Tessera

C.M. Sullivan 🍉

@cmsullivan.bsky.social

queer speculative author, library dweller. viable paradise '25, taos toolbox '24. SFWA associate and codex member. stories in apex magazine and the daily tomorrow. she/they. 🚫 to AI, now and always. https://www.cm-sullivan.com

228 Posts2343 Follower 677 Folgt

Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · yesterday

"In the hospital, they say my brain is melting out my nose. They don’t say it like that. They say I’m dying of a prion disease." 🦠🦌🧫 New fiction today by @anjbaker.bsky.social: "Cervidae, New and Sharp" Read it here: www.apexbookcompany.com/blogs/apex-m...

"Cervidae, New and Sharp" By Anj Baker. Apex Magazine, Issue 154.

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · yesterday

my story, “The Light Below,” is available to read today in apex’s issue 154!! otherwise, you can catch it online october 20 🕯️🤍 www.apexbookcompany.com/products/ape...

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2d ago

So excited to be a part of this issue!! Especially such an honor with this TOC and beautiful art.

Apex Magazine and Book Company@apexmag.bsky.social · 2d ago

We're thrilled to reveal the cover of Apex Magazine Issue 154, featuring the beautiful "Dark Thoughts" by @jeleynai.bsky.social, with cover design by Justin Stewart! 🌕🐦‍⬛🌿 For the full list of contributors and other updates, check out "Apex in August 2026" on Patreon: www.patreon.com/apexbookcomp...

The cover of Apex Magazine Issue 154. A pale-skinned girl with long brown hair stands against a grey background. Her face is framed by a full moon. She wears a circlet of golden laurel leaves, a black earring shaped like a dagger, and a dark grey dress with sheer voluminous sleeves. She is holding out her hands, welcoming a flock of white ravens to swoop through her chest. The ravens burst out from between her shoulder blades, feathers now black. Credits on Cover read:

Original Fiction By: Anj Baker, Rob Cameron, A.M. Maris, Alia Ai-Ming Shahzad, Stefan Alcalá Slater, and C.M. Sullivan, David R. Hoffman, RJ Aurand, and S.C. Pires

Nonfiction By: Richard Dansky and Lesley Connor

Classic Fiction By: Shingai Njeri Kagunda and Justin C. Key

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · last wk.

thank you guys so much for the love on this project!! i’ve been drafting it in isolation since september 2024, and it makes me a little less nervous to query 🥲 excited to catch up on other folks’ pitches!! #questpit

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2w ago

Excited to finally share my novel, THIEF OF THE VASTBORN, for #questpit!! THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI x THE SONG OF ACHILLES: Fate swap. Drowned world. Queer M/M romance. Enemies to lovers. Sea-dragons?! And more! Read the agent’s guide below. Querying soon! #F #A #RF #Q #W

An agent's guide to Thief of the Vastborn by C.M. Sullivan, adult fantasy + romance, ~112,000 words. The graphic shows a dragon and a sailboat with charts and maps as the background vector.

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2w ago

AMINA AL-SIRAFI x QUEEN'S THIEF A dying thief switches fates with a man prophesied to end the worldwide flood. What's worse than death? Oh, consigning the guy you love to it. 🐉 sea-dragons 🏛️ floating libraries 🌊 flooded world ⛵ high seas adventures 🔥 slow burn romance #questpit #A #F #W #Q

A graphic depicts the text "THIEF OF THE VASTBORN" by C.M. Sullivan. The graphic shows a dragon statue; a marble column with an ocean view; a red-haired man with a blue eye gazing skyward; a grotto filled with seawater; part of a scarred man's face; a mosaic sun insignia; the statue of a half-veiled woman; a ship-rope and the open sea; and Greco-Roman style columns with an orange tree.

Rhiannon J. Taylor/R. J. Howell @mytherea.bsky.social · 2w ago

Starfall: a queer space opera heavy on the intimate-stakes character drama, elfy science-fantasy, and swashbuckling starship adventure about a telepathic space elf who joins off-brand Starfleet. He's a stabby cinnamon roll who doesn't want any friends! (This is a lie.) #Questpit #Q #A #SF #SFF

Title slide that reads "Starfall, Queer Space Opera Adventure, 139,000 words, R. J. Howell."

Slide that reads: "Pitch: Erendesirel was raised for two things: political marriage and political skirmishes. Sadly, the galaxy doesn’t have much call for a well-trained ornamental husband or sword-wielding duelist. Banished from his technologically-hostile homeworld, unskilled, and entirely broke, he applies to the Galactic Survey and Security Fleet,
a company of space-faring scientific contractors.

He just has to somehow pass a basic competency exam he is woefully unprepared for. And agree to a 10-year debt contract to pay for his tuition. And avoid being driven insane by the thoughts and feelings of a crew of a hundred and twenty souls serving on a very small starship. And navigate all the well-meaning people trying to be his friend.

Oh, and not get kidnapped by pirates." There is another section below it that reads "Comps" and show the covers of Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell, Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Slow Gods by Claire North, and Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. There is also an illustration of a space elf named Eren.

This slide reads: "Excerpt: Erendesirel—the nameless, the houseless, the planetless—had tracked his quarry down to a victuals shop on the outskirts of the space station’s medical district. From his hunter’s hide on a public bench opposite the establishment, he glowered at the incongruously-wooden door, breathed in the smell of roasted nuttiness and sticky sugar wafting out through the open bay window, and fought for equanimity.

His hand tightened on the hilt of his family sword, the blade pressed against his leg to accommodate the rather unfriendly design of the bench. Galactic architecture was, as always, crafted for comfort and unobtrusiveness but singularly failed to take into account a full-length sword at one’s hip. It didn’t matter that of all the peoples of the galaxy, there was only one that insisted on carrying true steel swords instead of some technological marvel that, oh, made the sword shrink or disappear or be constructed entirely out of light.

He would never stoop to touch such a thing. No, the sword and dagger set of his clan would serve him for this purpose just fine.

No matter that they were considered contraband. By both his people and station security, if for rather different reasons."

This slide reads "The Trope Nebula" and contains a series of trope-related terms: All the feels, found family, to boldly go (but contractually), swords but space, touch-adverse telepathic space elves, starships!, stabby cinnamon roll, disaster bisexuals, qu3eer, student debt?, lesbians with laser canons, and friendship! (whether you want it or not).

Lia Lao @thelialao.bsky.social · 2w ago

wrapping up edits so here's an updated agent's guide for #questpit! :)) [BREAKING NEWS]: BROKE PHD STUDENT FAKES DEATH AND STEALS IDENTITY OF BILLIONAIRE TECH HEIRESS. TOO BAD HER GENIUS RIVAL IS ONTO HER & IS OBSESSED WITH EXPOSING HER NEW SKIN #A #Litfic #SF #LGBT #OV #Q

slide that reads "an agent's guide to FACELESS". line under reads "literary speculative fiction / 95,000 words @thelialao)

background is a blurry photo of an asian woman with a blue tint

Pitch

[BREAKING NEWS]: BROKE PHD STUDENT FAKES DEATH AND STEALS IDENTITY OF BILLIONAIRE TECH HEIRESS. TOO BAD HER GENIUS RIVAL IS ONTO HER & IS OBSESSED WITH EXPOSING HER NEW SKIN

the opulence of CRAZY RICH ASIANS
x
the futuristic atmosphere of LOCAL HEAVENS & THE BOOK OF RECORDS
x
the socio-satirical tone of THE IMMORTAL KING RAO

set in a floating city owned by tech conglomerates, in a world ravaged by climate change

inspired by Silicon Valley & East/Southeast Asia

@thelialao

Background picture is a black robot in a glass box

First Page

It’s a beautiful night to die.

From the balcony, Fay Soon stares down at the celebration: the silken gowns, the crystal chalices, the laughter resounding like shattered glass. It’s the end of semester which means yet another overpriced soirée for Chang’E National University’s elite. After seven years here, the scene is hardly unfamiliar. She studies the expanse of the university gardens.

There’s a cyclical nature to it. Young and eager minds unfurling: the undergraduates, loquacious in their attempts to impress one another, each conversation, each gesture, carefully selected like the finest blossoms in a greenhouse.

There are those on the other end of the cycle too. Senescence. The doctoral candidates wilting in the shadows. Hoping for their ideas to be transfigured by wind or water or even the sorghum wine they’re cradling in their hands.

But no matter how many times Fay experiences it, she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the spectacle.

No one in the outer circle speaks like that, not in those sprawling, unmanicured streets. It’s opulent; it’s hypnotizing. It’s—

—a complete and utter waste of funds.

@thelialao

Background is a chandelier in dim lighting

Epigraph

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever

…

We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

– Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

@thelialao

Background is a white wall with the shadows of leaves

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2w ago

TEXT: Pitch: In a flooded world survived by waterborne cities, young Zev is given a prophecy that he will die by the same illness that killed his mother. A decade later, when a dying Zev decides to take fate into his own hands, he accidentally swaps fates with the Prophecied Divine, a handsome and sheltered man destined to end the worldwide flood. The graphic shows a sailboat and more charts.

TEXT: Tropes: Queer M/M romance, fate swap, drowned world, sea-dragons, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn, animal companion, prophecies, pirates, cults. The graphic shows a leaf, an hourglass, and more charts and maps.

TEXT: Comps: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, high seas adventures; The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller for mythical doomed yaoi; The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon for dragons; The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart for drowned world. The graphic shows columns and charts.

Rebecca Mahoney @cafecliche.bsky.social · 2w ago

To all staff and affiliates: please mark your calendars and save the date for the worst team-building outing of all time. OTHERLING, my second horror novel for adults, is coming your way in Fall 2028.

An announcement for my new book OTHERLING, a workplace doppelgänger horror novel

Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · 4w ago

We have decided to remove a short story from Issue 153 of Apex Magazine. After meeting with our reading and editorial teams, we'd like to share with you what happened, and importantly, how we plan to move forward from here. Thank you for sticking with us. 💜👽

M. L. Krishnan @emelkrishnan.bsky.social · last mo.

We’re about $6700 away, and there’s 9 days left. This is doable folks, so please, help us get over the finish line so we can bring you more khōréō gloriousness!

khōréō: Year 6

Help us sustain and grow an award-winning magazine of speculative fiction and migration!

kickstarter.com

Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · last mo.

STRANGE 👽 SURREAL 👽 SHOCKING 👽 BEAUTIFUL Apex Magazine is OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS for the month of July! We're seeking short spec fic up to 9k words. Closing August 1st, reopening in September and November. We can't wait to read your work! 🖤 Submit here: apexbookcompany.moksha.io/publication/...

"Apex Magazine Submissions OPEN!

We are Seeking:
short sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fiction
short genre-related nonfiction
Up to 9k words

Submissions Close August 1st
https://apexbookcompany.moksha.io/"

Wen Wen @muteddragon.bsky.social · last mo.

"Some prospectors’ ghosts leave their previous clothes real easy. My laundry shop was just a railway station on their way to the afterlife." 🫧👻🌵

The Rumpus@therumpus.net · last mo.

"I recognized the ghost from when he was a living customer and not an undead annoyance. He never tipped, not even around the holidays." From "Lu’s Laundry and Other Services" by @muteddragon.bsky.social for this week's Sunday Scaries. 👻 buff.ly/jYalLS6

Wen Wen @muteddragon.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For sake of future Viable Paradise classes, I wrote a thing. buttondown.com/wenwenwrites...

Viable Paradise

I am writing this post for all the people who just got the special email that says “Congratulations, welcome to the Viable Paradise cult” (paraphrasing) and...

buttondown.com

Lia Lao @thelialao.bsky.social · 2mo ago

so excited to announce my short story “this is c(lone)-pop” is now out in @othersidespec.bsky.social! 🥹 feat. fun normal stuff (tm) like: 🧪dissolving your celeb crush in acid ⭐️ commentary on the totally fine and not at all exploitive k-pop/c-pop industry 🎤 parasocial toxic yuri x 1000

poster with the text: “this is c(lone)-pop, science fiction, 4000 words, toxic yuri agenda/ parasocial projection / cloning your dead c-pop bias is fine right?, by the lia lao”. left side shows chrysanthemums with a neon green filter and right side shows a close up of an asian woman’s eyes as she looks between the gaps of a shelf.

OTHERSIDE@othersidespec.bsky.social · 2mo ago

ISSUE 2 IS NOW FREE TO READ ONLINE! Tiger princesses! Cyborgs! Spacefaring scientists and sword-wielding students! Our second issue is warm, tender, hopeful, and sometimes horrifying in the best way. It was a joy to assemble, and we hope you enjoy it too🪐🗡️🌈 othersidespec.com/issues/issue-2/

OTHERSIDE Issue 2 cover on the left, with text on the right that says ISSUE 2: nine stories, six poems, one essay, original art by queer creators available now! www.othersidespec.com

Daryl Gregory @darylwriterguy.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My next novella, THE PORCELAIN SISTERS, is out Oct 27 2026--but you blogger/ booktok/ reviewer types can get it NOW. Two sisters, one of whom happens to be a haunted doll, go on the road to uncover family secrets. Is it horror-comedy or comedy-horror? You decide #horror @tachyonpub.bsky.social

Cover of my next novella, THE PORCELAIN SISTERS, above text saying that it's now available on Netgalley and Edeweiss

Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Strange Horizons annual fund-drive is now live! Support us to continue publishing free, weekly, online SFFH fiction, poetry, art, and non-fiction for our 27th year! www.backerkit.com/c/users/3516... For new supporters - welcome aboard. For the regulars - you’ll notice something different. 🧵

Strange Horizons - BackerKit

Back projects you want to see in the world.

backerkit.com

Lia Lao @thelialao.bsky.social · 2mo ago

had the pleasure of betaing this and it is SO good. claire's prose and attention to detail is a scrumptious meal you do not want to miss

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Contract is officially signed!! I'm over the moon to share that my dark spec short story “The Light Below” has been acquired by @apexmag.bsky.social for publication. 🔥🌌 Also pleased as punch that this story was written for a holiday gift exchange with my crew at @viableparadise.bsky.social. 🪼

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Wen Wen @muteddragon.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Contract signed, "The Fox Spirit's Retelling" will be in Tales from the Cryptids. It's wild that I get to be in this table of contents. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

Tales from the Cryptids: Games, Stories, & Uncanny Ephemera

A book of games and writing that flips the lens on conventional cryptid lore. In this zine, cryptids are beings with vivid lives, goals, and stories of their own to share. Don’t solve the mystery. Be ...

backerkit.com

Christopher R. Muscato @chrisrmuscato.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The end is nigh…or is it really the beginning? You decide! Last installment of my serialized eco-space story. Thanks very much for reading! #scifi #ecofiction #shortstory dailytomorrow.substack.com/p/a-brief-hi...

A Brief History of Kuiper Belt Cave Song — Part Seven

By Christopher R. Muscato

dailytomorrow.substack.com

🐋 haden 🪐@yavin4.bsky.social · 2mo ago

actually given the talk earlier this month about how editors at publishing houses are shying away from queer stories it’d be really cool this pride month for more established tradpub folks to shout out queer indie work. or just seek it out! there is good stuff out there

Lindz McLeod - THE MISEDUCATION OF CAROLINE BINGLEY is out now!@lindzmcleod.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I have heard from writer friends that editors have directly told they don't want queer books right now, or have asked them to alter/remove queer characters, etc—a state of affairs which is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. Queer audiences exist and need to see themselves reflected in literature!

Konner Knudsen 🌈@penzerker.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I really appreciate Erik bringing this topic, as I have learned more and more about it from talking to other writers, creatives, and publishing professionals over the last decade. The censorship and BS standards for queer authors are not happening in a vacuum: bookriot.com/queer-books-...

Rio Lombana @riolombana.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thrilled to share my very short story "Everyone Drinks at Sunrise" published by @pseudopod.org today, alongside some other creepy tales. I especially love the host's commentary. Liberal guilt, it turns out, *is* delicious.

PseudoPod 1032: Flash on the Borderlands LXXVIII (78): Terraeque urbesque recedant

“We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” “Again?” “Every damn time,” Kate said, running a hand through her hair. “Aren’t there supposed to be satellites checking the routes all day long?

pseudopod.org

ivy 🌿@ontheivyvine.bsky.social · 3mo ago

COVER REVEAL (USA) 🩸🍐🕯️ i am so, so excited to be revealing the cover for my debut novel THIS IS NOT AN EXORCISM (yes, that’s a new title), out ❗️april 27, 2027❗️ from tor nightfire!

Cover of upcoming debut horror novel THIS IS NOT AN EXORCISM by Ivy Fang. The cover depicts a traditional Chinese-style memorial altar with plated fruit, an incense burner, and melted candles. Overlooking the spread is a portrait of a young man, weeping black blood from one eye, face mostly obscured by smoke.

Apex Magazine and Book Company @apexmag.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"My mother tended to the springs of conception and abortion for a thousand years. Then she passed them to me." 🌬️🕷️⛲ New fiction today by @clairejiawen.bsky.social: "The Bathhouse for Long Life" Read it here: www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-...

"The Bathhouse for Long Life" By Claire Jia-Wen. Apex Magazine, Issue 153.

Rio Lombana @riolombana.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#QuestPit #W #A #F #RF Howl's Moving Castle x The Wizard of Oz An autistic demi-girl nun and her golden retriever boyfriend track down God to demand They explain the invisible wall shoving her across the magical shifting world. Two disaster bisexuals, trapped in a sidescroller. Will they kiss??

Pitch: Remi's peaceful life as a nun is interrupted when an invisible wall appears, sweeping her across her magical, shifting world like a 3D sidescroller. To escape this curse, she’ll have to break her vow of silence, not fall in love with (or murder) the chatterbox traveling with her, and confront the Mapmaker Themself—the god who created her world.

HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE x DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL
bi 4 bi
neurodivergent love
golden retriever boyfriend
simulation theory for the discerning romantasy girlies

FIRST LINE: The monastery's map had just gone out of date again when Remi found another crack in the world.

Lia Lao @thelialao.bsky.social · 3mo ago

thrilled to announce “this is c(lone)-pop” has been acquired by @othersidespec.bsky.social! this was originally written for my @viableparadise.bsky.social cohort’s secret santa exchange, which is kind of hilarious in hindsight (me: happy holidays, have TOXIC YURI and IDOLS DISSOLVING IN ACID 🤩)

Natalie Zutter @zutsuit.bsky.social · 3mo ago

My sex robot story is free to read at Adventitious! Stoked to be part of the monstrous (complimentary) Issue 2 with my anti-ode to the dehumanization of modern dating by way of a pleasure bot who's *too* entitled to his owner's data.

Adventitious.@adventitiouswords.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Toy or companion? 😘 "Last Edit to THE ALL BANGERS LIST Made By Your Sex Robot at 11:39 A.M." by @zutsuit.bsky.social www.adventitious.net/stories/all-...

C.M. Sullivan 🍉@cmsullivan.bsky.social · 3mo ago

my debut short story (and first pro rate sale) are now up in full!! read the whole thing here: dailytomorrow.substack.com/p/song-for-t...

Song for the Once-Dead Earth — Full Story

By C.M. Sullivan

dailytomorrow.substack.com