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Kate Maxlow

@katemaxlow.bsky.social

Recovering school administrator. I like my stories lyrical, sometimes absurd, with usually with a dash of humor and hope. My existential dread wears sparkly shoes to arm-wrestle institutions that forget they're made of people.

27 Posts37 Follower57 Folgt
Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · 8mo ago

It’s my best dinner party story, really. I mean—the character’s dinner party story. Um. Yeah.

Does It Have Pockets@doesithavepockets.bsky.social · 8mo ago

"I wrote down the recipe and put it somewhere I’d be sure to find it again, and accordingly, I haven’t seen it since." Funny, timely, and hopeful, don't miss this deliciously quirky new fiction from @katemaxlow.bsky.social | www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/kate... Art @anchalastudio.bsky.social

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · 9mo ago

When you're writing a book that features Victorian magicians: Me: Do we have any bungee cords we don't need? Husband: Uh, why? Me: I need to do a magic trick. For research. H: ... Me: But I need to cut the ends off for the trick. H: I don't... I mean... [sighs] In the garage.

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · 9mo ago

NEW FICTION! This 5-minute is dedicated to all my female friends of a certain age who find themselves at a doctor, one body part disappearing at a time. www.jerseydevilpress.com?page_id=9122 @jerseydevilpress.bsky.social

A Pumice Stone

Kate Maxlow “I’m afraid you’re disappearing,” the doctor says. He is about 50 years old with distinguished gray sideburns that I ache to scrub off with a pumice stone. But that would require me to …

jerseydevilpress.com

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · 11mo ago

When you feel a story with your whole dang heart, and realize now's as good a time as any for a cathartic cry and fist shake at the universe ... inner-worlds.ghost.io/they-promise... @esichr.bsky.social @innerworlds.bsky.social

They Promised This Would Be Beautiful by Elena Sichrovsky

Your mentor once described a Bridge as being close to sacred. Inhale against the pull of time, they said. Let past, present, and future flood your molecules.

inner-worlds.ghost.io

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · last yr.

THIS. I get so tired of hearing, "But if the genders were reversed..." NO. That's not how it works when there are clear societal power differences.

Mo Drammeh 🦇@curmudgeondotcom.bsky.social · last yr.

You can't counteract the influence of a misogynistic trope by just doing a gender swapped version of it now and then, actually. It's going to reinforce regressive ideas of women which doesn't stop being the case because you threw in a mirrored version of it somewhere in the work.

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · last yr.

This is the story that made me fall in ❤️ with @maudlinhouse.bsky.social : maudlinhouse.net/the-sword-sw... As a mother and an educator (especially in these times), the show must always go on, even as your body fails around you. Why? Because that's what we do.

The Sword Swallower’s Fatal Malady

The first signs were somewhat easy to ignore. Scratchy throat, hoarse voice, slight difficulty swallowing. The show must go on. But as the small tears and burning sores in the pharynx of the esophagus...

maudlinhouse.net

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · last yr.

And it's up! maudlinhouse.net/lucy-archivi... Thank you to @maudlinhouse.bsky.social for taking a chance on a new (to fiction) author who spent way too much time looking at mushroom pics for this story.

Lucy: Archivist and Fungal Justice Warrior

Lucy found a blueprint labeled “Secret Justice Fungi Room” hidden under bits of crumbling ivory in the tower basement, behind the urinal she perched over because the women’s restrooms had been closed ...

maudlinhouse.net

Kate Maxlow@katemaxlow.bsky.social · last yr.

Truth. I tried to write an almost completely serious story and nearly died. Write what you'd want to read, not what you think others want to read.

C. Robert Cargill@crobertcargill.bsky.social · last yr.

Don't be afraid to be you on the page. The barest you, the most naked, exposed, and self-deprecating. Write like your parents will never read it. That's the person readers are dying to get to know. Deep down in those depths is where you will find that elusive "voice" for your stories.