Danny Cherry Jr (twitter/Insta/tiktok: @Deecherrywriter)
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deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Danny Cherry Jr (twitter/Insta/tiktok: @Deecherrywriter)
@deecherrywriter.bsky.social
7.5K followers 1.3K following 14K posts
NOLA. SFFH/crime/journalist. BASFF & Locus notable stories ‘23.

Contributor to Antigravity Magazine

Stories in: Buzzfeed News, Politico, Apex Mag, Fiyah, +more.

ORDER MY DEBUT CRIME NOVEL, “The Pike Boys”, NOW books2read.com/thepikeboys
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deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad, Peaky Blinders, Daredevil, and a few others whom I can’t remember at the moment.
what’s a show you’ll watch over and over and over
November 26, 2025 at 8:35 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Was never a fan of the krewe that does the parody floats. Can’t even remember their names.
lowkey what’s the most annoying krewe
November 26, 2025 at 8:33 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
That’s privileged information!! LOL
Worst date you’ve ever had?
November 26, 2025 at 8:32 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Teddy wanted y’all to see his new cut
Teddy sitting in a lap, with a red bandanna around his neck. He is a teacup poodle.
November 26, 2025 at 1:48 AM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
I’d love to have more time to work on my second novel, a short story collection, and journalism. I’d love to be doing more readings and even potentially a book tour of sorts. I’d love to live in a world where I can discuss books and talk about intellectual shit. But alas, I live in the USA, so 🤷🏾‍♂️
What do you want to have going on?
November 25, 2025 at 4:00 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
If this is in reference to the Wire, I gotta be honest and say I remember next to nothing about that show LOL I was young when it was popular!
Do you think McNulty’s actions in season 5 were justifiable?
November 25, 2025 at 3:57 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
I don’t think so! There’s still so much out there for us to uncover. Granted, things in the US (medicine, tech, social progress, etc) are on a backslide due to intervention by powerful forces, but that shit won’t last.
Has humanity peaked? If yes, when was our high point?
November 25, 2025 at 3:55 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
If this is in terms of a fraught relationship, rehabbing it is best IMO. (Unless that said relationship—romantic or otherwise—is toxic for you)
Rehabilitation or retribution?
November 25, 2025 at 3:51 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Good lord have mercy:

“ I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. I’ll hold your nose as you look up at me to encourage you to swallow.” — RFK Jr
“Yr open mouth awaiting my harvest,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, had written to my then-fiancé. “Drink from me Love.” He continued, “I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. I’ll hold your nose as you look up at me to encourage you to swallow. ‘Dont spill a drop’. I am a river You are my canyon. I mean to flow through you. I mean to subdue and tame you. My Love.”
November 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Reminder that my book is dope as hell and 64 reviewers (and my mama) agree with me!!

Buy here:

Books2read.com/thepikeboys
The Pike Boys: Book description: It’s 1920 New Orleans and Jesse Pike is slowly ascending the New Orleans upper-class social scene. He’s the owner of the most popular brothel in the entire city, and rubs shoulders with businessmen, corrupt politicians, and stage stars alike. He’s also the leader of a violent street gang that pulls off the biggest heist of liquor since the beginning of prohibition. Jesse sets up a scheme to sell the booze, and use the profits to help him start a legitimate business. However, several obstacles get in his way: Clyde, the mentally disturbed oldest Pike sibling, is released from prison and takes issue with how Jesse runs things; Jesse's aging mentor refuses to let him leave behind crime; and an overzealous young DA decides to reopen an investigation into the liquor heist to increase his chances of being elected mayor. Jesse is forced to make a decision: does he walk away from a life of crime and his family forever? Or will he continue down the road of violence that has begun to erode his psyche, much as it has Clyde's? The Pike Boys, according to a reviewer, is a "compelling story of the Pike family's struggles against poverty, violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and their quest to rise above it all while living in the crime-ridden New Orleans of the gangster era." It has all the thrills, plot twists, and quick pace of conventional gangster fiction, with the heart, depth, and nuance of a literary novel. In between the shootouts, violence, and debauchery, there is the overarching question of "can people actually change?" The reader will see that the answer is not so simple—especially when you live in a place like New Orleans. (If you're a fan of The Sopranos, Peaky Blinders, Boardwalk Empire, or the Godfather then this book is for you!) 4.48/5 stars.
November 19, 2025 at 10:39 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Literally no one asked this, but this is one of my favorite sentences and story openings I've ever written:

antigravitymagazine.com/feature/mad-...
If you went to religious schools like I did for a time, you were likely subjected to vivid imagery of the afterlife. Pastors at pulpits and teachers at whiteboards weaved worlds of a land that awaited those of us who stayed on God’s good side—clouds and angelic harps and a bright light slicing through the slats of a golden gate, behind which lay everything we ever wanted. No pain, poverty, or sadness. Then there was the other imagery. Fire and brimstone crackling underfoot amidst an afterlife of torture, courtesy of God’s hooved, horned, and red fallen son. Screams from the damned would fill the air, none louder than those who murdered babies. People who performed abortions were butchers. Those who sought them were spoken of as though they were morally broken or led astray, and should’ve kept their clothes on rather than spend eternity in damnation. But what if the abortion seekers were two 8-year-olds?
November 19, 2025 at 3:29 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Not that long ago, I had helped her untangle herself from an unusual relationship with Keith Olbermann, the former MSNBC host. She had messaged him out of the blue.
November 18, 2025 at 5:35 AM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
I maintain:
We gotta go back to just taking some shit to the grave. CIA couldn’t have water boarded this out of me.
November 13, 2025 at 10:43 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
AWARDS ELIGIBILITY POST!

If any of you short fiction loving folks plan on voting in any of the sci-fi awards coming up, I'd like to throw Children of the Singularity in contention!

1 reviewer found it "heartwarming" and "compelling" so I think you'd like it to!

HMU for a copy if interested!!
I’ve been on a bit of a robot/AI kick lately, so it will be no surprise that my favourite work in this issue was “Children of the Singularity” by Danny Cherry Jr. The short story follows a Sentient, an artificial intelligence confined to a highly contained corner of the internet behind a firewall, who is granted permission to inhabit a human body. Despite the peace accords between humans and her kind following an AI uprising, tensions remain high; she is left alone and struggling to find a real sense of identity when she meets Todd. The young man’s strong opposition to being cybernetically enhanced himself along with his complete acceptance of Sentients leaves him struggling to find employment. The story’s emphasis on friendship warms my heart, and its exploration of discrimination and marginalization through two black main characters—one of whom is not entirely human but is nonetheless inhabiting the body of a person of colour—is compelling. Even after finishing the story, I’m still turning it over in my head.
November 10, 2025 at 10:14 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Dawg bills really come EVERY month😫
Ben affleck smoking a cig looking stressed
November 7, 2025 at 11:13 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Juggling and manga!
What's something you were deeply, deeply into when you were your dorkiest middle-school self?
November 7, 2025 at 10:49 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
I reeeeally like Chad the Bird.

He’s a puppet comedian 😂

youtube.com/@chadthebird...
Is there a surprising piece of media that you love and think is widely under-appreciated? If this question is too weird, then I would just like to see some pictures of your dog, please!
November 7, 2025 at 10:13 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Whenever they do that thing with their paws when it looks like they’re making biscuits!!
What’s your favourite cat mannerism?
November 7, 2025 at 10:05 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
I think we’re decades away from progressive—rigged maps—but there has been a hard effort by progressives in the state to make inroads into the state party establishment.

So, I think at minimum we could be a swing state.
Can Louisiana become a progressive state politically?
November 7, 2025 at 10:00 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Well I’m coming off of feeling like complete shit, so I plan on getting out the house.

Tonight going see a band, and Sunday a nonprofit I’m board president of is throwing a big shindig!!!
Plans this weekend?
November 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Not being afraid to be yourself unapologetically
what is the #1 thing you think makes someone cool, objectively
November 7, 2025 at 9:15 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Easy:

A sugar glider!

Google em!
Favorite marsupial
November 7, 2025 at 9:09 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Ya damn skippy it is!!!
Friday, baby
November 7, 2025 at 8:34 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Zue talking about how the US consulate treated them:

"[they] took 3 days to come and see us. Other consulates had already chartered whole planes to fly to Israel and fly their people back... They did not make sure that the veterans got their medications that were given to them from the [VA]."
I’m sure at this point in prison, y’all attempt to reach out to the U.S. State Department, or maybe the proper word is embassy— So we were hostages. We weren’t given prisoners’ rights and they told us we weren’t prisoners. So we weren’t allowed outside of our cells. We weren’t given any of the rights that prisoners are given, so consulates started to come visit their people. Obviously countries knew about this. This was worldwide news, and we had our people contacting our consulate. Our consulate took three days to come and see us. Other consulates had already chartered whole planes to fly to Israel and fly their people back—before our consulate even came to see us. When our consulate came to see us, they said they couldn’t do anything for us, even getting water for us. One of our girls had a migraine so bad she had an aura in her eye where she couldn’t see out of her eye, and they couldn’t even get her an aspirin. They were like, “No, can’t do it.” Other consulates, they’ve been giving their people chocolate, cigarettes, sandwiches, and our consulate completely was just like, “We can’t do anything, we can note down what’s happened. We’re working on it.” They were more concerned with, “Don’t believe what you see on the news that says we’re not helping you.” To which we were like, “What? What news? We don’t know what time it is or what day it is. We’re hostages.” So the U.S. consulate completely dropped the ball. They did not advocate for us. They did not help us. They did not make sure that the veterans got their medications that were, you know, given to them from the veterans hospital. It was the first time I actually felt scared.
November 6, 2025 at 3:11 PM
deecherrywriter.bsky.social
Zue talking about what happened once she was taken by the Israeli Navy:

"I’m zip-tied with my arms behind my back for over five hours, while Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir calls me a terrorist in Port Ashdod... we were brutalized, stripped, humiliated..."

Whole quote:
So, the time comes that y’all are interacting with the Israeli Navy and they board the ship. What happens next? Well, I just want to point out that they chased us for six and a half hours and that we kept doing circles around them and swooping them. They were trying to spray us with skunk water, we would swoop out of the way. The boat that was chasing us was a U.S.-built boat, a U.S. manufactured boat that they sold to the Israelis. It was a boat of veterans being chased by a U.S. boat that’s owned by the Israelis. Finally, after the third time of swooping them and flipping them off and playing guitar and laughing and calling them names, we made them pretty mad. So then they came up with two Zodiac boats on either side of us, those little rubber speed boats, and they boarded the boat and there’s five of them. Like I said, non-violent missions, so we just had our hands up and didn’t do anything. I didn’t talk to them. They kept telling us to turn the engine off. We didn’t do that. We refused to comply with them, and then they searched us, they patted us down. They destroyed all of our cameras, and then they commandeered the boat at gunpoint. They brought us down below and made us all sit in the main room and kept us there for, I don’t remember how long that journey was to Port Ashdod. I think it was maybe 10 hours that we were just all down below, but we didn’t interact with them. They’re not our friends. We weren’t there to make anything easier for them. They were having a hard time with the boat and we just let them have a hard time with the boat.
November 6, 2025 at 3:05 PM