Karen Carlson
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sloopie72.bsky.social
Karen Carlson
@sloopie72.bsky.social
220 followers 210 following 860 posts
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else. - Walt Whitman
I read a lot. Then I blog about it so I don't forget.
https://sloopie72.wordpress.com/
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20, I finally win at one of these newfangled interweb things
December 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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"It’s long enough to remember how eternal a love she had once."
Thoughts on reading Carrie R. Moore's literary cli-fic story, "Till It and Keep It" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/12/05/b...
BASS 2025: Carrie R. Moore, “Till It and Keep It” from Sewanee Review, Spring 2024
“The Garden of Eden”: British Textile, 16th C I kept thinking about household structures, how we join our lives to others. As a practicing Christian, I’ve thought of the book of G…
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December 5, 2025 at 1:05 PM
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Beautiful Cold Moon tonight
December 4, 2025 at 11:58 PM
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"Immediately, the parlor game was 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦?"
Thoughts on reading Elizabeth McCracken's short story, "Seven Stories about Tammy" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/b...
BASS 2025: Elizabeth McCracken, “Seven Stories about Tammy” from Zoetrope #28.1
Lady with a Fan:  Gustav Klimt, 1917 My grandmother was a dogged fabulist when it came to her age, and so were her sisters. Two of the Bernstein sisters – there were six – performed as folk da…
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December 2, 2025 at 1:43 PM
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"I realized that I did not know whose fault it was that every conversation we had devolved into the airing of the same wounds."
Thoughts on reading Yasmin Adele Majeed's short story "The Clean-Out" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/29/b...
BASS 2025: Yasmin Adele Majeed, “The Clean-Out” from Narrative, Winter 2025
In much of my work, I am interested in the debts that immigrant daughters are born into, and their creative attempts to pay them off. These characters are both daughters and mothers, and what they …
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November 29, 2025 at 1:15 PM
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"What do you call a people running for their lives? "
Thoughts on reading William Lohier's short story with the astonishing title, "Drapetomania" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/b...
BASS 2025: William Lohier, “Drapetomania” from One Story #315
I learned about the term drapetomania in a class on Morrison, Ellison, and Faulkner. Halfway through the semester we were sent home because of the pandemic. I began the story as part of the final p…
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November 26, 2025 at 1:05 PM
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"Who doesn’t love to be loved the most?"
Thoughts on reading Hannah Kingsley-Ma's short story, "Underwater" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/b...
BASS 2025: Hannah Kingsley-Ma, “Underwater” from The Drift #13
I’ve always been interested in where pockets of privacy exist in our closest relationships – and how many different strains of intimacy there are within our wider social constellation. I&#821…
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November 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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Name a non-English film.

Le Maître de musique
Belgian (in French)
poster, scene w/Jose Van Dam and Anne Roussel
November 20, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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“Nothing feels true anymore.”
Thoughts on reading Bret Anthony Johnston's short story, "Time of the Preacher" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/20/b...
BASS 2025: Bret Anthony Johnston, “Time of the Preacher” from Virginia Quarterly Review #100.2
It’s safe to say I was as surprised as anyone by what the characters do and don’t find in that house. Bret Anthony Johnston: Contributor Note, Best American Short Stories 2025 This is t…
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November 20, 2025 at 2:29 PM
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"Maybe it's not a friendship, exactly, but it's the easiest relationship in May’s life."
Thoughts on reading Isabelle Fang's short story “Gray, Cotton, White Lace Edges” from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/17/b...
BASS 2025: Isabelle Fang, “Gray, Cotton, White Lace Edges” from McSweeney’s #75
In having so many characters to play around with, I started writing toward the unspoken needs and wants we have hidden in all our relationships. I wanted to write about people who, somewhat by acci…
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November 17, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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"The feeling was there, but it was submerged."
Thoughts on reading Lyn Di Iorio's short story, “Maritza and Carmen” from #BestAmericanShortStories2025.
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/b...
BASS 2025: Lyn Di Iorio, “Maritza and Carmen” from The Georgia Review, Fall 2024
Luis Germán Cajiga: “Mujer con Sombrero Negro” “Maritza and Carmen” is part of Let Me Take Care Of You, a collection I’m writing set in Puerto Rico. At the heart of these stories …
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November 14, 2025 at 2:07 PM
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"They say I’m made of myth."
Thoughts on reading “Unfathomably Deep” by Sophie Madeline Dess (and a bit of Euripides' 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘢) from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/11/b...
BASS 2025: Sophie Madeline Dess, “Unfathomably Deep” from Drift #12
Medea Sarcophagus, Altes Museum in Berlin It is a story born of the question: What forces and passions possess us in the wake of grief? Sophie Madeline Dess: Contributor Note, Best American Short S…
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November 11, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Karen Carlson
greekmythcomix.bsky.social
A craft project for the end of this year:
Sisyphus and Rock Advent Calendar
November 11, 2025 at 7:23 AM
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Now you're just mocking me...
Wordle graphic: "Go ahead, add another day to your 1 day streak"
November 9, 2025 at 1:01 PM
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"... and suddenly she felt shame for how she had treated the telescope guy."
Thoughts on reading Sarah Braunstein's short story, "Abject Naturalism" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/b...
BASS 2025: Sarah Braunstein, “Abject Naturalism” from TNY 7/29/24
[F]inding my way to the end of this story was a challenge. At one point Toni says she stopped writing because she never could figure out how to end things. “Abject naturalism” sat in a file for a l…
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November 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM
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"This is the place he came from, whether he likes it or not."
Thoughts on reading Emma Binder's short story "What Would I Do For You, What Would You Do For Me?" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/b...
BASS 2025: Emma Binder, “What Would I Do For You, What Would You Do For Me?” from Michigan Quarterly Review #63.1
One of my obsessions, both artistically and in life, are the stories of queer and trans people who come from rural places and small towns, who may be omitted from the acknowledged social fabric of …
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November 5, 2025 at 2:40 PM
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"You can make yourself fall in and out of love with people pretty easily, I’ve found, if you have a strong sense of narrative arc and choose the right moments."
Thoughts on reading Sarah Anderson's "Take Me To Kirkland" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/11/02/b...
BASS 2025: Sarah Anderson, “Take Me To Kirkland” from Joyland #XIV
“Take me to Kirkland” initially grew out of two main fragments. …. It eventually became clear to me that the two fragments were connected, and I spent another year figuring out how to stitch togeth…
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November 2, 2025 at 1:05 PM
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If you see this, quote with a robot that isn’t from “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Doctor Who,” or “Transformers".
still from Silent Running - Huey, Dewey, and Louis (or at least 2 of them)
October 31, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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"He felt that a spell had been cast, a judgment rendered, and that he had vanished."
Thoughts on reading Lauren Acampora's short fiction "Dominion" from #BestAmericanShortStories2025
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/10/30/b...
BASS 2025: Lauren Acampora, “Dominion” from New England Review #45.2
I wrote this as part of a collection of stories about human-animal dynamics – all the ways we love, fear, fetishize, exploit, and identify with other creatures, depending on context and species – a…
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October 30, 2025 at 12:18 PM
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"To the readers of these stories – I hope you make discoveries that help you make sense of the world."
Warming up for 𝘉𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 2025. #BASS2025
@pronounced-ing.bsky.social‬ @nicolealamy.bsky.social
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/b...
Beginning BASS 2025: But Let Us To The Story
I have an embarrassing confession. I’ve been reading The Best American Short Stories for several decades – since I was about fourteen or fifteen – but until now, I don’t think I have ev…
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October 27, 2025 at 12:15 PM
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A lovely rainbow!
October 22, 2025 at 8:47 PM
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Wrapping things up: A look back at the books I read during my 2025 In-Between Reading and the light they gave me - with a little help from my favorite @levostregc.bsky.social post. 💙📚👀 #booksky
sloopie72.wordpress.com/2025/10/21/c...
Closing out IBR2025: “A challenging, turbulent, difficult tyme…”
It ys a challenging, turbulent, difficult tyme. My greatest wisshe ys that you may fynde sum small moment of peace, delight, mirthe, pleasure, discoverye, connectioun, or fascinacioun that doth mak…
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October 21, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Karen Carlson
shakespeare.lol
Good Lord, what madness rules in brain-sick men,
When for so slight and frivolous a cause
Such factious emulations shall arise!
October 19, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Karen Carlson
hackcartoonist.bsky.social
What if I did a whole comic book that was a monologue? All of the drama would be in this character’s performance.
October 17, 2025 at 3:50 PM
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FINAL ENTRY!!!
#20TBRbookchallenge
💙📚
Choose 20 books on your current TBR shelf. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.
No explanations, no expectations, just covers.
#20 of 20 #Booksky #bookchallenge
#readingchallenge #readersky
Book Cover: Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene
October 15, 2025 at 2:55 PM