Tessera

Conrad Loyer

@conradloyer.bsky.social

Writer, editor, gamemaster | Embracing the new mess 🌵| MFA candidate at the University of Alabama | Clarion West 2024 🐸| he/him

7 Posts420 Follower 139 Folgt

The Bulb Region @bulbregion.bsky.social · last mo.

"This puzzle was created by one man, and its categories are subjective. [...] Maybe you’ll learn a little too much about him. Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself." Go play Jeremy Mauser’s (@jeremymauser.bsky.social) hybrid trivia game, live at The Bulb Region today. 🫵 🔗↓

Conrad Loyer @conradloyer.bsky.social · last mo.

So excited/delighted/honored to have my first ever piece of flash fiction published with @bafflingmag.bsky.social and @neonhemlock.bsky.social !

Neon Hemlock@neonhemlock.bsky.social · last mo.

Delighted to share our twenty-fourth issue of @bafflingmag.bsky.social, edited by @davorobyov.bsky.social, and with a cover by @grimolkin.bsky.social, on the theme of mecha vs kaiju. 🤖👾 You can read the issue here: www.bafflingmag.com/issue-twenty... 👾🤖

Bafflng Issue 24
July 2026

Stories from:
Rhiannon Rasmussen
Christian M. Ivey
Kel E Lyle
Rem Wigmore
Sabyasachi Roy
Conrad Loyer
Jay Kang Romanus
Jason Schembri
Jeoi Gawain Lin

Bethany Black @bethanyblack.bsky.social · last mo.

🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ One milkshake to rule the boys, one milkshake to find them, one milkshake to bring the boys and in my yard to bind them 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

Reactor Magazine @reactorsff.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Matthew Cheney (@melikhovo.bsky.social) examines what we can learn from Clive Barker and Joel Lane, two very different queer writers who began carving out new spaces in weird fiction and horror in the dark days of Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis. reactormag.com/poetry-from-...

Poetry From the Plague Pit: The Early Stories of Clive Barker and Joel Lane - Reactor

At the height of Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis, two queer British horror writers began carving out their unique visions...

reactormag.com

Michael Chasin @chasin.bsky.social · 2mo ago

As Jabba the Hutt's son I'm often gatekept from progressive spaces due to preconceived notions about my family. At the same time, I acknowledge the reasonable concerns my presence would raise, and I'm working every day to unlearn the harmful attitudes instilled in me on my father's pleasure barge.

Mike X. Nichols @mikexnichols.bsky.social · 6mo ago

i often think about this review

beestung @beestung.bsky.social · 3mo ago

beestung is now accepting new work for The Pleasure Issue, interrogating the varying politics of pleasure via the difference between the erotic and the pornographic through all genres (and art!). We can't wait to read what you've got for us! 👄🐝✨ More information: beestungmag.com/special-call...

Anatomical image of a person's body with the following text:

Flash fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art. Pay: $20. Guest edited by Christian M Ivey. The Pleasure Issue, Real + Imaginary. Submission window: 05/15 - 06/13 (BIPOC: 05/15 - 6/20).

This issue aims to interrogate the varying politics of pleasure via the difference between the erotic and the pornographic through flash fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and art. Pleasure does not a vacuum. Which leads to what are the relationships between what we fear and desire, and how does how we engage signify these importances?

Complicating Queer folks' relationship to white, cis hetero, patriarchal sexual hegemony analysis for the possibility of a radical act, merely having sex or writing about sex, but to add clarity of sex and sexuality that is forbidden because Law and moral ethic of civil society. Pornography started as text and then adapted to images and then video, as it is commonly associated with today, and has shaped how we determine what kind of sexualities are acceptable and not. With these interrogations of the mundane, this issue will play a part in a long line of Queer folks' expression and understanding of self-determined states within civil society's libidinal economies. The works would range from erotica to erotica literature, with bonus points for a strong speculative element.

PLEASURE ISSUE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Flash Fiction - up to 1500 words

Poetry - up to 3 poems

Each poem can be up to 3 pages

Creative Non-Fiction - up 3,500 words

Art piece - PNG file

Unpublished work only + No simultaneous subs

Indicate if the work is speculative or literary in the cover letter

Artists can submit to each category once

Direct work to Christian M. Ivey at Christianmivey@gmail.com

silas denver 🍎@sweatermuppet.bsky.social · 5mo ago

get weirder 🫵

a digital collage with a pink, purple, green, yellow, and teal gradient overlaid on all the images. the images include a horse carrying a bucket, a cluster of mushrooms, a grub, a birds talon, a cicada, five spiders, two flower buds, a hand with an eye over the back of it, and a microscope slide of atoms. there is white text that reads "get weirder or die miserable." the background is black and there is a slightly grainy texture

Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 7mo ago

James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.

JAMES MERRILL
CHRISTMAS TREE
From loes torn hamin Had been fed, looked after, kept still, Meant, I knew— of course I knew - That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do. Warmly they took me in, made much of me,
The point from the start was to keep my spirits up. I could assent to that. For honestly, It did help to be wound in jewels, to send Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot. Over me then they wove a spell of shining —
Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel, Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T Two staring eyes. Then angels, trumpets, BUD and BEA (The children's names) in clownlike capitals, Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come — No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone. The little boy's hands meeting
About my spine. The mother's voice: Holding up wonderfully!
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today's
Dusk room aglow For the last time
With candlelight. Faces love-lit,
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.