Derrick Austin
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paradiselaust.bsky.social
Derrick Austin
@paradiselaust.bsky.social
1.4K followers 510 following 900 posts
Author: THIS ELEGANCE (Spring 2026), TENDERNESS, and TROUBLE THE WATER (BOA Editions) | Wannabe Art Historian | He/Him

📍Chicago

https://linktr.ee/DerrickAustin
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paradiselaust.bsky.social
Derrick Austin @paradiselaust.bsky.social · Oct 23
My third book, This Elegance, is out from @boa-editions.bsky.social in May 2026.

Cover design by Sandy Knight with art by Diedrick Brackens.

Available to preorder now 🙏🏿
The book cover for Derrick Austin's third book of poetry, This Elegance. A detail from a weaving by Diedrick Brackens. A kneeling silhouette poses against a yellow moon. The silhouette holds a long red candle in one hand and balances one small red candle on his head and two small candles on his other arm and one yellow candle on the heel of his foot.
paradiselaust.bsky.social
What journals are open to essays over 10,000 words?
February 9, 2026 at 5:15 AM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
eachygocard.bsky.social
Elegant Egotist
December 3, 2024 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
travisclau.bsky.social
poetry.arizona.edu/blog/lit-mag...
18 No Fee Lit Mags Elevating Disabled Voices
The literary landscape for disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writers is more vibrant than ever. Today’s journals and magazines are dedicated to amplifying voices that have long been underr...
poetry.arizona.edu
February 7, 2026 at 9:55 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
This sonnet was so much fun to write. It’s in This Elegance and thank you to @newenglandreview.bsky.social for originally publishing it 💜
Gig Economy by Derrick Austin Cutting my own hair saves money better put toward a bill. I look presentable enough in virtual meetings, a genial blur. Invoices. Empty correspondence. I'm not clever wearing this mask of inflexible competence. I live in bed where I work and eat poorly while I work and dream. If I died now in arrears, and here of all places (mattress, office, psych ward, coffin), I'll never have cared for a house cat of my own— uppity, mercurial, impish, soft, private, unbothered — so human-like in his affections and strangeness— a companion named Sargent with twitchy, sensitive ears even at rest who could mourn a little before biting my dead face to survive.
February 7, 2026 at 7:35 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
This debut is worth a preorder. Kameryn Alexa Carter is an incredible poet.
February 7, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
hanvanderhart.bsky.social
Look I’m just pointing out Valentine’s Day is around the corner you get them this book you get them chocolates you get them flowers you win win win, baby
paradiselaust.bsky.social Derrick Austin @paradiselaust.bsky.social · 2d
The discourse around Wuthering Heights has gotten predictably weird, so why not read the book instead with a fantastic afterword by @noreenmasud.bsky.social and yours truly, courtesy @sandtclassics.bsky.social?
A hand holds up the Smith & Taylor Classics edition of Wuthering Heights in front of leafy, bright pink flowers.
February 7, 2026 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
suzig.bsky.social
If you think this cover is gorgeous, you should check out the afterword!
paradiselaust.bsky.social Derrick Austin @paradiselaust.bsky.social · 2d
The discourse around Wuthering Heights has gotten predictably weird, so why not read the book instead with a fantastic afterword by @noreenmasud.bsky.social and yours truly, courtesy @sandtclassics.bsky.social?
A hand holds up the Smith & Taylor Classics edition of Wuthering Heights in front of leafy, bright pink flowers.
February 7, 2026 at 1:33 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
It was such a beautiful day
paradiselaust.bsky.social Derrick Austin @paradiselaust.bsky.social · Aug 16
capped my bronte day by wandering the moors
February 7, 2026 at 2:53 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Who up sharing pics of the field behind The Brontë Parsonage?
February 7, 2026 at 2:49 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Bust of a Man in Turban. Artist Unknown. 1880.
February 7, 2026 at 1:31 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Self-Portrait. Beauford Delaney. 1944.
February 7, 2026 at 1:29 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
The discourse around Wuthering Heights has gotten predictably weird, so why not read the book instead with a fantastic afterword by @noreenmasud.bsky.social and yours truly, courtesy @sandtclassics.bsky.social?
A hand holds up the Smith & Taylor Classics edition of Wuthering Heights in front of leafy, bright pink flowers.
February 7, 2026 at 1:27 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Rachel Weisz really is one the best doing it
February 7, 2026 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
So moved by this Carl Phillips poem in our new issue.
The Brokenness Itself Days that are random, coincident, the way leaves and light coincide, the way sounds do. Not everything is music. Days that can never come back. Black earth. Black earth. Is this who I must be, or maybe just what I am? — And the branches, shifting, heavy with fruit, in the wind.
February 7, 2026 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
omweekes.bsky.social
For those in the UK, just wanted to put on your radar that @deadinkbooks.bsky.social is republishing Randall Keenan’s first novel, A Visitation of Spirits, as part of their Outside Classics series and yours truly has written the introduction. Pre-order your copy today!
A Visitation of Spirits - Dead Ink Books
A Visitation of Spirits is the powerful story of a popular and high-achieving sixteen-year-old boy who wrestles with the guilt of discovering who he is...
deadinkbooks.com
October 24, 2025 at 8:24 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
The Testament of Ann Lee
Peter Hujar's Day
Charade
Die My Love
February 2, 2026 at 2:04 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Triolet by Sandra McPherson
Triolet BY SANDRA MCPHERSON She was in love with the same danger everybody is. Dangerous as it is to love a stranger, she was in love. With that same danger an adulteress risks a husband's anger. Stealthily death enters a house: she was in love with that danger. Everybody is dangerous.
January 31, 2026 at 6:51 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
that one pinkpantheress song
January 31, 2026 at 1:17 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
To Have You Hear by Laura Jensen
To Have You Hear by Laura Jensen two sounds at once, walking and not walking, I stop in the parking lot gravel. There is a fire back of the log, a sandy beach, behind trees big with summer. Two big umbrella butterflies (like Haiku elephants) flutter one by one among the leaves, their shadows, and the air. On the green slopes the sprinklers turn like maypoles. It has been summer for weeks now, and you refuse to talk about it.
January 31, 2026 at 1:09 AM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Head over to Puerto del Sol to read this review of This Elegance by Madelyn Parker. Puerto del Sol has supported my work for a long time, so it means a lot to see this here.

www.puertodelsol.org/single-post/...
REVIEW | This Elegance by Derrick Austin
Derrick Austin’s collection This Elegance (Boa Editions) works in conversation with many nuanced Black and Queer icons like Richmond Barthé and Cher, mixing them throughout as a medium with which the ...
www.puertodelsol.org
January 27, 2026 at 5:48 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Calvary by Marie Howe from her book Magdalene
Calvary by Marie Howe Someone hanging clothes on a line between buildings, someone shaking out a rug from an open window might have heard hammering, one or two blocks away and thought little or nothing of it.
January 27, 2026 at 5:12 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Drag Name: Miley Cynus
January 25, 2026 at 8:49 PM
paradiselaust.bsky.social
After Actium: Loss Filling the Emptiness by Linda Gregg
After Actium: Loss Filling the Emptiness by Linda Gregg The flowers do not move in the windless pause. The armies are standing still before the fight. Antony waits in the heat, so motionless that no part of the metal he is wearing hits another part. A man facing death. In the quiet inside him, desire rises like a glass is filled. As nothingness is filled as soon as it is emptied. As you in me now, all the time, day after day.
January 20, 2026 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
alsopurp.bsky.social
New bonus ✨

Victor and I talk Pillion, Heated Rivalry (again) and Fujoshis vs Jordan Firstman

Listen now everywhere you find your pods!

linktr.ee/alsopurp?utm...
December 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Derrick Austin
carolinepennock.bsky.social
State control of historical memory is a classic hallmark of authoritarian regimes, just FYI.
January 13, 2026 at 3:45 PM