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V. Astor Solomon

@howsweetthewords.bsky.social

1.7K followers 530 following 680 posts

They/them Trans, disabled, neurodivergent, mixed-race Committing expansively queer, often dark, speculative short fiction Living in both Tampa and Seattle Links: https://linktr.ee/howsweetthewords icon: Amelie Lavender

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · Nov 13

Hi everyone!
If you don't know me, I'm V. Astor Solomon, an author of queer speculative fiction. I use Vale most of the time, but if you can think of a V name I like, I'll probably respond to it. Names should be a lot more like fancy hats if you ask me.

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Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Eamhair MacGriogair / Maya Evan MacGregor @maigheach.bsky.social · 1d

I have a wonderful bit of good news to share!

I have a new literary agent and am now represented by @keiralekseii.bsky.social of Azantian Literary Agency!

The moment Keir and I connected, I knew she was the perfect person to represent my work. I cannot wait to see where we go from here. 🥰✨

Pictures of author Maya MacGregor and literary Keir Alekseii on a mauve background with the silhouettes of a forest, photos of brambles, and the text: “I am represented by Keir Alekseii! Announcement! New representation: Keir Alekseii of Azantian Literary Agency”

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Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Sam J Miller @sentencebender.bsky.social · 1d

This freshly-hatched horror story has possibly my favorite title of any story I've ever written. I give you....

"Courtney Lovecraft's Book of the Dead"

Free to read, at @nightmare-magazine.com !!

www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/cour...

Courtney Lovecraft’s Book of the Dead - Nightmare Magazine

Honey, the spirits are here with us tonight and they are deeply disappointed. [audience laughter] Momma, do you not own a mirror? Did you think you looked cute when you walked out of your house tonigh...

www.nightmare-magazine.com

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Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Lara Elena Donnelly @larazontally.bsky.social · 2d

Have we mentioned if we hit the Kickstarter goal for WITCH OF PRAGUE, we'll open pre-orders for our second book? According to @courtneymilan.com, @zenaldehyde.bsky.social's THE PERILOUS LIFE OF JADE YEO is "Poignant, beautiful, and incredibly meaningful."

www.kickstarter.com/projects/hom...

The Witch of Prague, from Homeward Books!

Splendor over mediocrity. Stories for the hot bath & the cold plunge. Defying the constraints of genre & delving deep into your heart.

www.kickstarter.com

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Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Sarah Loch (she/her) @sloch.bsky.social · 1d

My friend Penelope Wren has a new book out! I'm a little biased because I made the cover, but I think it looks pretty good! If you like:
- Witches
- Vampires
- Why choose
- Librarians

You might want to check it out! Free to read for KU: www.amazon.com/dp/B0FS74B261

Marked by fangs
Scarred by blood
Claimed by herself
A book cover for Bitten and Burned by Penelope Wren; red roses on a green background. A silver pendant with a red stone on a silver chain is intertwined with the title text.

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Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

OTHERSIDE - Kickstarter is LIVE! @othersidespec.bsky.social · 2d

Make that $224 away from nonfiction and 5 backers from our final backer goal! We are SO CLOSE! Thank you!!!

OTHERSIDE - Kickstarter is LIVE! @othersidespec.bsky.social · 2d

We’re $436 away from unlocking nonfiction! That means we’ll open to submissions of everything from moving personal essays to excavations of queer SFF history to incisive literary criticism.

PLUS we’re only 8 backers from our final backer goal—help us get there!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyb...

OTHERSIDE 2026: A New Magazine of Queer SFF!

A new queer-led literary magazine devoted to speculative fiction, poetry, and art by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors and artists.

www.kickstarter.com

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Gabino Iglesias @gabino.bsky.social · 2d

Here’s some Nen Chang art to make your Sunday a little better.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

I just learned about this movie a few weeks ago and it's available for me too. I'm determined to watch it before the end of the month.

Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Tyler Hayes @bytylerhayes.bsky.social · 2d

Happy Indigenous People’s Day; may restitution one day be more than a holiday renaming, land acknowledgments, and some old creeps insisting it‘s already gone too far.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

Hee, thank you for sharing! I hope you had a good time with this. It was a fun prompt for sure.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

On the off chance you'd like to leave me a tip, here's where you can do that! Obviously not required to get your story, I'm just putting it out there just in case.

ko-fi.com/howsweetthew...

Buy V. Astor Solomon a Coffee

Become a supporter of V. Astor Solomon today!

ko-fi.com

V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

It's my birthday!

And, becasue I'm me, I now want to write more tiny stories after catching up with ones I owed. So yes, let's do this thing.

Leave me a prompt of some kind and get a tiny story in exchange.

(Optional themes: trick or treat, or secrets and confessions)

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

For now, you appease it and are allowed to keep this space you've built together. One day though, maybe you won't be, though. One day, maybe someone will forget to leave an

V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

About what you consider when you grab something, or what you think about when you set it down. It tastes the ritual, devours the honoring.
Maybe one day you'll open the gate, let it out and see what happens, but you know better than that right now. The whole community knows.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 2d

You're taught to leave an offering at the gate. Every time you come to the garden, you leave something small. A rock, a flower. Leaves or a stick. It doesn't matter what it is as long as you approach with intent.
What waits behind it doesn't care about the actual thing as much as the act.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 4d

But the reward is enough. When someone tries to see if it fits, it gives them enough chance to slip into new skin and exist as they had once been, if only for the briefest moment.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 4d

Again and again, they streak the sky, the ring clutched between their talons, their eyes scanning the ground.
Then they’ll drop it, and someone will pick it up, and over and over the cycle goes.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 4d

No one knows how hungry it is, how it yearns to close its doors forever, how all it wants is to fall, fall, fall until it and everyone inside it have become one. All it wants is to hold onto something instead of watching everyone leave.
Maybe one day it will get that chance. Maybe it won't be lonely

Reposted by V. Astor Solomon

Rath Mercury @rathmercury.com · 15d

This post it just the prompt; there's a story in the replies from @howsweetthewords.bsky.social that I loved

Rath Mercury @rathmercury.com · Sep 10

A mismatched tea set in a box on the corner. 🫖

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 15d

You bring one of the cups downstairs, then make yourself a cup of store-bought chai. It makes your chest feel hollow, but you can't help but hope that maybe, if you have just a little bit in one of the cups, you can dance with ghosts just once too.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 15d

But she's gone now, and you're sitting here with a box full of teacups you didn’t know she kept, and your heart hurts so much. You want her to tell you a story, or take you out to thrift a new cup so you two can have tea. You want to smell her perfume, or hear her turning on the kettle.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 15d

When you grew older, she still tried telling you, but you stopped believing. Instead you assumed she bought the cups when she was out, or her sister gave them to her. You'd see them for a few days after she’d tell you another weird story, and then they’d vanish.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 15d

Places where she’d dance with ghosts, sit in the sky and have deserts with the birds. She told you amazing things, but when you asked why she never took you, she said she had never found one of the cups when you were close, and she only had a few minutes to decide if she wanted to see where she’d go

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 15d

content note: this does deal with parental death.

When you were a kid and your mom told you about the teacups, you believed her. She would whisper stories about all the strange places she'd gone with them.

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V. Astor Solomon @howsweetthewords.bsky.social · 16d

Their brittle bodies will be one and the same, and it makes everything in them embrace what's to come.

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