Tessera

THE RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE x THIS GILDED ABYSS x SILKSONG A woman wakes from a decade-long cursed sleep to find a dying kingdom, one surviving swordswoman, and the unbearable possibility that her own people left her there on purpose. #QuestPit #A #F #W #AgentsGuide

An agent's guide cover slide for Child of Silk and Shield, a 90,000-word adult fantasy with horror elements querying June 2026. Black background with bold orange distressed typography on the left and three diagonal image strips on the right showing close-ups of two women's faces and a ghostly silk-wrapped figure.

Pitch slide for Child of Silk and Shield. Orange italic tagline reads: Survive the madness. Preserve the kingdom. Salvage your savior's sanity. Three paragraphs of white pitch copy describe protagonist Lora awakening from a decade-long cursed sleep in a dying kingdom, making a vow with a maddened swordswoman named Yaira, and confronting the possibility her own people are responsible for the destruction. Three diagonal atmospheric strips on the right show a ruined castle, a crumbling stone mask, and a spiral stone staircase descending into darkness.

Comps slide with a dark textured silk background. Large orange distressed header reads FOR FANS OF. Three comp images are displayed side by side: The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard, captioned WLW main pairing, forced partnership that evolves into romance; Hollow Knight: Silksong, captioned haunted world, sword-and-shield battles, learning about the world as the protagonist does; and This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne, captioned haunting and possession as suspense and danger mechanisms.

Excerpt slide for Child of Silk and Shield. Large orange distressed header reads EXCERPT. White and orange body text presents a passage from Chapter One in which Lora, newly awakened, assesses the armed and grinning swordswoman crouching over her and concludes that madness can sustain someone in a way no training can match. Three diagonal image strips on the right show a close-up of a woman's silver eyes, a swirl of white silk threads, and a second woman's face partially obscured by windswept hair.

THE RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE x THIS GILDED ABYSS A cursed sleeper. A swordswoman losing herself to madness. A vow that may cost them both everything. (Adult fantasy with horror elements, 90k words, querying June 2026.) #QuestPit #A #F #W

A five-image gothic fantasy moodboard for Child of Silk and Shield. A large black and white photograph of a spiral stone staircase descending into darkness anchors the left side. On the upper right, a close-up of hands pulling apart translucent silk or web-like threads. In the middle right, a pale figure in white lies unconscious in dark grass, hands reaching toward her from the shadows. On the lower left, two hands clasping gently, one in a white lace-cuffed sleeve and one in dark fabric against a green background. On the lower right, a pair of ballet feet in pointe shoes standing in dark reflective water, with black liquid trailing down the skin.

What if the girl who woke you from a cursed slumber not only tasks you with saving the kingdom's sanity...but also wields madness as a love language? CHILD OF SILK AND SHIELD, adult fantasy with horror elements. 90k words, querying summer 2026. Get ready! #QuestPit #A #F #W

A square excerpt card for Child of Silk and Shield against a dark textured background showing faint silk threads. In orange text, the opening line reads: "I calm the madness when I touch you." Below in white body text: It's not what Lora means to say, but she never says what she means to when it comes to this woman. Instead, she does things like kneel in half-dead grass with her blood under her nails. She's still holding Yaira's hand. Her skin shivers at the closeness. At the bottom left in orange distressed display font: CHILD OF SILK AND SHIELD. At the bottom right in the same font: QUERYING SUMMER 2026.

Presenting my #agentsguide to CHILD OF SILK AND SHIELD, featuring: 🩸 a madness tied to blood 🕸️ adventures through the remnants of a ruined kingdom 🗡️ tenuous partnerships born of survival and sarcasm + my personal fave: 🏳️‍🌈 reluctant-allies-to-lovers yuri! #QuestPit #W #A #F

In addition to PosterPit, I'm also watching my phone like a hawk because I made an offer on a house and I REALLY want it...so that's been fun!

🕸️ remnants of a ruined kingdom 🗡️ partnership born of survival 🏳️‍🌈 reluctant-allies-to-lovers yuri 🩸 a madness tied to blood 💀 the enemy is home #PosterPit #F #A #W

Movie-poster-style pitch image for the fantasy horror manuscript CHILD OF SILK AND SHIELD. The poster has a black background with bold orange typography. The tagline reads: "Survive the madness. Preserve the kingdom. Salvage your savior's sanity." Three horizontal bands of photography are layered across the center: the first shows a close-up of a woman's eye with dramatic liner, the second shows pale spectral hands wrapped in cobweb-like threads, and the third shows a woman's jaw and mouth partially obscured by wispy hair. Comp titles at the bottom read: THE RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE by Aliette de Bodard, THIS GILDED ABYSS by Rebecca Thorne, and Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Woken from a decade-long enchanted sleep, Lora finds a kingdom drowning in madness and a warrior losing her mind to it, who says Lora is the only one who can save her. Lora doesn't know this (absolutely infuriating) stranger. She makes a fatal promise anyway. #PosterPit #F #A #W

Lora has been trapped in a dying kingdom, bound by promise to a warrior losing her mind to a madness Lora's own people unleashed. She woke to find her way home. She'll stay because the kingdom needs her...and because Yaira is still fighting to remain herself. #PosterPit #F #A #W

Last-minute decided to participate in #PosterPit as a late birthday gift to myself...but my graphic design skills are shaky at best so be prepared to be SICK of my single poster! Best of luck to everyone participating; y'all have some MAD skills!!

The sexual tension between me and my library holds queue could be cut with a knife... #WhereAreMyHolds #IJustWannaRead!!!

Aasa T 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸@rosgakori.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I keep catching myself blasting through writing SilkWIP because I feel this pressure to get to the next section in my outline, then the next... And uh. Don't do this. Savor the storytelling journey. You can always make it better later. (This is me @ me. But could also be me @ you. YMMV)

Anyways.

kill the imposter syndrome in you head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they're also using chat gpt to do it

Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 5mo ago

"Amanda, why did you get an MFA?" Well, how else would I have the technical knowledge needed to mash up Western genre fiction convention with the kishotenketsu structure introduced to me by Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. ...that, and because it was fun. And fully funded.

This reminds me of something Toni Morrison wrote.

You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. "Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Rivers are living beings.

A 1944 map by geologist Harold Fisk charts a 40-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Friars Point to Gunnison, Mississippi. Fisk used aerial photos and maps to estimate the past and then-present channels. Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mississippi-rivers-hidden-history-uncovered-by-lidar?fbclid=IwY2xjawQYXkdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCZ2JBT2tWdVlXMmEzNU5Uc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsbjW-Yuubr_o_Kfeh0Elzc94geDwfXIZmeNL7NyljEBAOEjH53m2QLSo1NF_aem__4NkCIJ_D8J6mI1e8eMByg

AmaraJLynn 🦹 drafting Fire & Feathers@amaralynn.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Sadly, my week ended on a really disappointing note (got treatment to alleviate chronic neck pain, and it worked! ...until I sat down in my car wrong, something in my neck shifted, and it all came roaring back) Trying to write this weekend to redeem the terrible ending to the week. :) #queerwriters

#queerwriters Saturday: Check in Day! How was your week? Did you accomplish what you set out to do? Share your progress, encourage, cheer, and support others! #WritingCommunity #lgbtqwriters

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#Queerwriters
Check in day! How was your week?

Monday, Saturday, Sunday
All LGBTQIAP writers welcome

phil mccrevice@jewkrainian.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Drove around in a tornado that hit the ground less than 2 miles from where I was driving. I was newly 20, had no life insurance, and only enough common sense to drive into a ditch until it was over.

everybody quick, tell me the dumbest thing you’ve ever done

E.D.E. Bell @edebell.com · 5mo ago

I would add that seeking to erase any book that "involves gender dysphoria" also seeks to prohibit discussions on gender roles and hierarchy, including cis women, cis men, and in the necessary contexts of race. The only people this bill is for is those at and wanting the very top of the patriarchy.

Maris Kreizman@maris.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I wrote about the first national book banning bill, which effectively seeks to erase trans people. At the end I include a link to let your reps know that you oppose this bill and all it stands for. lithub.com/why-we-must-...

#WIPWednesday – aka how I remember what day of the week it is. Love writing little snippets that make me scream GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY at the characters I created.

Yaira raises her blade. The cleric nearest them in their slow advancement raises theirs in reply. Before Lora can find a voice to say anything – perhaps “what are you doing?” or “you cannot beat them!” – Yaira is sprinting forward, darting with an almost-ungodly speed, slashing and shouting wordlessly as one shadow after another falls.
She’s…skilled. That feels almost disrespectfully vague. Yaira isn’t just skilled, she’s well-trained, almost perfect in the blurry footwork Lora can make out as she moves. She’s brilliantly lethal. She’s…
Perfect.
Ugh.

Nothing like walking into the chiropractor's office and hearing, instantly, "I SAW YOUR TED TALK!!!" So delightful. Wild to have breached containment like this.

AmaraJLynn 🦹 drafting Fire & Feathers@amaralynn.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The rules of food in my house are the same as the rules in SilkWIP: have food, will share. ...Even if the Tagalongs I'm eating now sound a lot better than the food they're eating. #QueerWriters

A screenshot from Scrivener. The full text reads:
“Is this enough to eat?” Yaira holds up small fabric-wrapped squares. Lora stares at them, uncomprehendingly, and Yaira sighs. “I will say that’s a yes.”
She tosses one to Lora, who catches it on reflex. Yaira makes a little whistling sound that’s likely meant to be appreciative.
“You didn’t have to–”
“It’s bad luck to have food and not share.” Yaira takes a bite of her own square. “Eat.
The food inside the packet in Lora’s hands appears to be some sort of bread-like wafer. She touches the tip of her tongue to the corner and Yaira laughs. “It’s not poisoned,” she says. “Just bland.”

#queerwriters Sunday: Line Share Day! Today's theme: share #WritingCommunity #lgbtqwriters

Background: a plain background with colored pencils along the bottom half. Text: #Queerwriters Line share day. Monday, Saturday, Sunday All LGBTQIAP writers welcome

Theo Transcendragons @theodoresnapdragon.bsky.social · 5mo ago

#UnhingedPit was so much fun yesterday — thank you all for the ❤️s! I hope that means you had a little bit of a giggle at my shitposting about Silk WIP :)

Arcanepunk meets A GAME OF THRONES in MAGE BY BLOOD with fantasy prison, complicity, radicalization, cool tattoos and annoying siblings. No, there’s no incest. Also, there’s an OwnVoices trans MC, and GRRM could never. Literally, he’s not trans, it wouldn’t be #ownvoices #UnhingedPit #F #A #LGBTQ

A graphic of a metal fence over a photo of dark red liquid. Over the images are the glowing red words “The only prison I want to be trapped in is our love”

Image made in Canva

Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 5mo ago

Happy Sunday to everyone except the person sitting the next table over at the cafe who is shamelessly reading the words on my screen and occasionally shaking their head. I'm sorry my Silk WIP spreadsheet displeases you, ig??

The only thing it feels worthwhile for me to say right now is pay attention to whether your feelings & the information you’re absorbing are paralyzing you or prompting you to meaningful action, whatever that is. Paralysis helps no one but the enemy.

Preliminary reader reviews are in! Read CHILD OF SILK AND SHIELD! Who could turn it down after reading these endorsements?? Not pictured: "Tell me you're comping this to Aliette de Bodard" (I am) "Amanda wtf is wrong with you" (so much, narrow it down) #UnhingedPit #F #H #LGBTQ #WIP

A screenshot of a discord message sent by user alienwrites containing the text: "I simply love repressed yeeting
YEARNING."

A screenshot of a Discord message reading "this is so tlt coded oh my lord"

A screenshot of a Google Doc comment reading "we're two chapters in we can't be doing the six of crows glove scene this early this mens you have to find a way to go harder down the line"

A screenshot of a Discord message reading "loving silksong tier dykery"

Keir Alekseii @keiralekseii.bsky.social · 5mo ago

"What'cha working on?" uhhhh THE GOBLIN EMPEROR meets TIGANA meets...well, see the image for more. #UnhingedPit #A #F #H #LGBTQ #WIP

👀

E.M. Anderson | THE LORD OF THE WOOD is out now!@elizmanderson.com · 8mo ago

it's awards season, and my queer cozy fantasy THE KEEPER OF LONELY SPIRITS is eligible for a Hugo, a Locus, and a Nebula! there's a brief book description in the post, or you can click this link: www.elizmanderson.com/keeper-of-lo... #author

The Keeper of Lonely Spirits: awards eligibility. Hugo Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and Nebula Award for Best Novel. Text is in a translucent text box against a background of yellow flowers in the sunset, with the cover of E.M. Anderson's The Keeper of Lonely Spirits to the right. The cover features a lonely cottage, surrounded by headstones, with smoke drifting from the chimney, atop a tall green hill dotted with trees and yellow flowers against a starry sky, with the tagline, "Living forever can be mighty lonesome..."

TFW you’re so irritated with your hot traveling companion that you have to crowdsource the gay crashout. Think Hollow Knight: Silksong but with way more yuri. #UnhingedPit #A #F #H #LGBTQ #WIP

"We've known each other for about 5 days but I've (26F) been watching her (25F) sleep for a good decade. NOT LIKE THAT, she was just trapped in a silkskein cocoon at the end of a cave and I was finally able to forge a weapon strong enough to break her free. She doesn't know this, though, mostly because when I try to tell her, she starts rolling her eyes and muttering about how I'm dramatic and/or insane.
When the madness she brought with her infected my town and drove everyone to insanity or death, I went to visit her and thought about breaking her out so I could kill her. Now, the madness takes hold of me occasionally and I do actually try to kill her. Last night, that happened, and I came to just as she was about to kill me...or so I thought.
I told her to do it, that I dared her to try, and she said she wasn't going to take my life before at least trying to save it. I bit her on the arm. I don't know why, so don't ask. Cuteness aggression? Anger? idk. Was I overreacting?

AITA for trying to go home
I (25F) come from a small country that forges weapons and shields as a main export. Somehow, an ancient madness was imbued in those exports, and now I'm trapped in another kingdom that has fallen almost completely to ruin.Apparently, I was kidnapped and held as the madness's ransom by way of being chained up at the end of a cave for a decade. A mad fencer (26F) woke me up, and now she's insisting she will help me get home if I free what's left of the kingdom from the madness.Great, okay, fine. Except I now know how to get home on my own power, so I don't need her help. She also annoys me, and keeps trying to kill me. And also bit me, then licked at the blood running down my arm???AITA for just bagging it and going home? I should probably be a good person and fix the problem I caused but also I'm tired of being threatened, almost stabbed, and now apparently bitten???? Hello???
EDIT: STOP ASKING ME IF SHE'S HOT. WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING??

Theo Transcendragons@theodoresnapdragon.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Honestly, I would just love to get an agent who’s interested in collaborating on future projects and merging the creative side of authorship with the business side whenever possible! And, also, I want to use my privilege and skills to move the needle on representation in my genres. #QueerWritersChat

#QueerWritersChat Question Three: What’re your hopes for the future of your writing? Next question at :35! @amaralynn.bsky.social #QueerWriters #writesky #writers #writingcommunity #hope

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