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A.M. Tuomala

@amtuomala.bsky.social

400 followers 140 following 1.7K posts

Author of fantasy novels about language nerds, dragonslayers, and roaming geologists. Pronouns are xie or zie/hir. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/amtuomala Website: https://amtuomala.com/

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · Oct 3

Hello to anyone new! I write fantasy stories about loving broken things. My most recent book was The Map and the Territory, a post-apocalyptic picaresque about a cartographer and a wizard trying to get home in a shattered world haunted by a death goddess.

The cover of the book The Map and the Territory, which depicts two people standing back to back. One of them is a tall Black man in elaborate wizardly robes, and the other is a short woman with brown skin who wears practical clothes for adventuring.

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Ell Huang 🖤🤍💜 @nocturnalxlight.bsky.social · 4h

“Rather like its counterpart anthology, Palestine+100, it uses genre tropes to re-examine…much as Guillermo Del Toro used horror to explore the Spanish Civil War in films like Pan’s Labyrinth, or Godzilla offered an SF metaphor for the trauma of nuclear warfare & arms testing in the 1940s and 50s.”

Sonia is an Ignyte and Ember Award winner! @soniasulaiman.bsky.social · 4h

Yes, ICYMI, I have a story coming out tomorrow in Palestine -1: Stories from the Eve of the Nakba, from Comma Press. commapress.co.uk/books/palest...

Palestine - 1 - Stories from the eve of the Nakba | Comma Press

£11.99 (Paperback / Anthology)

commapress.co.uk

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Sonia is an Ignyte and Ember Award winner! @soniasulaiman.bsky.social · 4h

#HorrorWritersChat, And this is where I link my tip jar because I’m going to be over drafted soon. I am struggling to make ends meet she’s take care of my mom’s long term care expenses. Help is very much appreciated. Donate or drop me a lead for work. Anything. ko-fi.com/soniasulaima...

Buy SoniaSulaiman a Coffee

Sonia is writing speculative fiction inspired by Palestinian folklore. Leave her a tip to support her work!

ko-fi.com

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

What's a good indie/small press or self-published book you've read recently?

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Arden Powell 🍂🍁 @ardenpowell.bsky.social · 7h

Introducing The Knightly Forecast. Support my Patreon for $4 CAD/month, and get a weekly dose of meditative fantasy microfiction in your inbox.

This series follows the changing seasons. The first is completely public and free to read, no signup required.

🍂 www.patreon.com/posts/early-...

Photo of fall trees awash in gold. Credit to Dan Senior on Unsplash.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 5h

For The Map and the Territory: oranges, ozone, salt, petrichor.

L. D. Lewis, Peach Jolly Rancher 🍬 @ldlewiswrites.blacksky.app · 21h

What would *your* book smell like if you engaged in a mega weirdo scented pages promotional campaign?

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Martha Wells @marthawells.com · 7h

This is tonight, Wednesday October 15! Me and Nalo Hopkinson!

Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social · 7d

Vancouver! Iron Dog Books is hosting the launch of @marthawells.com new novel, Queen Demon, here on Oct 15: irondogbooks.com/events/32161...

Book Launch: Queen Demon by Martha Wells | Iron Dog Books

Indigenous-owned bookshop serving metro Vancouver

irondogbooks.com

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 6h

Fellow white people, I am begging you to understand that something wasn't necessarily less of a problem when you were less aware of the problem

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Cracked Lemonade @crackedlemonade.bsky.social · 9h

Yea, idk I remember saying something about how a lot of people's bar for racism is overt racism it makes a lot of problems invisible. If you're not actively on the receiving end, sure it's invisible and it seems like times were better when you were not actively confronted to take a look at yourself

Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 9h

I don’t know how to approach “Republicans weren’t racist in the early aughts” as someone who went to Texas during the early aughts and had to debate whether or not Black students were “stealing” people’s spots in class.

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Olivia Wylie @otterkit.bsky.social · 23h

Out there a writer is penning a line that will fill an empty place in a reader. One day those words will make someone whole. That makes worthy the pen, the hand, and the line.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 7h

The DREAM

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Christopher Caldwell @seraph76.bsky.social · 1d

Black queer surfers. Black queer bank-robbers. Black queer sea monsters. Black queer sorcerers. Black queer rootworkers. Black queer sailors. Black queer saints. Black queer sinners.

It’s Black!
It’s queer!
It’s Here!

Now available!
www.neonhemlock.com/books/call-a...

Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell (pre-order) — neon hemlock

A collection of short stories. Publication date: October 14th, 2025. An 8” x 5” paperback. 188 pages. This is a pre-order—any other books ordered with it will ship when the pre-order is ready to ship....

www.neonhemlock.com

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Darusha Wehm @darusha.ca · 1d

Stories are how we save the world.

Change can only come once we tell ourselves the story of what we’d like our life to be. And even if that world can never exist, in telling yourself the story you’ll learn what you want from this world and knowing what you want is the necessary first step.

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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Alex Degen (Magic Serple 2025) @adactivity.bsky.social · 1d

This is cool after the war on everything called “porn” by platforms and payment processors. A machine that stole all your words can generate and sell “erotica” but you can’t haaa

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 1d

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

I admit, the part of me that craves fanart was not UNinvolved in this thought process

A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

I'm ready to try taking lessons from animation and pushing my designs--exaggerating build, color, contrast, or detail for visual impact; making voices more distinctive and particular; anchoring characters' physicality to objects or habits. Or taking lessons from music, and building leitmotifs.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

I'm thinking of the sharp aesthetic choices that help instantiate the characters in readers' minds in The Locked Tomb, or The West Passage, or A Necessary Chaos, or This Is How You Lose the Time War, or The Raven Scholar. Stories of factions, sure, but factions facilitate distinct designs.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

Lately, my thinking on character design for the written word has shifted. I used to think that, unlike with animation, the written word works best to present ordinary people--but I've found that a certain exaggeration and iconicity makes characters readable and memorable.

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P. Djéli Clark | The Disgruntled Haradrim @pdjeliclark.bsky.social · 1d

“What’s today?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes.

“Today?” replied the boy. “Why, it’s Paperback Book Release Day sir!”

RING SHOUT paperback w/foreword by author| Tor Nightfire | 10•14•25

Out Today! #Bookrelease #horror

“Adam in the garden…”

Book cover: blood red background with black arms raised and hands outstretched from the bottom in front of white klansman hood with screaming mouths for eyes above words in black, RING SHOUT.

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Sean Eric Fagan @kithrup.bsky.social · 1d

The Fifth Season by @nkjemisin.bsky.social is also on US ebook sale for $3, and I got 6 copies of that for random giveaway.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley is also on US Kindle sale for $3, and I got 6 of those for random giveaway. Sunshine is probably my favorite vampire book.

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Jae Koyanagi @jaekoyanagi.com · 1d

If even one person finds value and meaning in a story, then that story is valuable.

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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Craig Shackleton @craigshackleton.com · 1d

You can nurture your darlings.

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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Waverly @waverlysm.bsky.social · 1d

look: the industry is rigged against you from top to bottom. BUT there have never been more tools for you to share your work with people, from self-pub to Patreon to the AO3's original fiction section. do what you have to do. (then yell at me to take my own advice.)

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

(2/2) ... Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important."

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A.M. Tuomala @amtuomala.bsky.social · 1d

From James Baldwin: "You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. ... (1/2)

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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