Cass Morris
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cassmorriswrites.com
Cass Morris
@cassmorriswrites.com
5.8K followers 630 following 7.8K posts
Author: Aven Cycle | Story Editor: Mythik Camps | Podcast Cohost: Worldbuilding for Masochists | novels, short fiction, & immersive xp | Shakespeare nerd, once & future educator, rhetorician, geek chic | she/her | Virginia, USA

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cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 25: I do love good infrastructure.
The posting inn was a relic of Requini supremacy over the continent, one of what had once been a far-reaching web of stations for couriers. When they had all been appropriately staffed and equipped, their stables full of fresh barkers, a messenger could travel thirty or more leagues in a day in emergency conditions, and even a trip at a normal pace could range twenty or so in that time. The system still worked in central and western Requin, connecting provinces to the beating heart of Kamioch, but the Lijari had disrupted those relays in the south and east. In the Marches, there was no longer any system to speak of, though the Coriolese had revived it in Tovira and Orlein. Lycus had ensured this particular station’s survival, though, as he had done for all those on the route to Aylesburh. Even if Archen Bardanes proved totally incompetent, it would take a while for that chain to degrade.
November 25, 2025 at 6:25 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
As always:
A not-very-good line sketch of William Shakespeare on a yellow background with the words "Shakespeare got to get paid, son." Original joke credit Married to the Sea c. 2006 and I've been using it ever since.
November 24, 2025 at 6:08 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#QueerWriters Sunday Line Share: Had to use synonym "image" instead.
She wasn’t watching him, truly. But he was hard to miss, striding about, moving back and forth among his bannermen. Despite his diminished circumstances, he had the same energy as always: confident and imperious. Seeing him among his men—and in such a small company—showed something different, though, an ease that seemed almost artless. Only almost—Rhiann assumed everything Alestir Lycus did was some sort of artifice, his every word and motion part of some ploy to maintain his carefully-crafted public image. Less so here, though, with so few to mark him, and all of those men who had also placed themselves on the outskirts of Requini society. This might be something closer to his natural demeanor, and the affability of it unnerved her.
November 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
My statement on the matter:
I'm a graduate of the Shakespeare program, and I also worked for seven years with the ASC's Education Department, including helping to teach several leadership classes for PEG students. I'm absolutely infuriated that Mary Baldwin would turn its back on the arts & humanities. What an insult, and how incredibly short-sighted. We need the humanities now more than ever. Communication is a vitally important skill, as is a comprehension of history, as is the spark of creativity. I now have a career -- since needing to be "career-focused" and "workplace-aligned" is what MBU is claiming as the reason for these cuts -- in the field of immersive experiences, where I use my joint skills as a storyteller and an educator to help thousands of kids every year learn how to take control of the narratives of their lives, develop leadership skills, approach the world with curiosity and empathy, appreciate cultures outside their immediate familiarity, and find the joy in living in a pluralistic society. My Master's degree at MBU gave me so many of the skills I use for my job, from research to pedagogy to rhetoric to performance. It's both wild and devastating for the university to now tell me that those things have no value, so far as the administration is concerned. Shame on you.
November 23, 2025 at 4:06 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
ie, not for being outdoors in warm weather when it is always braided in some fashion -- but that rolled back from the temples and pinned to create a semi-coronet style. I even put in the same curls when I'm *really* fancy.

But it is my go-to style when I bother to do any style at all.

Witness:
Selfie of Cass with her blonde hair indeed pulled back in rolls from her face in the aforementioned style. She's wearing a cream-colored Disney hoodie, rainbow earrings, and a purple backpack. Cass at Bold Rock Cidery with her hair again in the same fashion. She's wearing a pale sea foam green dress and a beaded necklace and is holding up a plastic cup of cider. Cass in a twirly red dress in front of a floral step and repeat. Her hair is, yup, rolled back from her temples again, and this time the lengths are also curled and she's even wearing a pearl diadem. Cass in her Latona cosplay, a red Roman-ish gown that yes she knows is not historically accurate but who cares, a pearl necklace, and red and gold earrings. Her hair is -- you guessed it! Rolled back from her temples and pinned, curled, and bedecked with a pearl diadem.
November 23, 2025 at 2:50 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
Coffee shop writing session: intensifies
Cass’s laptop on a coffee shop table alongside a cup, a green notebook with a sticker on it reading “enemies to lovers” wrapped around a sword and roses, and a binder with a collage on the front.
November 22, 2025 at 7:08 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#Writevember Week 4: It's going great! I finished the draft a week ago and since then have gotten nearly halfway through the act one revisions.

Snippet is from fairly late in the book, and...

There's only one tent.
Somehow, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder by now, so when she turned to scrutinize his expression, his face was very, very close. ‘You know I’m chaos,’ she thought, searching those ice-blue eyes. ‘But you sent Danaïs to me anyway. You claim to prize order so much. You think it’s Requin’s regimented regularity you want. You tell yourself that, anyway. You did enough to try to uphold it. You killed for it. And yet you find yourself drawn to havoc…’ A powerful impulse surged within her chest, hot and insistent and making the breath catch in her throat. Her eyes dropped to his lips, and for a heartbeat, all the world around her seemed muted. Almost, she leaned over. Almost, she listened to the singing in her blood that threatened to overwhelm her good sense. Almost, she gave in to the urge to press her mouth to his, catch his lower lip between her teeth, grasp him by the back of the neck and swing herself to straddle his hips and show him that, no, she wasn’t going to ask, she would act. Only almost. With a deep breath that she hoped didn’t sound as shuddering as it felt, she wrenched her gaze away, pretending to fuss with something in the pack resting by her other side. * ‘So. Fucking. Close.’ Alestir managed, somehow, not to sigh in disappointment when Maera turned away from him. He’d seen it in her eyes, amber warm with lust as much as flickering firelight. She’d nearly convinced herself, and yet still she held back. Well. He was tactician enough to appreciate any amount of territory won.
November 22, 2025 at 4:56 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
This precious baby
Oona, a freshly groomed tan and grizzle Airedale, wearing a festive autumnal bandana. She’s sitting on a black no-slip mat on the kitchen floor and looking at the camera with a tolerantly alert expression.
November 21, 2025 at 10:46 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 21:
The woman’s smile was vulpine and far too self-satisfied. “Had it been the Archen who came, I would be obliged to turn aside, to pretend I did not see.” Signy’s hands fell to the small axes tucked into her belt. Rhiann’s went to her knives. Danaïs, clearly no fool, moved further behind Rhiann, pressing herself to the wall. “You, though?” Somehow Signy shrugged while also using the motion to pop the axes out of her belt, tossing their handles into her palms. “You, I have no direction for.” Questions raced through Rhiann’s mind—who had given the sea-queen orders, when, why—but there was no time for that, and it certainly wasn’t as if she expected that Signy would answer them anyway.
November 21, 2025 at 5:26 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 20:

Me: No, I don't think I'd classify what I write as "dark fantasy".

Also me: ::literally incapable of not including blood magic in everything she does::
Rhiann pulled the knife from her belt again, then hesitated. ‘My blood, or his?’ She thought back to the war, dispelling the power of the nightmare-weavers from her fellow rebels. She’d had to use her own blood then, not because being a runecrafter meant there was anything special about it, but because she couldn’t pull power through someone else’s. Maybe it was possible, but she didn’t know how to do it—and wasn’t sure she would want to in any case. That would ride too near the edge of the work of Requini bloodbinders. “Give me your arm,” she instructed, even as she made another cut on the back of her own. “Gauntlet off. Sleeve up.”
November 20, 2025 at 3:08 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
Sidebar that this convo reminds me of a favorite tweet from @alixeharrow.bsky.social that takes up regular rent-free space in my brain
Screenshot of a tweet: Alix E. Harrow @AlixEHarrow ... i respect that fantasy as a genre has simply refused to standardize the spelling of "fairy." faerie. fae. fay. fair folk. fayrie. just an F followed by whatever vowels you have in your heart 11:25 AM 2022-02-22
November 20, 2025 at 1:24 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
Today on Patreon: Hey, I finally did another video diary! Technical difficulties were involved both with the delay and with this actual video. 😅

www.patreon.com/posts/video-...
Screenshot of Cass in a grey t-shirt, hair side-parted and in need of a root touch-up. Text: Video Diary #40 - 19 Nov 2025 15:19 Cass Morris patreon.com/CassRMorris
November 19, 2025 at 6:32 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
"I'm going to crush it?"

Ugh.

Ick.
Screenshot from the NYT article linked in first post: Now, about the hotheaded Yank … “Yes, I know his name is ‘Trumper’ but remember this show was originally written in 1984,” the Arbiter explains to the audience. Most of these asides are not funny, with jokes about Joseph Biden and Robert Kennedy Jr. that would mortify a third-rate comedian. The snarky sensibility is most egregious when the character switches back to his original function for his big number, “The Arbiter” — “which yes, means I’m going to sing. And yes, I’m going to crush it,” he says. He then proceeds to make fun of the song while performing it, down to a sarcastic air-guitar solo.
November 17, 2025 at 5:19 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 17: Perhaps interestingly (or ironically), time is the thing that gets spent more than anything else in this manuscript.
‘No. Nothing so crude or thoughtless.’ This room had been immaculately crafted in every detail, each work speaking in some way to the ones beside it, the shapes and lines pointing to each other, picking up each others’ color palettes. ‘How many stories are told within this chamber?’ A scholar could spend a lifetime in this place and still not uncover all its secrets, all its lessons. The thought gave Alestir a pang, though he wasn’t fully sure why. That they did not have time for thorough exploration was no surprise; that he found himself wishing for such a liberty… ‘Even if you did, that work was never meant for you. Or you for it.’
November 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 16: Elusine making an appearance as my standard "she might look like a frivol but she's secretly the smartest person in this story" character.

See also: Aula Vitellia Prima.
“I suspect if you could maintain your detachment, he would soon lose interest.” Elusine jerked her chin in the direction of the hearth, where her pair of half-grown black-and-tan dogs were snoozing amiably in a tangle of furry limbs. “Men like him, they’re like terriers. When something runs from them, they chase it on instinct—” Rhiann stopped moving, planting both her feet. “I do not run from Archen Lycus.” “—and when something turns to fight, they assume it’s time to play. He’d stop provoking you if you stopped showing him that he riles you.” Elusine shrugged. “And if you managed that, you might eventually be able to meet him on… friendlier terms, when he visits the burh.” “Friendlier. Terms.” Rhiann crossed her arms. “With Archen Lycus.”
November 16, 2025 at 5:16 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
Draft. Finished.
Screenshot: *** FINIS ***
November 16, 2025 at 12:52 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
#QueerWritersChat A5: I would love it if folk checked out the Aven Cycle: Historical fantasy set in an alternate ancient Rome with elemental magic.

Available in ebook, print, and audio, and if your library doesn't have it, ask 'em to get it!

linktr.ee/cassrmorris
Book cover for FROM UNSEEN FIRE: teal embellishments on a dark background with the central image of a fire in an ancient-style brazier. Text and arrows surrounding: Yearning | Fierce determined women | Elemental magic | Dinner with a side of snark | Cutthroat politics | All this blood | An awful lot of swords Book cover for GIVE WAY TO NIGHT: purple and bronze embellishments on a dark background with the central image of a temple door surrounded by spooky trees. Text and arrows surrounding: Grouchy + sunshine friendship | Creeply cultists | A siege | Sapphic subplot | Roman ghosts | Bad things happen at the beach | Even more blood Book cover for THE BLOODSTAINED SHADE: red and gold embellishments on a dark background with the central image of a Roman temple split by blue lightning. Text and arrows surrounding: Chaos unleashed | Reunions and revelations | Weaponized snark | Big Badass Battle Sequence | Heroine's Journey | Sapphic sweethearts | Still just so much blood
November 15, 2025 at 2:05 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 14: The inner battle with myself over how to define a week in this world and these cultures...
Even Maera was smiling, though she stood aside, leaning against a wall. Lycus stole up alongside her and tried to ignore the heat that rushed through his blood when she flicked those deep amber eyes in his direction. The spark of mirth in them was a rarity, and one he could not help but relish. “Your men are, ah, animated tonight.” “Euchaneia was a victory,” Lycus said, “and one they’ve not yet had a proper chance to celebrate.” “You know, my Requi’ch has brushed up quite a bit in the past few weeks, but I don’t know all the words of this song.” “Knowing what I’m sure you do of soldiers’ songs, do you really want the translation?” “Knowing what I do about soldiers’ songs, I can probably guess.” They both laughed, which made Lycus feel as though he were a young boy who had managed to coax a songbird onto a windowsill, almost afraid to move lest it fly away. Rhiann wasn’t yet what he could call “relaxed,” but that she was at all willing to share this respite with the banner, with him—well, it was encouraging.
November 14, 2025 at 8:52 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#SFFChat A4: A bit of the preamble to one of my favorite scenes in the early portion of the book.
At this time of year, before the leaves had turned scarlet and burnished orange and started to fall, the tree’s heavy branches hung over the wall-walk in a way that actually obscured a section, about twelve paces across. Certainly, even if the tree itself were left alone, these limbs should long ago have been trimmed. But no one had. As the sun started to nudge itself toward the horizon, giving a golden glow to the horizon while the rest of the sky yet clung to its dark blanket, Rhiann found herself drawn to that place. She ducked underneath one drooping branch, brushing past the sweet-scented leaves. Within the strange little arboreal room, she finally let her feet stop carrying her onward. There, the sun’s bravest lights, first into the breach of dawn, had not yet penetrated. Dark, quiet, cool. Rhiann moved to the wall and braced her hands against the top of an embrasure, narrow between two higher sections of the merlons. Here, at last, she let herself think about the dream.
November 14, 2025 at 12:21 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 13: Most uses in the WIP are "building" of some kind, usually thought, as we see here, not always a literal structure of some kind.
He rounded the table with long, slow strides, a loping wolf casually approaching something that was not quite prey, not quite enemy. He was giving her, she realized, the chance to bolt. She didn’t. She even stopped fussing with her hair and squared herself to him as he approached. A nigh-intolerable pressure was building within her, the same kind of now-or-never feeling she typically associated with frantic charges against a foe or last-ditch defensive measures: the moment when decisive action became utterly unavoidable.
November 13, 2025 at 3:04 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
#WIPSnips Nov 12: "Shirt" is, in the history of garments, such a wildly inspecific term. I ended up using tunic more frequently, even though what I really want to use for Lycus's clothing is kamision, a Byzantine term.
“Do you want—” Maera started, then discovered she had to clear her throat. “I could conjure up some brighter witchlights.” “No. There’s no reason for you to over-exert yourself for that reason.” Pride prickling, Maera said, “Witchlights will hardly over—” “You just got that shirt clean,” he said, as he tucked the loose papers inside one of the journals and closed it with a decisive snap. “I’d prefer not to risk you bleeding all over another one quite so soon. And…” Alestir rose from the table, his gaze falling on her. The intensity of his attention in no way dimmed, but redirected from the cipher to her, a regard so focused that it made her pulse leap. “I suspect we’re not going anywhere for a while, so I’ve plenty of time.”
November 12, 2025 at 2:25 PM
cassmorriswrites.com
It would not surprise me in the slightest to discover there's an overlap between the kids who've learned three cueing and the ones who go on to be likely to trust in genAI. After all, it predicts what word's going to come next, just like they do. Why should they assume that's wrong?
She thinks the students who learned three cueing were actually harmed by the approach. "I did lasting damage to these kids. It was so hard to ever get them to stop looking at a picture to guess what a word would be. It was so hard to ever get them to slow down and sound a word out because they had had this experience of knowing that you predict what you read before you read it."
November 12, 2025 at 5:25 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
FROM UNSEEN FIRE is Book 1 of the Aven Cycle, historical fantasy set in an alternate ancient Rome with magic. All three books are available in print, ebook, and audio: linktr.ee/cassrmorris
Book covers for From Unseen Fire, Give Way to Night, and The Bloodstained Shade, all with classical aesthetics and bright colors against dark backgrounds. Text above reads: "Especially appealing in the treatment of the mage Latona and her sisters, who exercise hard-won agency in the struggle for their city." -- Publishers Weekly
November 12, 2025 at 12:57 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want.
Prologue 686 ab urbe condita The Palatine Hill, City of Aven Lucius Quinctilius was not, by nature, a reflective man, so perhaps it was just as well that the Dictator's men gave him little time to contemplate his fate.
November 12, 2025 at 12:57 AM
cassmorriswrites.com
And a sample week.
A weekly spread in Cass's bullet journal. The top half has the days of the week, each with bullet-pointed meetings and to-do objectives beneath it. The lower half has a week-long to-do list on the left and "daily wins" on the right.
November 8, 2025 at 8:56 PM