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therealcshea.bsky.social
Caroline Shea
@therealcshea.bsky.social
770 followers 1.3K following 340 posts
She/her. Freelance writer and editor living in New York. Author of Lambflesh (Kelsay Books, 2019). Open to editorial clients now: https://caroline-fitzgerald-shea.squarespace.com/editorial-consultations
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therealcshea.bsky.social
Heaney found the "poetic go-ahead" for his Burial at Thebes through the Bush admin's "reenactment" of Creon's position in their 'war on terror' & the confluences b/w Antigone & Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, between "the wife traumatized (...) at the hands of the English soldiery... (cont)
“Early in 2003, the situation that pertains in Sophocles’ play was being reenacted in our own world. Just as Creon forced the citizens of Thebes into an either/or situation in relation to Antigone, the Bush administration in the White House was using the same tactic to forward its argument for war on Iraq. Creon puts it to the Chorus in these terms: Either you are a patriot, and a loyal citizen, and regard Antigone as an enemy of the state because she does honour to her traitor brother, or else you yourselves are traitorous because you stand up for a woman who has broken the law and defied my authority. And Bush was using a similar strategy, asking, in effect: Are you in favour of state security or are you not? If you don’t support the eradication of this tyrant in Iraq and the threat he poses to the free world, you are on the wrong side in ‘the war on terror’. “Theme and tune coalesced. I remembered the opening lines of Eibhlín Dhubh Ní Chonaill’s lament, an outburst of grief and anger from a woman whose husband had been cut down and left bleeding on the roadside in County Cork, in much the same way as Polyneices was left outside the walls of Thebes, unburied, desecrated, picked at by the crows. But it was the drive and pitch of the Irish verse that clinched it: in the three-beat line Eibhlín Dhubh’s keen I heard a note that the stricken Antigone might sound in the speedy, haunted opening movement of the play: (…) In Frank O’Connor’s translation this goes: ‘My love and my delight The day I saw you first Beside the markethouse I had eyes for nothing else And love for none but you. I left my father’s house And ran away with you, And that was no bad choice.’ Gradually, then, this voice of a woman in mourning becomes the voice of a woman outraged, as she finds the body of her beloved lying beside a little furze bush, dead, without the last rites, without anyone close except ‘an old, old woman / And her cloak about you’. Because of the pitch of that voice, however, I made a connection between the wife traumatized by the death of her husband at the hands of the English soldiery in Carriganimma and the sister driven wild by the edict of a tyrant in Thebes; and through that connection I found the metre for the first dialogue between Antigone and Ismene: “Ismene, quick, come here! What’s to become of us?”
December 4, 2025 at 8:33 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
deeply, deeply in love w/ today’s research project: this gorgeous 1920s collection of Irish Fairy Tales illustrated by Rackham (!!).

“Fionn got his first training among women. There is no wonder in that, for it is the pup's mother teaches it to fight (…).”
A picture of the title page, illustrated in black and white Fionn got his first training among women. There is no wonder in that, for it is the pup's mother teaches it to fight, and women know that fighting is a necessary art although men pretend there are others that are better. These were the women druids, Bovmall and Lia Luachra. An inset full color illustration for the wooing of Becfola. Becfola is shown up a tree, fleeing wolves zoomed in detail of the wolves from previous illo
November 24, 2025 at 8:40 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
who would win: tragic heroine w/ a hero complex and her dead sister living in her head vs. dying imposter-hero impersonating his dead best friend for revenge/grail quest reasons (trick question, they team up and somehow make their situation worse)
Hic jacet Anna, queen of nothing. Hic jacet Jo, prophecy's whore. Once sister and wife, once daughter and sister. I can no longer separate my selves. I did not make this bed, though I lie in it. I did not dig this grave, though it swallowed me whole. I do not look away from my end. Not for me the golden pins, the bloodied eyes; not for me a death offstage, my anger gentled by translation into grief. No, I walk into the grave upright, unbent, broken by no sword. I rob you of my murder and gift it to myself: a snake swallowing its own tail. “I’ll do what I can,” he said tiredly. Then, his voice hardened. “But on one condition. I want your promise you’ll help me.” The words landed like stones between us. I could tell he knew the weight of what he was asking. Knew and asked it anyway. Turnabout was fair play, I supposed. It still stung. “Fine,” I said coldly. “But I’ll have your promise first.” I waited. His words might not bind him, but I wanted them anyway. He shook his head. “You’re a mercenary bitch, aren’t you?” he said wonderingly. “You really are all his creatures.” I flinched, but said nothing. “I promise,” he said with ill-grace. I nodded. When I spoke, the words were liquid fire on my tongue. “Then I promise I’ll find you a cure.” His eyes widened, and I took a vicious pleasure in his surprise. He had not expected so generous an oath. I could’ve made a weaker promise, could’ve built in protections and escapes. Could’ve given myself an out. We were all adept at crafting our promises carefully, at seeming to s Despite everything, I wanted to make him smile again, wanted him to look at me as he had when he’d first walked in, admiring and a little hungry. He paused at the door, glancing back. His face was expressionless now, the polite mask he wore around the others. I had not realized until then that he had begun to wear a different face with me. “You can owe me,” he said, lightly, as if the words cost him nothing. I flinched. The door shut behind him with a solid sounding click. I rushed forward, using the poker to fish the smoldering shirt from the fire, stamping it out against the stone. Though large patches of the fabric had been singed or burned away, the bloodstain still shone on the sleeve like a constellation, inky and arterial. I shoved it under my arm. Never trust anyone you owe, Creon had said once during some long-ago lesson. Better to make sure they owed you. A debt, he’d taught me, like a limp or a promise, was a weakness. Some lessons you learned whether you wanted to or not.
November 21, 2025 at 10:02 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
November newsletter is up (and free)! I share some publishing news, a round-up of my awards eligible writing, and recs for new and forthcoming titles featuring K.M. Fajardo, Thomas Ha, Nell Stephens, and more. Read it here: www.patreon.com/posts/novemb...
A graphic of a Patreon post showing my awards eligible writing.
November 19, 2025 at 6:34 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
a large percentage of writing is creating problems for your future self, solving those problems by creating more problems, etc. ad nauseum until you give up and/or finish.
word count showing 127335 a word doc comment that just says: "timeline?" word doc comments that say, respectively: "weave in material from first draft" and "order? beauty then bloodshed? or bloodshed then beauty?"
November 13, 2025 at 9:42 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
Luckily she is very small and cute so that’s ok.
The car had grown bored of gothic fantasy and curled up in my lap to purr aggressively. She had very yellow eyes and a white patch on her chest
November 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
My editing partner this morning is not pulling her own weight.
A black cat sits on my lap, looking at my computer screen where a word doc with lots of comments is pulled up The same cat looking back at me, demanding to know why I can’t pet her and type at the same time
November 13, 2025 at 5:01 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
"Something Broken, Something New," in
@lunastation.bsky.social: lunastationquarterly.com/issues/062/
You know how this story is meant to end. They follow Dan home. The girl molts; the boy's eyes dull from brilliant red back to a dull ordinary blue. His heart eventually stutters, then stops. The chil- dren never liked this ending. Instead, they leave death behind. All it costs them is the world. Most days, they don't miss it.
November 11, 2025 at 2:24 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
"The Interrogation of Saint Winifred," in @thedeadlands.com: psychopomp.com/deadlands/is...
Who killed you? a man a man like any other do the dead care You aren’t dead. Not anymore. I still speak their tongue Do you forgive him? I lack that muscle Did it hurt? you always ask that do you think death a picnic of course it hurt Dying? yes but coming back was worse
November 11, 2025 at 2:23 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
"Argent," in @cold-signal.com: cold-signal.com/argent-carol...
“You can save them,” the witch-devil says. “If you want to.” The devil always gives her the choice. She hates him for that more than anything else—for making her choose, making her run headlong toward her fate, eyes open. She can’t say no. She can’t walk away or abdicate. That would be a different story, a story she has no idea how to tell. And no matter how many times she loses her brothers, she cannot bring herself to let them go for good. Whether they are turned to deer, or ravens, or swans, whether they are cooked, or killed by robbers, or murdered in their beds, their loss stings each time as if it were new. It means something, to have someone walk with you through the wood. To have someone’s hand in yours as the trees creep ever closer. Her brothers don’t remember their other lives with her, the years of tugging her braids, skipping stones and dodging blows, the thorny grammar of growing up together in a world where children grow up quickly or not at all. They don’t remember, but she does. "Fine," the girl says, "what do I do?"
November 11, 2025 at 2:22 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
"Greyhound," in
@stonecirclereview.bsky.social: stonecirclereview.com/greyhound/
Every three days, a beast like me / dies on the track.
November 11, 2025 at 2:20 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
I get to hop on the bandwagon this year and do an awards eligibility post! I had two poems and two short stories published this year. If you're nominating for awards, I'd appreciate your consideration. All work is SFF/speculative except for "Greyhound." Links in replies.
An image formatted like a library card lists each eligible piece by magazine, title, and genre. Pieces listed are : "Greyhound," (Stone Circle Review, Poetry, General/Non-Genre), "Argent," (Cold Signal Magazine, SFF Short Fiction), "The Interrogation of Saint Winifred," (The Deadlands, SFF/Horror Poetry), and "Something Broken, Something New," (Luna Station Quarterly, SFF Short Fiction).
November 11, 2025 at 2:19 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
October's newsletter is up with updates, ghost story recs, and a novel excerpt. Read it here: www.patreon.com/posts/141375...
Text is centered over an image in gray tones of a ruined city. Text reads: From where she and Mariel sat, it seemed they hung above a maw of jagged, broken teeth. It will eat us alive, Isme had said of Albion. Well, Jo thought, let it try. She had been swallowed by other places, other times, and still survived. Teo liked to say they were immortal because the world loved them too much to let them die, but sometimes Jo worried it was the opposite: They were too bitter for death to stomach. When the end came, it simply spat them back out. They had not yet earned their heaven. Or their hell.
October 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
human as haunting; ghost as machine; inanimate as alive; Gothic as Tragedy; past as eternal return
"What is real and what is not? Can something be alive even though it is unnatural?" The Night Side of the River, Jeanette Winterson 'both femininity and death are ascribed the position of alterity" (...) / "Beauty fascinates not only because it is unnatural but also because it is precarious." Over Her Dead Body, Elisabeth Bronfen "The most intriguing aspect of Blodeuwedd is her alien characteristic the fact that she is made from flowers and her simultaneous similarity to her human creators." "You Took My Spirit Captive among the Leaves": The Creation of Blodeuwedd in Re-Imaginings of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, Cara Bartels-Brand ..the problematic nature of the term "automaton," which seems to represent in the first instance the inanimate infused with life, and was only later associated with science and technology." "You Took My Spirit Captive among the Leaves": The Creation of Blodeuwedd in Re-Imaginings of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, Cara Bartels-Brand Blodeuwedd, the vegetal android, demonstrates the unbreachable divide between species in Lewis, and moreover, the catastrophic outcome if such a breach is attempted. "You Took My Spirit Captive among the Leaves": The Creation of Blodeuwedd in Re-Imaginings of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, Cara Bartels-Brand "A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption." Frankenstein, Mary Shelley Posthuman: Robert Pepperell defines the posthuman era as the time "when we no longer find it necessary, or possible, to distinguish between humans and nature." "As a product of the information or digital age, the posthuman collapses and exceeds the boundaries that once differentiated fact from fiction and illusion from reality." Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls, Kim Toffoletti "...the weird is that which does not belong. The weird brings to the familiar something which ordinarily lies beyond it, and which cannot be reconciled with the "homely" (even as its negation)." The Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher "...like the weird, the eerie is also fundamentally to do with the outside, and here we can understand the outside in a straightforwardly empirical as well as a more abstract transcendental sense. A sense of the eerie seldom clings to enclosed and inhabited domestic spaces; we find the eerie more readily in landscapes partially emptied of the human." The Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher "[The eerie is also] the agency of the immaterial and inanimate: the agency of minerals and landscape for authors like Nigel Kneale and Alan Garner, and the way "we" "ourselves" are caught up in the rhythms, pulsions, and patternings of non-human forces. There is no inside except as a folding of the outside; the mirror cracks, I am an other, and I always was." The Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher "It is sometimes supposed that landscape shapes human perception and that the power of the earth, the ground upon which we stand and move, is greater than that of the heavens in determining human destiny. [...] In the north-west region Wordsworth experienced "low breathings coming after him"; in that same territory, five hundred years before, Sir Gawain felt "etins aneleden him," or giants blowing after him. The faint shudder of disquiet may be part of the landscape." Albion, Peter Ackroyd "Are such hauntings from the inside or the outside? [...] Humans are not innocent beings assaulted by dreadful forces over which they have no control; the human psyche is the door left open." The Night Side of the River, Jeanette Winterson "Does evil come from within us or beyond?" Nosferatu (2024), dir. Robert Eggers "She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening." The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter "Jocasta's body is presented not in terms of what it can do or experience or be aware of (in contrast to the body of Oedipus); rather, her body is a place, one that becomes horrific when it is entered, used, or possessed by father and son." Oedipus Tyrannos, trans. Emily Wilson "Gothic fiction has long been presided over by Ann Radcliffe and her female successors, commonly employing the Radcliffean model of the heroine enclosed in the master's house: a formula persistently re-worked in the popular variety of women's fiction still known as the 'Gothic romance'. ', whose descent can be traced back through Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. It is more than likely that this enduring adoption of Gothic fiction by women has to do with the relative failure of modern societies to ensure for women the kind of economic, legal, and personal security that are enjoyed as the post-absolutist rights of man. And if the liberties of women are felt to be more precarious in these public senses, their traditional sphere of the domestic interior will often come to appear less as a refuge than as the most imprisoning space of all, where there may survive the most archaic of tyrannies." The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, ed. Chris Baldick "The encounter with the outside often ends in breakdown and psychosis." The Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher "The literary effect we call horror turns on the dissolution of boundaries, between the living and the dead, of course, but also, at the crudest level, between the outside of the body and everything that ought to stay inside. In the psychological ghost story, the dissolving boundary is the one between the mind and the exterior world. During the third major manifestation at Hill House, as Eleanor's resistance begins to buckle, she thinks, "how can these others hear the noise when it was coming from inside my head?"" "Introduction," Laura Miller, The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson ..the horror underlying Eleanor's full-circle journey is real as well as ghostly. It is the recognition that the harder you try to escape the emotional dynamics of your family of origin, the more likely you are to duplicate them. It feels like fate, like doom, but is it? Is Eleanor the victim of Hill House or of herself?" "Introduction," Laura Miller, The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson "Oedipus: I am undone. (...) / But nobody struck me but me: self-handed, / I did it, to my own unhappy self. / Why should I see / when my sight could see nothing joyful?" Oedipus Tyrannos, trans. Emily Wilson "For the Gothic effect to be attained, a tale should combine a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobie sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing one another to produce an impression of sickening descent into disintegration." The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, ed. Chris Baldick "Antigone: Your marriage strikes from the grave to murder mine. / I have been a stranger here in my own land: / All my life / The blasphemy of my birth has followed me." Antigone, Sophocles, trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald "When shall I be dead and rid / Of the wrong my father did? / How long, how long, till spade and hearse / Put to sleep my mother's curse?" The Once and Future King, T.H. White
October 15, 2025 at 3:43 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
photos don’t quite capture it but if you like shimmer inks, the jacques herbin émeraude de chivor ink is absolutely incredible to write with & to look at
Photo of part of a notebook page at an angle showing some notes in shimmering turquoise ink same as first photo but a different angle so you can see a bit more of the page
October 14, 2025 at 9:51 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List

+ some thoughts on medievalism and why we return to certain eras in fiction and scholarship again and again. Read here: www.patreon.com/posts/long-a...
Over the background of John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shallot, white text reads: The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List We seem to return to certain periods of time as readers and writers again and again. Each time the story shifts. Richard III appears throughout history and literature in many guises, taking sometimes the role of a weak-willed villain, sometimes the maligned victim; Anne Boleyn, too, takes her turn as a scheming seductress and tragic heroine, depending on who’s narrating events. Both historians and HBO TV dramas delight in the violences and excesses of the Borgias. And the fall of Rome, of course, will probably never stop being retold, in any medium it can be.
September 29, 2025 at 2:33 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
a Tuesday novel scrap before I force myself to get more work done: "How stupid, she thought, how human, to believe harm to others did not harm you, too."
“Here,” he said, pressing the ammonite into her hand. It was beautiful. She didn’t want it. She still felt the sting of his open palm on Teo’s cheek. She wanted to throw the stone in Creon’s face, to refuse this gift and its small, baffling kindness, but she found her fingers closing around the fossil instead, clutching it so tightly the rough edge dug into her palm. His pain, she reminded herself, not yours. But she didn’t really believe that. It had never made sense to her, the way people drew borders around their bodies and marked that space a sovereign kingdom. The air in your lungs was the same wind whipping through the grass; the pale chalky grit you could scrape from the old clay pits the same pulp that made your bones. How stupid, she thought, how human, to believe harm to others did not harm you, too. She unclenched her hand and realized the rough edge of the rock had nearly broken skin. She watched the crescent indent on her palm bloom blue, then black, then yellow-green. A few minutes later, as they made their way down to harbor, the bruise had faded, the blood drained away. Her skin was unmarked as if the small hurt had never been.
September 23, 2025 at 12:52 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
I talked to Dan Dwyer of the wonderful Johnnycake Books
about the store's history, his 35 years in rare bookselling, and what he wished more people knew about the world of rare books. Conversation linked here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...
“It became immediately apparent there was an ordered universe about this with rules and protocols and genres. And I sort of globbed onto it. So one thing led to another […], [and] I started selling books.”
September 15, 2025 at 2:20 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
bonus: "The candle must not die, because then there is no story."
“If you looked out on a stormy night and you saw a traveler whose candle was guttering in the rain, what would you do?” Longlight’s hand moved involuntarily: Shyira-Guarding-Seed. “You know that mine is a hard country. There is only one rule for that.” “One rule everywhere,” Birch said gently, “but you remember it. When you had taken the traveler in, something would happen. She might sleep the night and barely speak a word. She might keep the household laughing all night with stories. She might be a thief or give birth to a perfect new soul. She might even be a wispel and show you the terror of death by morning. You don’t know what the visitor will be to you, or you to her. You only remember the rule. The candle must not die, because then there is no story.” (342-343)
September 9, 2025 at 8:08 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
gonna be fun getting this essay down to 3,000 words when this is the notes doc 🙃
a screenshot showing a page count of 92 and a word count of 34192
September 8, 2025 at 5:31 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
"But a candle will burn at noon." (Aspects)

"I am giving you the candle now--you won't let it out?" "It will burn." (The Once and Future King)

"I shall (..) banish the Darkness." "I will wait until then." (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)
“But what have you done about this?” “Hm. Well, I have taught him to know if a horse is properly shod and to put a good edge on cutting steels. And I have tried to show him that there are priests who care about fair wages and adequate food for the Commons as much as the ascent of souls; and, I hope, a little of how to be patient with us when we seem not to care enough about the made world. In exchange, he has taught me to fish with a cast rod and understand the difference between what Ferangarders call ‘war’ and what they call ‘peace.’ Also, someone who has held a Coron’s full power and authority since he was fifteen has spoken to a blacksmith’s son as if the smith’s-get were one day going to have great power and authority of his own, and ought to know how to bear it.” “I mind all he is a good soul—verra kind, tho’ he’ll not have’t out so. But—in the light of all things—” “In the bare glow of Goddess, yes, we’re small. But a candle will burn at noon. ” “Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving you the candle now—you won’t let it out?” “It will burn.” “…she did not offer to go into the Darkness with him and he did not ask her. “One day,” he said, “I shall find the right spell and banish the Darkness. And on that day I will come to you.” “Yes. On that day. I will wait until then.”
September 8, 2025 at 5:30 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
I talked to @coyhall.bsky.social about the (delightfully) eerie The Owl Men of Shanidar, gendered dynamics in sci-fi, history as storytelling, and writing the premodern. Conversation linked here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...
The cover of Coy Hall's The Owl Men of Shanidar. The figure of an owl, surrounded by a circular border of leaves, is centered on a black background. The style is reminiscent of the reliefs found on ancient pottery. “I approach teaching history as storytelling, bringing in the details that vivify, focusing on the human element, bringing people to life. As a historian, fiction helped me realize what details make the past appear real in the mind of a reader or listener. […] I believe you can reflect the present through the warped lens of the past just as sci-fi reflects back on us from an imagined future.” Text is on a tan, paper-like background and framed by several decorative icons in dark red.
September 8, 2025 at 1:37 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
The 10th anniversary edition of Darrin Doyle's The Dark Will End the Dark is forthcoming this October from
@tortoisebooks.bsky.social. We spoke about the Midwestern Gothic, point of view as tool to drive suspense, and returning to the collection ten years on. www.patreon.com/posts/interv...
To me, my favorite thing when I read any writer is a sentence I've never seen before. There’s a little magic to it because it can't be just wild and crazy and nonsensical. I think it's best when it actually makes sense, is clear, but also it's done in such a unique way that you've never seen those words put together like that. And so I'm always kind of trying to do that. Darrin Doyle
September 2, 2025 at 1:37 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
It was an absolute pleasure to interview @kjcharleswriter.com. We talked about world-building in historical fiction, genre promises, odysseys in self- and trad publishing, and kitchen hedgehogs (!). Read our conversation here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...
"...in the same way that my historical work is energized by detail, I think my paranormal work has to be energized by detail and place and by history. [...] Any old place, old country has got old myths and old history and a whole accretion of people's ideas around it. And London's absolutely stinking with it. So a lot of that just sort of comes together very nicely to drive the paranormal engine.” KJ Charles
August 18, 2025 at 2:24 PM
therealcshea.bsky.social
Central PA friends-- I'm excited to be reading at the Print Factory in Bellefonte on 9/5. I'll be reading from some new poetry and fiction and copies of Lambflesh will be available to purchase. Would love to see you there.
A poster for the event specifying date and time September 5, 2025 at 6:00. Reading by Out Loud Bellefonte and the Print Factory.
August 15, 2025 at 7:59 PM