 2025 at 7:27 PM

JL Tooker

@jltooker.bsky.social

Censored Feedback?
#WritingCommunity #AuthorChat #Writer #WriteSky

He wrote: “Your need to understand her … your need to be right.” I wanted to comment: “How perfectly contradictory ... no genuine desire for truth ..."

Comments by paid subscribers only.
Monetization or a new form of silence?

October 31, 2025 at 1:55 PM