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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can

@roberthelfst.bsky.social

250 followers 500 following 180 posts

Cosmic & literary horror enthusiast | Fraidy Cat Press editor | Absolutely no AI | Words in Chthonic Matter Quarterly, Saros SF, X-Ray Lit & more. https://linktr.ee/roberthelfst

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · Apr 27

I love publishing new #cosmic #horror in @fraidycatpress.bsky.social. But I’d love to pay authors better, and I can’t do it alone.

Consider subscribing. It’s the best way to help bring more great cosmic #horrorlit to the world (and read great stuff too!)

fraidycatpress.com/product/fcq2...

Fraidy Cat Quarterly 2025 Subscription - Fraidy Cat Press

Subscribe to FCQ's 2025 lineup of indie cosmic horror and save 25%! Get each new volume as they're released and enjoy new indie horror every season of the year! Shipping is included in the listed pric...

fraidycatpress.com

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 4h

If you see this, post a vampire that isn’t Dracula.

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 22h

Holy shit! I love this. Delightfully deranged!

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 22h

Waiting for a submission response has me like:

a close up of a man 's face with the words do it written on it

ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the words do it written on it

media.tenor.com

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Lorraine Berry @lorraineberry.bsky.social · 1d

All these things the AI ads show people doing are so pathetic.
Why wouldn’t you want to plan your own road trip?
Why would you consult AI to pick out flowers for a bouquet?
Abdicating joy to AI is so sad.

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 2d

Sounds like you should’ve moved out a day earlier. 🙃

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 5d

You can catch my weird slip-stream fabulist story about blue jays and tears in reality in Saros SF #5 very soon! Beyond stoked to have this story appear alongside so many talented authors in a great outlet like Saros!

Ariel Marken Jack @arielmarkenjack.bsky.social · 5d

It's Friday, I'm in love with the table of contents for Saros SF #5! We have such a wonderful variety of strange, lovely, and thought-provoking stories to share with readers of our Sound/Silence issue, and I couldn't be more proud to work with these fantastic writers on my first foray into editing 🖤

Picture is a white, yellow, and black graphic showing the list of authors and story titles included in the Sound/Silence-themed Issue Number 5 of speculative fiction magazines Saros SF.

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 5d

Looking forward to working with you on this one! Looks like a killer lineup!

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 5d

So many amazing stories by good friends and great authors! Can’t wait to dig in to this amazing project!

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 6d

It's embarrassing how paralyzed I've become waiting for a response on one singular story submission.

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 6d

You can get this STACKED anthology for free when you subscribe to Chthonic Matter Quarterly! CM Muller is a great editor and he's assembled an awesome TOC for this, his latest themed anthology!

Abigail Kemske 👻🎃🦇 @abigailkemske.bsky.social · 6d

✨🌙 COMING SOON! 🌙✨
“Harvest the Night: an Anthology of Folk Horror” edited by CM Muller expected release on Halloween!

Featuring my story “The Darkness Inside Her” which may have you questioning that soft, enticing moss in the forest. 🌳

Graphic on HARVEST THE NIGHT cover and list of authors: Sam Dawson, EC Dorgan, Tracy Fahey, Douglas Ford, Abigail Kemske, K. Wallace King, Joe Koch, Dexter McLeod, Lisa Moore-Smith, H.V. Patterson, Renae Rhoads, Shannon Scott, Luke F. Shepherd, Katherine Traylor.

Graphic with HARVEST THE NIGHT cover, with images of a skull, moss, and moths. A quote from the story “The Darkness Inside Her” by Abigail Kemske: “Something flutters past her field of sight. A flash of white. Another brown. Yellow. An eclipse of moths emerge from the moss. Perch on the skull.”

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good hyuck, babe! @markpopham.bsky.social · 9d

im asking too much from these comforting soups and stews. they were never intended to have to do this much comforting

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 9d

Gotta love lucky seven! Congrats, Mike.

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🎃Nosferascoob🎃 @scoobydouchebag.bsky.social · 12d

We are the sons of the dragulas you couldn't slam in the back of

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 13d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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M. Belanger @sethanikeem.bsky.social · 12d

King

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 13d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 12d

Love to everyone at Voidcon this weekend! Sorry that I can’t attend for myself or @fraidycatpress.bsky.social - I believe a lot of our published authors will be there

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 13d

This is why I think the next Democratic president needs to use the EXACT tools that SCOTUS has handed Trump. Don't leave room for any distinctions.

Impound funds for deportation. Give ICE the USAID treatment. Refuse to collect government-backed debt. Purge MAGA loyalists from the executive branch.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 13d

It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.

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Chairman of the Underwater Fathers Association @dadloop.bsky.social · 14d

I know it's Tuesday but I might need a little drinky poo

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 15d

Very stoked for this one!

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Lydia Mulvey @lydiamulvey.bsky.social · 15d

if you think the Basic Income for Artists in Ireland being made permanent is a good thing, wait until you learn about the income tax breaks for artists earning up to €50k p/a 💃💫

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Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 15d

And I just… we could do this. We could afford to do this, as a country. There is no good fucking reason why we cannot do this. We simply choose not to because we believe that Jesus loves billionaires more than loser slothful creative people

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 15d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

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Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 15d

Jason Mendoza would LOVE Trevor Lawrence.

Robert Helfst is doing the best he can @roberthelfst.bsky.social · 15d

If you go through Lafayette, IN Second Flight and Main Street Books are both great!

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plæst[이]k @plaest2k.bsky.social · 17d

taylor swift is the mr beast of music

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