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Mayken Brünings

@maykenalanna.bsky.social

570 followers 110 following 2.7K posts

I write fantasy & speculative fiction for kids. 📚 My blog about Paris & published short stories 👉 https://www.maykenbruenings.com/ Trilingual swimmer 🏊🏻‍♀️ and SCBWI member. I love cows and Brittany.

www.maykenbruenings.com

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · Oct 18

12yo Charlotte spends alternate weeks with her time protection agent parents in the 16th and the 21st centuries. All is well until it isn't. History goes off the rails, Charlotte is stranded in the past, and a royal princess needs saving. #TimeTravel

A French Renaissance palace is reflected in the water of the Loire river

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 9h

How do you manage to resist it?

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Reposted by Mayken Brünings

Greenpeace International 🌍 @greenpeace.org · 19h

🐙Did you manage to find all ten?

Comment below how many you were able to spot 👇

Happy World Octopus Day!

#ProtectTheOceans #StopDeepSeaMining

Black and white drawing of underwater life

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 9h

I found 9. 🐙

Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 9h

I'm giving up. You clearly don't want to give Stollen another chance. Still I'll make sure to show you a photo of the delicious Stollen variety this Christmas. 🙂

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 9h

Thank you. I hope I will. 15yo is VERY enthusiastic.

Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 19h

That's not a two-syllable preposition. You're cheating. 😉

Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 19h

That sounds so cool, I'd love to read it! Fingers crossed!

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Reposted by Mayken Brünings

Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 1d

Boxes also work on bobcats

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 20h

Hamilton. All I know about is was that everyone in my timeline was talking about it when it started. (That was back when Twitter was a nice place to be.)
I don't even know the story. (Never studied US American history.)
Don't know a single song.
But it makes 15yo happy.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 20h

Remind me why I just spent a lot of money for a trip to London to see a musical that is not Les Miz? 🇨🇵
Oh, right.
15yo 🥰
I can't take her to the faraway places she'd like to go (Japan, Greece) but I can do London.
Also, the British Museum has lots of Greek stuff.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 20h

I'd throw in some other delicious German Christmas specialty. Really I feel now I have to defend our honour.
Do you think the postal strike will last into December?

Reposted by Mayken Brünings

Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 2d

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day?

Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

Congrats! The cover looks awesome!

Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

Neither would I. But Charlotte has been drilled in secrecy since she was small.

Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

Now I'm tempted to send you some this year to defend German Stollen honour.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

What kind of Stollen did they send that it was stale??? Stollen or our local version Klaben is good until Easter if you manage not to finish it sooner. (Stollen fan here but definitely only around Xmas.)

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 7
My uncle brought 2 of these "sugar loaves" back from Germany. We didn't know what to do with them. And now I'm selling them to a king for gold coins. (A lot of gold coins.)
If that isn't weird, I don't know what is.
(Quentin)

#TimeTravelAuthors
October 2025
Answer as a character!

1. Introduce yourself and the story
3. Your first appearance and/or line of dialogue in the story
5. Why are you important to the story?
7. Something odd/weird you've experienced
9. Favorite person
11. Saturday excerpt (optional word: most)
13. What does someone else in the story think of you?
15. Wednesday POST-SIZED snippet (optional word: give/gave)
17. What life advice would you give?
19. Proudest moment
21. If you got to write the story, what would you change?
23. Tell us about your enemies
25. Saturday excerpt (optional word: back)
27. How do you feel about time travel?
29. Wednesday POST-SIZED snippet (optional word: now)
31. Character's choice/promo

All time-travel authors and published works, WIPs, etc. welcome!
To join, just answer the prompts on odd days, using the hashtag #TimeTravelAuthors
On even days, post what you like!
Questions? @juliebihn@bsky.social

A packaged cone-shaped sugar loaf on a sugar-coated store shelf with packages of sugar in the background.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 7
Lots of weird things when you live alternately in the 21st century and at a Renaissance king's court, but the weirdest must have been when that Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazzano, talked about the "New World" and got it all wrong.
(Charlotte)

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

Hey, I'm German and I've never done it either.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

I'll have to send you over to Wikipedia for the answer, I'm afraid:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerza...

Feuerzangenbowle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 1d

Oh ok, I'd forgotten about that one. Now the dictatorship makes sense.
Sorry about the mix-up.
(Still looking forward to the sequel for SECONDARY though.)

Reposted by Mayken Brünings

Greenpeace International 🌍 @greenpeace.org · 2d

The Amazon is one of our greatest hopes for a liveable future. But it faces an urgent threat from industrial-scale agriculture and illegal gold mining.⁣
⁣
On this #WorldHabitatDay, tell world leaders to take action for forests⁣ >> act.gp/46PjfDP

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 2d

Wow. Looking forward to reading the sequel!
(I already was but now even more so.)

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 2d

I've never seen it anywhere but in Germany either (though my husband says they exist in France), and they have one very specific use.

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Mayken Brünings @maykenalanna.bsky.social · 2d

Here's the modern one Quentin uses in my story. They had a somewhat different shape in the 16th century. Apparently, loose sugar in bags wasn't a thing then. (Eternally grateful Kiersten pointed it out to me during editing stages.)

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