Courtney Floyd

thanks! 🖤

I am overcome with emotion or spiders or maybe both
🕸️🖤🕸️🖤🕸️thank🕷️you🕸️🖤🕸️🖤🕸️

Thank you for giving it a home--er, spiderweb!

Renfield at His Windowsill - Small Wonders The thing is, I started eating spiders / to remind myself of the way your kisses

I got notified yesterday that my poem, "Renfield at His Windowsill," has been nominated for a Rhysling award! I am so very delighted and honored. 🖤🕷️

A graphic of a snowy mountain over which text displays my boskone schedule: Friday 2/13 Podcasting as an Author (mod) 5:30pm, Carleton; Saturday 2/14 Weaving Magic into the Modern World, 4pm, Marinv IV; Sunday 2/15 Poetry Slam 1pm Carleton.

If you're at Boskone this weekend, come say hi! I'll have various podcast and book-related stickers if you like swag

(also I'm reading some poetry alongside some really cool people and its only the second time I've ever done that ahhh)

"Appeasement is being coordinated while resistance is not." The perfect encapsulation of what has clearly become the systemic failure of higher-ed leadership

typing *scariest moths* into a search engine sure does lead to eldritch places real quick

Congrats!!!

There will be lists and you won't be on them and it'll be okay. Somehow we keep trying.

Hey folks,

if you're looking for something you can do right now, wherever you are in the country: find organizations that support immigrants and refugees in your state. Follow their social media. Sign up for updates. Go to trainings (I'm in one right now).

Get prepared to help your neighbors.

Signed copy of HIGHER MAGIC (1) Auction item 'Signed copy of HIGHER MAGIC (1)' hosted online at 32auctions.

I donated a couple of signed copies of HIGHER MAGIC to the Publishing for Minnesota fundraiser auction, which is live now and closing soon. Funds support communities impacted by ICE raids. Get your bids in!

To live in the borderlands means you are neither hispana india negra espanola ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from; To live in the Borderlands means knowing that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years, is no longer speaking to you, the mexicanas call you rajetas, that denying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black; Cuando vives en la frontera people walk through you, the wind steals your voice, you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat, forerunner of a new race, half and half-both woman and man, neither-a new gender; To live in the Borderlands means to put chile in the borscht, eat whole wheat tortillas, speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent; be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints; Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle, the pull of the gun barrel, the rope crushing the hollow of your throat; In the Borderlands you are the battleground where enemies are kin to each other; you are at home, a stranger, the border disputes have been settled the volley of shots have scattered the truce you are wounded, lost in action dead, fighting back;

To live in the Borderlands means the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart pound you pinch you roll you out smelling like white bread but dead; To survive the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras be a crossroads.

Back in the day (my MA program), I had the opportunity to do an emphasis in Migration Studies and read a lot of Chicano/a lit. Lately, I keep thinking about this poem from Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands / La Frontera:

"To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads."

How To Help if You are Outside Minnesota Last edited January 22, 2026 I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you more or less understand the situation in Minnesota and I don’t have to explain it to you! That sa…

The wonderful writer @naomikritzer.bsky.social has posted a really helpful guide, offering ways for those of us outside Minnesota to help right now: naomikritzer.com/2026/01/21/h...

One of my 2026 goals is to finally break triple digits in my lifetime short fiction subs.

Just submitted my first two stories of the year.
Only 23 more to go.

reposting with alt

New England! Here's how you can report 🧊 sightings to local verifiers!

That is delightful! 🤩

Starting the week chatting with writing friends about how much we all love Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills cycle 🤩

It's Like Throwing a Pebble into Space In the final episode of season one, Mona and Courtney chat about their top failures of 2025, self-forgiveness in writing, season one's highs and lows, and what we're thinking about for season two. Cou...

Our (delayed) season one finale is out now!

Wallowing in Ink with Courtney Floyd • Issue 43 In which: you're invited to join a January writing challenge, I update you on my WIP, and share details and pictures of how I chose my ink of the year.

My January newsletter contains, among other things, ink swatching :)

that's it, that's the pitch this time

I'm working on my New England horror faeries WIP. 🧚

Oh, no. So sorry about your hen. 🖤

Slipped while adjusting how I was sitting on the couch and crunched my ribs on the arm. Bruised ribs are excruciating for a long time. 🫥

Banjo Frog by tanaudel | Redbubble Part of a sequence of an animal folk band.

A frog with a banjo!
Available as stickers, etc
www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1530...

PSA: if you use my author contact form to tell me you couldn't finish my book because I use the singular they

1. don't
2. fake grammar rules are a flimsy mask for bigotry, singular they has been a thing for centuries
3. you will be insta blocked and then judged in my group chats

Ah, exciting!!

White text atop a purple illustrated background. The OTHERSIDE logo is at the top. Below that, it reads: "FICTION: We are looking for unpublished speculative fiction (up to 4000 words) by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors. Sci-fi, fantasy, horror: we love it all! Simultaneous submissions are welcome! We pay 8 cents/word (USD). OPEN NOW! Find all the details at othersidespec.com/guidelines"

White text atop a purple illustrated background. The OTHERSIDE logo is at the top. Below that, it reads: "POETRY: We are looking for unpublished speculative poetry by 2SLGBTQIA+ authors. You can submit up to three poems at a time, and simultaneous submissions are always welcome. We pay $50 per poem (USD). OPEN NOW! Find all the details at othersidespec.com/guidelines"

OTHERSIDE is officially OPEN for fiction and poetry submissions 🪐🗡️

If you’re part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, send us your speculative fiction and poetry: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and everything in between!

📚 Open window: Jan 1-14
📑 See guidelines for details: othersidespec.com/guidelines/

It's icy out there. Slid and bashed my elbow first thing this morning going outside to feed the coven (my mixed flock of chickens, ducks, and a guinea fowl) and it still aches. 🥶

Great excuse to stay in all day and write, at least!

Yes! This has made me realize I'm somehow *two* novellas behind on that series. 😱

Ooh, I haven't read that one yet. But I love Nghi Vo's work!