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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

@mcmanlypants.bsky.social

2.1K followers 1.7K following 1.6K posts

I write queer horror & sci fi. Gay, Appalachian native, infosec professional, 2020 Manly Wade Wellman winner, co-host of Arcane Carolinas. He/him. michaelgwilliamsbooks.com #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter #SFWA #HWA #LGBTQ

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · Apr 29

Do you love signed paperback first editions of weird, queer horror? Well, you're in luck! Mine is available right now:

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#writingcommunity

www.michaelgwilliamsbooks.com/product/chil...

Children of Solitude – Paperback

Reginald Voth's mother is (finally) dead. When he returns to the ancestral Appalachian homestead where she raised him, he finds it haunted (or worse) and hi

www.michaelgwilliamsbooks.com

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 5m

I'm Michael, I write queer cosmic & supernatural horror!

I think of myself as scraping-by-working-class after spending most of my life living that way. Morally, I have high enough standards that I constantly beat myself up. (Or is that the religious trauma from youth?)

#HorrorWritersChat

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 55m

Oh right then here we go, if it glitches I'll wait till it's back up then fire the next.
Can't say fairer than that. Hi #HorrorWritersChat, let's talk riches. Or poverty. Moral or cash, I don't mind which.
Horror is one of the more egalitarian genres I think. More room for poor...

No links please.

Question One
Assemble, horror bods!
Tell me what kind of horror you write, and how poor are you - financially or morally? You choose....

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 19m

So glad that I try not to be a gatekeeper and that my friends and colleagues are not gatekeepers! (I just saw someone on FB try to say The Wicker Man "isn't horror," and I'm just like, pshhhhh get on outta here good LORD [by which I mean Lord Summerisle, who did no wrong] I mean Y I K E S.)

Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 4h

Having the sort of day where I really wish I could just yank some of the wiring out of my brain and stop having thoughts. But life goes on.

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

A very sincere happy 48th birthday to the day activist Thom Higgins threw a cream pie at anti-queer hatemonger Anita Bryant. :)

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

I don't know the details, but you are an awesome person and I am sorry you're having to deal with heavy shit!

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

@davidniallwilson.com thank you for moving away from Substack for your newsletter! Was pleased to see that in the most recent edition!

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

Ugh, Matt, I am so sorry to hear that! Continuing to think of you and yours!

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

Today’s scam email: the new “book club” variety, but localized such that it referenced a real bookstore and real book club about an hour from where I live. I checked the store site to confirm the email was bogus. When the scammers work this hard, I have to think a real job would be less effort.

Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 1d

FB drama: I just saw a cis-het man try to gatekeep trans horror. Have never unfollowed someone so quickly. Good lord.

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Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

Jeremy Markovich @ncrabbithole.com · 1d

just wrote about how the nc senate redistricting chair drew himself a new district in '23 that included App State and then redrew county commission maps that mostly neutered the vote of students at his alma mater over the objections of 71% of that county's voters www.ncrabbithole.com/p/why-voters...

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

Did I bury this in the timeline at 1:30 AM so that, absent an algorithm, no one would see it but I needed to get it down in words? Maybe. 😃

Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

Anyway, it’s queer cosmic horror and if you happen to have read Children of Solitude then it’s about Isaiah King.

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

And then also there are horrible and inhuman things at the edges, like the sky is an arena ringed with monsters watching in coldest silence, and they know this has all been for the monsters’ disinterested delight, and *that* is how they reconnect to humanity? Because who hasn’t been there?

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

And what if they look at themselves and see the badness, and they want better, they want it so badly and it’s just right there, but the person they were could never have it—would never have known of it to want it in the first place—and the person they are now is too stuck in that mirror to act?

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

What I mean when I say “until the feelings are all there and in the right order”: but what if the most joyous moment of a bad person’s life ruins them, and they didn’t mean to be bad, and, bereft, they have to start small, and then joy taunts them, and then they realize they are their own problem?

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve been frustrated at having no time to write but also I haven’t been ready to write the next thing. I can’t start a book until the feelings are all there and in the right order (I know no other way to describe it). But the feelings are starting to arrange themselves. Mighty close to ready.

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Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

Queen of Swords Press @qospress.bsky.social · 5d

#Booksky Big congratulatory 👍🏻 to author Michael Merriam @mmerriam.bsky.social! He is a finalist for the Starpath Creatives contest, a semi-finalist for the Small Spec Book Awards and he’ll be selling books at @creamandamber.bsky.social’s Fall Mini Market 10/11! queenofswordspress.com/authors/mich...

Semi-finalist graphic for TERROR AT TIERRA DE COBRE by Michael Merriam.

White man with beard and graying hair holding his book and a mug with his book cover on it.

Cover for LAST CAR AT ANNWN STATION by Michael Merriam.

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 5d

I basically have a book out every other year. Sometimes I’ll also manage a short story.

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 5d

Still thinking of you, Matt! So sorry you are having to deal with this, but so glad you’re in good hands.

Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

🎃 Matthew Jack-o'-lantern 🎃 @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social · 5d

"The consumers won't care if it's AI."

Ah yes, horror fans -- y'know, the people who famously ask "Are the FX Practical?!" about literally every movie -- definitely won't care that you're feeding them prompt-generated slop. Good call there.

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Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

Diversity in Horror (they/them) @diversityhorror.bsky.social · 5d

Tech bros are trying to convince us that the AI they’re building will one day become Data from Star Trek. But right now we’re headed for AM from “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.”

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Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

William C. Tracy @wctracy.bsky.social · 5d

Our next campaign is about series! Here's the first 4 new books from Space Wizard:
DEC 2025: The Dragonscale Comb by J.S. Fields
JAN 2026: Corruption by Alexander Verbeek-van den Toren
FEB 2026: Tea Tale by Kristina W. Kelly
MAR 2026: The Healer's Magic by C.J. Hosack

#lgbtqfantasy #sapphic #gay

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 7d

THE COME BACK KIDS is cosmic horror with tinges of sci fi, my take on "creepy kids" stories.

#writesky
#queerwriters
#lgbtqwriters
#writers
#LGBTQWriteAThon
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AmaraJLynn💎🌌🌺GEMS & STAR FLOWERS coming soon! @amaralynn.bsky.social · 7d

#LGBTQWriteAThon October 8:

What genre is your WIP?

#writesky #queerwriters #writers #lgbtqwriters

Image: a burnt orange background with two jack o' lanterns. Text: #LGBTQWriteAThon Use the tag and follow the feed on BlueSky! Tag @LGBTQWriteAThon in photos on Instagram! October 8: Genres.
BlueSky: @amaralynn @rebeccafrostwrites.com Instagram: @LGBTQWriteAThon @amarajlynn @krakengoddess

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Reposted by Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈

Rick Hollon @mimulus.bsky.social · 7d

Hi #LGBTQWriteAThon! My WIP is a mix of kids-on-bikes and dystopian adult sci-fi.

AmaraJLynn💎🌌🌺GEMS & STAR FLOWERS coming soon! @amaralynn.bsky.social · 7d

#LGBTQWriteAThon October 8:

What genre is your WIP?

#writesky #queerwriters #writers #lgbtqwriters

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Michael G. Williams 🏳️‍🌈 @mcmanlypants.bsky.social · 7d

My current #WIP is set in Hazel Branch, NC, USA, a small town in the high mountains of Appalachia. It's a modern-day queer cosmic horror novel called THE COME BACK KIDS.

#LGBTQWriteAThon
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AmaraJLynn💎🌌🌺GEMS & STAR FLOWERS coming soon! @amaralynn.bsky.social · 8d

#LGBTQWriteAThon October 7:

What is the setting and/or time period of your WIP?

#writesky #queerwriters #writers #lgbtqwriters

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