Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
@mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
5.8K followers 1.5K following 4.8K posts
queer non-binary SFFH writer. ace/aro. ADHD. they/them. author of THE WOLF AMONG THE WILD HUNT | SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROBOT | & more coming https://ko-fi.com/mercwolfmoor https://linktr.ee/mercfennwolfmoor
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mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
SO. Remember back in the mists of time I talked about the haunted dollhouse starring in a horror visual novel (jam)?

BEHOLD! "Don't Go Into the Dollhouse" is done!

(It's alive... alive!!!!)

Written w/ @howsweetthewords.bsky.social & all visuals done by me!

mercsanchan.itch.io/dont-go-into...
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
jordanshiveley.bsky.social
So I am writing a gnarly cannibal cult on a space station short story set in the MOTHERSHIP game world for @mothership.bsky.social / @sean.tuesdayknightgames.com 's MEGADAMAGE magazine that will be available here

www.backerkit.com/c/projects/t...
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
I was not expecting him to surprise! Eat my food 😂 usually he only wants chicken or tuna

Guess this recipe is Tots approved
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Tots decided to raid my mac & cheese 😂 (sound up for slurp slurp slurp sounds)
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
ironspike.bsky.social
Have you ever been so fucking delighted by a username/icon set that it made you follow a total stranger
URSUAL K LE GUN
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
vajra.me
This is the wonderful cover by @carlydraws.bsky.social for the October issue of The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com—for which I had the great pleasure of being the fiction guest editor!—with stories by Malena Salazar Maciá, Testimony Odey, Erin Ulm, Laila Amado, Jason Pearce, Kat Sedia, and Scott Payne
The cover of The Deadlands Issue 40, Fall 2025. Subtitled "a journal of ends and beginnings". Author names on the cover are  Maciá, Biscotti, Odey, Ross, Ulm, Wollin, Amado, Pearce, Lemberg, Sedia, Romano, and Payne. The cover art shows a fractured red sky, maze-like with golden fissures, surrounds a golden skull at the top of a long, golden path awaiting a lone figure.
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
swantower.bsky.social
In some ways it's easier to have a lot in the pipeline, because then the odds are higher that you have something on hand when a window opens up for thirty-two minutes while a passing seagull is in Sagittarius.
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Yeah i legit love writing short fiction!! That’s why I keep doing it lol but MAN it sucks to try and find places to SEND it when there’s more than, like, one story ready to go (and even then) 😭
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Fingers crossed that they give ‘em to you! 😭😭😭😭
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
UGH i am so sorry, friend, I’ve had sinus infection that resulted in teeth pain /headache but no nasal drip and it was THE WORST 😭

Antibiotics solved it for me but idk other solutions

I DO hope you can get it fixed and get some rest soon 🖤
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
diannalgunn.bsky.social
Cat update: He only ate one of his two usual meals yesterday & ate it very slowly, a few bites at a time. And today he only had three bites of breakfast. So we're taking him in to our usual vet this afternoon for a checkup

Send good vibes and also, if you can, money
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Yeah, plus expensive!

It’s wild how fast things pivoted with digital, when you think about it
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
There’s still some sorrow for how things are nonetheless and I think that’s okay.

Everything changes; sometimes the changes aren’t what we hoped for but we keep going and pressing for changes we WANT and changes that make things better.
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
I love that we do have so many awesome markets that DO continue to publish and new ones appear and that’s so encouraging! (So excited about @othersidespec.bsky.social forthcoming)
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
It’s just hard to see the shrinking ecosystem of short SFFH when there’s so many amazing new and continuing short spec fic writers creating incredible work that has fewer and fewer and fewer places to go (e.g. open markets, we’re not touching the subject of stables and solicitations here), y’know?
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
And look I GET how hard it is to keep a mag running. I understand the financial difficulties and time pressure and everyone has lives and you’re doing five billion things yourself and so is everyone else.

Also, see: the world is on fire.
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Which is not the markets’ faults, to be clear! It’s partly ME being selective because I don’t want to waste their time or mine with something I know won’t be a good fit; but also… I feel like a handful of years ago, that potential list would’ve been a lot longer and that’s kinda depressing, y’know?
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
I was looking at the thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com (great resource btw!) and I had an average 2.5k story I was thinking of sending on rounds and there were like… 3 open places (with the criteria I listed, I.e. pays semi-pro and accepts horror) and I don’t think any of them were a good “fit” …😓
The Submission Grinder
thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com
Reposted by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
swantower.bsky.social
To be clear: I'm not blaming editors. I don't think *anybody* likes it being this way; we've just slid here one step at a time because it's so hard to keep a short fiction magazine functioning.

(BTW, @apexmag.bsky.social is currently running a Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape... )
Apex Magazine 2026
An award-winning digital literary magazine of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror.
www.kickstarter.com
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
Legit thought this was gonna start with SASEs 😅

A good thread, seriously. It’s not just you— things are ROUGH out there in short fic land…
swantower.bsky.social
<totters out onto porch>

<settles into rocker>

<thumps cane a few times>

Let's talk about what the process of submitting short fiction used to look like, shall we? And about what it looks like now.
mercwolfmoor.bsky.social
That feeling when you gotta remember how to make the words go 🤔

(I.e. every time, without fail, regardless of how many years I’ve been writing)