Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mary Soon Lee

@marysoonlee.bsky.social

380 followers 76 following 940 posts

Author, cat owner, and book addict. Website: https://marysoonlee.com/

marysoonlee.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · Nov 24

Hello, this is Mary Soon Lee entering stage left.... Hoping to find some of the folks I used to follow on that other social media platform....

For anyone wondering who I am, I write poetry and fiction, much of it SF and F.

I also have a cat, Pilot.

And I like to post about books I've enjoyed :-)

Photo of Pilot, a ginger cat with a white bib and white paws. Pilot is sitting on the box of the board game Terraforming Mars; he is staring up to his left. Behind him is an orchid, mostly hidden, and windows looking onto trees.

2 3 16

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 12h

Update! I am one chapter into The Tainted Cup and already it is deeply appealing. I want to crawl further into it, but there are Things That Must Be Done.

More book suggestions very welcome, since your recommendations are typically books that I end up loving.

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 13h

As our family says, soup is nice.

Bubo! Firstly, a striking name for a rat, bringing the worst associations of rats and plague to mind. I thought he was a fine and bold fellow. [Snuff is my favorite, however.]

Weather in these parts is cooling, but not yet properly cold.

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 19h

#TSOTD_note Bridge

- A war that did not come.
Days gave way to weeks,
weeks to months

- this is partly because I added a year to the course of the story, so everything unfolds a bit more slowly

- first time readers may be impatient, but I wanted Xau to have that year

✏️📖🐉🐴

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

"HELL no" absolutely should have been an option on that ballot....

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you :-)

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you! 🐈‍⬛🐈

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

For the curious, the October update of my newsletter may be read here:

mailchi.mp/f72546af2d84...

It includes poetry news, a photo of me with Pilot (my cat) on my 60th birthday, and book recommendations.

✏️

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

!!!! 🐉📖🐉!!!!

oboist73.bsky.social @oboist73.bsky.social · 1d

The first part of the r/fantasy readalong for The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee is up today! www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/...

From the Fantasy community on Reddit: The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee READALONG — Part 1: Crown

Explore this post and more from the Fantasy community

www.reddit.com

1 2

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 1d

#TSOTD_note Recruits

- first published in Mirror Dance

- "Do not spend their lives lightly" - many horses die, trusting Xau, who never spends their lives lightly

- the phrase "shadow and darkness" also appears in the earlier Donal/Xau poems Training: Shield + Two Kings + Allies

✏️📖🐉🐴

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 2d

Thank you very much for publishing such a beautiful edition of this lovely book :-)

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 2d

Update from the reading front: finished Jamie Lackey's novella The Forest Gods, a sequel to her wonderful novella, The Forest God. This one is wonderful too. (Read them in order.)

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

📖📚

2 2

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 2d

#TSOTD_note Oath

- this poem had 5 rounds of revision

- the final round, suggested by F. J. Bergmann, was to indent the opening/closing stanzas

- I had indented them in my first draft and later un-indented them

- ah, the glamorous world of poetry revision!

- I do prefer the stanzas indented :-)

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

The magic show sounds great :-)

Your glass pattern looks lovely but very ambitious!

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

Serendipity! I'm very glad that worked out well and I hope you are back in touch with them soon :-)

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

Update from the reading front: finished Sub-Majer's Challenge, the 25th book in L. E. Modesitt Jr's Saga of Recluce. This is the third book about the rise of Alyiakal through the ranks, and I enjoyed it very much. I greatly admire Modesitt's worldbuilding.

www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

📖📚

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

On the poetry front, my poem "Andy Warhol's Many Cats" has just been published by Uppagus :-) 🐈🐈‍⬛🐾

uppagus.com/poems/soon-l...

For the curious
- first draft written 4/2019
- this draft written 2/2025
- rejected 8 times
- accepted in 58 days
- this is my 51st poem to appear in Uppagus!

✏️📖

3 1 5

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

I'm honored and delighted that my poem "What Moon Rabbit Reads" was nominated for the Best of the Net by The Sprawl Mag :-)

N.B. The poem may be read here:

www.thesprawlmag.ca/vol-2-2#moon...

The Sprawl Mag @thesprawl.bsky.social · 4d

Announcing our Best of the Net nominees! Congratulations to @paulvermeersch.bsky.social @marysoonlee.bsky.social @salempaige.bsky.social @ianli.bsky.social @ziggyschutz.bsky.social @clarissagrunwald.bsky.social

1 4

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 3d

#TSOTD_note Target

- it took me two days to write this poem, after which the only revisions were to format it to look okay on ebook platforms

- my own version is like this:

DONAL Horse shit.
Unless you're looking to be killed
that wasn't a risk worth taking.

✏️📖🐉

1 1

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

Not that I could permit
the purloining of cats,
but we came to an understanding,
the blackthorn and I.
In its shelter, I planted
catnip, valerian, oat grass,
such things as please a feline,
and now, of an evening,
I watch how the cats linger there,
the small warm weight of paws
against its roots.

🐈‍⬛

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

I took myself away.
I thought.
I thought about the witch,
how no one mourned her,
except, perhaps, this garden
and its various denizens:
a porcupine, shadows,
trees pining for company.

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

The blackthorn bristled its leaves savagely
but set the tabby down,
and something in that setting-down
so soft,
so far at odds with its wild rages,
that I felt abashed
for witnessing its lapse to tenderness.

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

The worst of the trees, an angry blackthorn,
entrapped the neighborhood cats.
The fourth time I found it
in flagrante delicto,
a tabby stuck in its clutch,
I told it, firmly,
that either it would desist immediately
or I'd fetch my saw.

1 1

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

The garden galled me.
I craved order, symmetry,
herbs marshalled in aromatic rows,
neat flower borders, a bird feeder,
unassuming apple trees.
Instead, the few flowers straggled,
unkempt, scruffy, unfit for show;
the trees loomed as if plotting,
their branches restless without need of wind.

1 1

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

muttering in a language
I later deduced was Polish (like the witch).

The house I loved from the hour
the realtor showed it to me,
its creaks and groans
easy to excuse on age and infirmity,
the elegance of its lineaments
laid down by artisans
from a less hasty time.

Mary Soon Lee @marysoonlee.bsky.social · 4d

The Blackthorn (first published in Dreams and Nightmares)

Not the house the witch had owned
that proved the problem,
rather her garden:
pungent with weeds;
choked with palpable shadows
that clung to my ankles;
home to a cranky porcupine
who glared as if I were the intruder,