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Laila Amado

@amadolaila.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.2K following 760 posts

Book lover and cat worshiper, I observe people and write words for a living. She/They. Codexian. SFWA. HWA. Best Small Fictions 2022. Best Microfiction 2024.

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · Apr 29

I’ve earned my first skull!

💀 💀💀

HAD @havehashad.com · Apr 29

amazing, Inventive new story today from Laila Amado!

"When the alarms, signaling the breach of dams that keep the ocean away from the shore, go off all at once, do they sound like: a) trumpets blaring from below the waves; b) a category five hurricane..."

https://www.havehashad.com/ewn5l

Fishbone Crown, Bleeding Eyes by Laila Amado

When the alarms, signaling the breach of dams that keep the ocean away from the shore, go off all at once, do they sound like: a) trumpets blaring from below the waves; b) a category five hurricane…

www.havehashad.com

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 10h

Unbelievable as it is, I have a story out in the latest issue of @thedeadlands.com

💀💀💀

The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com · 12h

FICTION continued

The Ghost of Cerrera Orbital Station Makes Herself Known, by @amadolaila.bsky.social

The Pretendian, by Jason Pearce

Punks Don't Die, by @esedia.bsky.social

Liminalities of the Second Contraction, by Scott Payne

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Sam J Miller @sentencebender.bsky.social · 14h

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 Laila Amado

Jana Heidersdorf @checanty.bsky.social · 14h

Hello #PortfolioDay 👻
I'm Jana, illustrator of everything hauntingly beautiful--nowadays mostly books, though.
Happy to take on one more project this year 📚

Portfolio: janaheidersdorf.com
Contact: [email protected]

Cover illustration for May The Dead Keep You by Jill Baguchinsky (portrait of a red haired girl with a half decayed woodpecker covering half of her face. I swear it looks really cool.)

Spooky illustration for a short story featuring a house that is also the body of a ghost boy. The boy is trapped and reaches out to his crying mother outside.

Cover illustration for Don't Let The Forest In by CG Drews. Portrait of a blond boy with slashes obscuring his face. Through the openings thorny vines and roses grow.

A serene, pale face surrounded by lots of worms and insects.

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you 🙏

Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 1d

Well, we shall see 🙄

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 1d

Yup. It’s a 3D experience - you get to cringe over your facial expressions, voice, and (in my case, at least) accent! Literally, this is not going to “promote” me in any way 🤣

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 1d

I had to record a promotional video of myself and am forever traumatized 😭

#writerslife

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Flash Fiction Online @flashfictiononline.bsky.social · 3d

It’s one thing if you enter the woods, it’s another if the wilderness shows up at your doorstep! 😰 Check out “A Touch of the Wild” by Anne Wilkins, our wilderness horror release this week

#writingcommunity #horror #flashfiction
@annewilkins.bsky.social
www.flashfictiononline.com/article/a-to...

A Touch of the Wild

Sometimes we hear him howling, other times it’s a scream to pierce the night, but more often it’s a low keening wail. Tonight the noise is a cat’s yowl; it rises from the woods, creeps under our do…

www.flashfictiononline.com

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 3d

Wind gust at first light
Over the blooming field
A war of petals

#scifaikusaturday #war #haiku

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Devan Barlow @devanbarlow.bsky.social · 4d

Include my collection in your autumnal activities!

Arthurian retellings!
Norse and Greek and Celtic myth retellings!
Shakespeare retellings!
Fairy tale retellings!
Jewish folklore retellings!
So many retellings by me!

#BookSky 📚💙

Devan Barlow @devanbarlow.bsky.social · Apr 20

Pick up my collection today!

books2read.com/u/bOqZKN
devan-barlow.itch.io/foolish-hope...

Cover of Foolish Hopes and Spilled Entrails: Retellings, by Devan Barlow, featuring numerous fantastical objects surrounding a smoking cauldron, against a dark red background. The cover is by Arden Powell.

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Alan Vincent Michaels @alanvmichaels.bsky.social · 4d

The 11 October 2025 #ScifaikuSaturday #prompt is

#WAR

✍️ 👽 🛸 👍

#AmWriting
#BlueSkyPoetry
#Haiku
#MicroPoem
#PoetsOfBlueSky
#Poetry
#PoetryCommunity
#SciFi
#SFF
#WritingPrompts

A Pixabay image of a spacesuit-helmeted person on an alien world. The helmet visor reflects the person’s view of the landscape. A golden rectangle highlights the #ScifaikuSaturday hashtag.

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 4d

Thank you 🙏

Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 4d

Thrilled to have made it onto @chestnutreview.bsky.social Spring Chapbook reading period shortlist!

📚💙
#booksky

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Reposted by Laila Amado

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 5d

The global whaling industry experienced a boom c. 1840-1950 as technology allowed whalers to hunt the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Under standard models, we would have expected krill populations to have *exploded*.

Instead, they DROPPED exponentially.

Let's talk about the KRILL PARADOX.

Change in distribution and abundance of southern right whales. (A) Shows historical and contemporary wintering distributions (Figure 1 from Carroll et al., 2018), and (B) shows decline in abundance and subsequent recovery (solid line is the mean, dashed line shows upper and lower 95% CI). Modified Figure 1 from Jackson et al. (2008). Contemporary sightings are divided into regions where large aggregations are seen during winter: Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BZL), South Africa (SAF), southwest Australia (SWA), south central Australia (SCA), and New Zealand sub-Antarctic (NZSA) and regions where sightings are typically of small numbers of individuals per year. The large aggregations are IWC management units and correspond to historical whaling grounds, although another 5 whaling grounds show little sign of recovery. Summer feeding areas are poorly described and so not shown.

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 5d

Thank you 🙏

Reposted by Laila Amado

Tammy Komoff @tammykomoff.bsky.social · 5d

Helping my friends at All Worlds Wayfarer with their dark fantasy anthology Into the Dark has been eye-opening 👁️

I’ve learned a ton about what makes stories stand out.

Sharing those lessons in Saturday’s update. Writers, these are things we don't think about!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/all...

a woman is sitting at a table with her hand on her chin and looking up .

ALT: a woman is sitting at a table with her hand on her chin and looking up .

media.tenor.com

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 5d

Nothing in the smoking pipe but #ash and the bitter taste of late autumn mornings. Stuck in a decaying seaside hamlet between seasons, I spend my days scanning the horizon for ships, storm clouds, the hunched backs of leviathans. My ride is coming. I just don’t know what it’s going to be. #vss365

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 5d

#Ash falls again. The streets are quiet in the early hours of the morning. In the living room, a TV screen lights up. Blue and forlorn, it broadcasts nothing. #vss365

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Ken Liu @kyliu99.bsky.social · 5d

The UK edition of ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM is out today! I loved working on this novel about how to remain human in the age of ubiquitous AI. Readers in the UK can pick it up wherever you prefer to get your books. @headofzeus.bsky.social

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/all-that-...

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Alma Katsu (FIEND is out now) @almakatsu.bsky.social · 7d

The UK ebook of THE DEEP is 99p for the entire month of October! A great way to stock up for spooky season www.amazon.co.uk/Deep-Alma-Ka...

The Deep: We all know the story of the Titanic . . . don't we?

The Deep: We all know the story of the Titanic . . . don't we? eBook : Katsu, Alma: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 7d

I just read it! It’s a beautiful, heart-breaking story 💔And now I need to read more of your stories 😊📚💙

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Reposted by Laila Amado

The Broken Spine @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 7d

Something Gothic this way comes… Submissions are OPEN for The Havisham Steps: Modern Gothic Poetry. We want poems of neon dread, fractured love, haunted minds.

Closing date: October 31st

#PoetrySubmissions #SubmissionWindow #TheHavishamSteps #ModernGothicPoetry

Something Gothic This Way Comes: Submit to The Havisham Steps: Modern Gothic Poetry - The Broken Spine

Submissions Open Throughout October 2025 | Publication in 2026

thebrokenspine.co.uk

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Laila Amado @amadolaila.bsky.social · 7d

Loved this essay: therumpus.net/2025/10/02/h...

Human Error Is the Point: On Teaching College During the Rise of AI - The Rumpus

My syllabus is a mess of half-remembered intentions. I re-use icebreakers that I know don’t work. I forget to grade the first assignment until Week Four. I write emails that begin with “So sorry for t...

therumpus.net

Reposted by Laila Amado

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 8d

I will not create new social media accounts. I will walk deep into the woods & spell out my silly little thoughts with sticks + fallen leaves for whoever finds them

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Reposted by Laila Amado

Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 9d

When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)

Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati

Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India
p. 60
Bhoota Vahana Yanta
Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used
for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine-
men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between
1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning
events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE.
According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the
early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture,
as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these
spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs
out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after
him and kill him.
At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now
Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the
Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets
of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he
arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated
as a Roman.
This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the
Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master
Robot-Maker, and had a son by her.
Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved
to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well
aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as
soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh,
and sewed the wound back up.

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