Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 2h

about to hurl a stone discus at an invisible “wall” that only I believe is there. shattering reality itself. and proving a realer reality lies beyond this shell of one that we merely need to throw a discus through to see *hurls discus* *it sails through the sky unimpeded*

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 7h

Yorgos Lanthimos, hit me up. I met a guy on the bus last night with a great idea for a movie. I got his number and am texting him now to see if he remembers telling me about it. We both think you'd be perfect for the material.

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Zito @zeets.bsky.social · 7h

Noir novels are usually the best genre fiction to read because the payoff of the story isn’t about who did it as much as it is about the tight construction of story which often rewards attention to detail and is thrilling because you can see the fates of the characters before they do.

buy my book @nmamatas.bsky.social · 1d

What's your totally ordinary opinion about books that you nonetheless find compelled to share when asked on a social media site such as this one for your most extreme/unhinged/hottest takes?

I'll go first: manga is popular among young people because manga often features young people.

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 1d

Poem

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Mike.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ @dumbmike.bsky.social · 5d

Ladies and gentlemen, after the bride and groom have their first dance to "Streets of Philadelphia", we will have a daddy-daughter dance with the bride and her father to "Streets of Philadelphia". Afterward, please join us on the dance floor for four hours of "Streets of Philadelphia".

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 4d

Arriving at the poetry reading wearing chain mail made of interlocked mini pretzels, a helmet hollowed out of olive ciabatta, and wielding a rosemary and sea salt encrusted baguette like a legendary sword. Telling the people in attendance to address me as “Sir Bread” or they will be dispatched.

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 4d

That story is crying right now because it’s realizing how lucky it is to have you as its champion

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Nora Reed (they/them ze/hir) @nora.zone · 4d

cry havoc and let slip the frogs of war

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 4d

simply mining less coal to curry favor with my coal-hating wife

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Ian Denning @ian-denning.com · 7d

🙃

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 8d

instantly 100x your short story writing prowess by asking yourself these 50 questions every time you write a short story joylandpublishing.com/fiction/50-q...

50 Questions to Ask About Your Story

Does my story have a big enough concept? Does my story have interesting characters? Does my story have interesting set pieces? Does my story have an interesting conflict? Does my story have big eno...

joylandpublishing.com

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Reposted by mark leidner

Ian Denning @ian-denning.com · 7d

Waiting for notes from my agent like

43. Do I, on some level, want to be haunted by my own fiction—in a Rube Goldbergian method of self-destruction—somehow unconsciously craving the very anxiety my story generates in order to obliterate all potential forms of pleasure that writing my story confers?

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brock (toby the tiger music) @broxel.bsky.social · 7d

39. Is the writing part of the self a separate self that can lead the non-writing part of the self into a higher.. more resilient echelon of selfhood?

40. Even if that is possible, is anyone who even asks such questions too neurotic to ever participate in that type of transformation?

🫠

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 8d

instantly 100x your short story writing prowess by asking yourself these 50 questions every time you write a short story joylandpublishing.com/fiction/50-q...

50 Questions to Ask About Your Story

Does my story have a big enough concept? Does my story have interesting characters? Does my story have interesting set pieces? Does my story have an interesting conflict? Does my story have big eno...

joylandpublishing.com

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Reposted by mark leidner

Aimee Jodoin @aimeejodoin.bsky.social · 7d

Had me in the first half.

"Will publishing this story make anyone other than me feel anything other than my own urge to have written it?"

"Is this ... my clumsy attempt at confronting myself with myself in the vain hope that I will be reborn as a new self?"

Gets better and hurts more as you go.

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 8d

instantly 100x your short story writing prowess by asking yourself these 50 questions every time you write a short story joylandpublishing.com/fiction/50-q...

50 Questions to Ask About Your Story

Does my story have a big enough concept? Does my story have interesting characters? Does my story have interesting set pieces? Does my story have an interesting conflict? Does my story have big eno...

joylandpublishing.com

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Reposted by mark leidner

nari @tenlinetales.com · 8d

This is really funny in like a hurtful kind of way

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 8d

instantly 100x your short story writing prowess by asking yourself these 50 questions every time you write a short story joylandpublishing.com/fiction/50-q...

50 Questions to Ask About Your Story

Does my story have a big enough concept? Does my story have interesting characters? Does my story have interesting set pieces? Does my story have an interesting conflict? Does my story have big eno...

joylandpublishing.com

5 6

mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 8d

instantly 100x your short story writing prowess by asking yourself these 50 questions every time you write a short story joylandpublishing.com/fiction/50-q...

50 Questions to Ask About Your Story

Does my story have a big enough concept? Does my story have interesting characters? Does my story have interesting set pieces? Does my story have an interesting conflict? Does my story have big eno...

joylandpublishing.com

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 19d

Garri Saganenko

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · 29d

I wrote about being very good at something very hard to do, which is also very wrong to do: stealing what people smell like.
open.substack.com/pub/markleid...

Sorry I Keep Stealing Your Smell

On the scent exploitation crisis, and how I’m not helping.

open.substack.com

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Reposted by mark leidner

Tim Howard @tmhwrd.bsky.social · Aug 30

Love it when the ragtag group of survivors I’m in reaches a place of apparent safety and we drop our guard, laughing a little too loud, sleeping a little too soundly, as we enjoy the fleeting, simple pleasures of a world now lost.

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · Aug 23

bro last night we lived in a beautiful old farmhouse that got featured in a regional magazine

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Grave Abandoner @questabandoner.bsky.social · Aug 16

Can't early humans and megafauna just get along

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · Aug 13

Boycotting Mario Kart until Nintendo lets us race God against the devil.

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mark leidner @markleidner.bsky.social · Aug 8

Damn dude. Last night we really captured the hard, amoral emptiness of the age.

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"max" @ringworm.bsky.social · Aug 5

my new book YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THIS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE is out now. it has 45 short stories, including some of my favourites from the last four years of INFINITE GOSSIP, and unreleased ones. buy it from maxlavergne.square.site

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"max" @ringworm.bsky.social · Aug 5

two of my favourite current writers, @markleidner.bsky.social and max easton, hit me with that good blurb. and you can trust them

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sara @saraburke.net · Aug 1

From @markleidner.bsky.social

Share the Good News While the News Is Still Good O 2
Mark Leidner
©
I like to think that to give is to prove that the gifts that you received were not given in vain.
If you search the terrain of your own happiness, you will probably find that everything that makes your life worthwhile resulted from someone's gift.

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