Vanessa Fogg

New pinned post: my debut collection of short stories, The House of Illusionists, is now officially out from @IntFlightPress Available at Amazon, Indiebound, Barnes and Noble online, and direct from publisher. Link to more info in comment

The fact that you can read a book written by someone who has been dead for two centuries and feel less alone than you do in most rooms full of living people is either the most beautiful or the most heartbreaking thing about literature and I genuinely cannot decide which.

Lots of times when I sit down to write the words don't come. I used to think this was a failure of mine, and it'd reduce me to tears. I'd hear the clicking in the back of my head and mistake it for brain damage, that somehow in the middle of the night, unaware, my body had become like a broken fuselage and I'd severed my ability to access my own subconsciousness. I'd scream at myself. I'd grind my palms into the top of my knees. WRITE. So I'd write. Only for me to stutter out some garbage I'd delete the next morning. I've come to learn since then that the moments I don't write are just as important as the moments that I do. The most difficult part of a writers job is not putting down one word after the other. It's enduring the quiet, swirling space before the writing, when the words are still becoming, when they are just feelings and colors and images that have not adhered themselves to any coherent shape. The most important words to write are the ones that are shy to emerge, that hide in soft dens, eyes glittering. The kind of words that require the patience to wait for them, crouched down in the dark, palm open in invitation.

I realize the battle has been lost, but people, art isn't supposed to have a thesis statement and then all the chapters/scenes are body paragraphs providing supporting arguments. You are confusing it with the five-paragraph essay you let ChatGPT write for you in high school.

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sensible Thing

Sent this to a friend who’s a writer just now and thought, “Yup, that’s it. Every time. Learn its heart.”

On the helicopter leaving the ship right now. This planet is impossibly beautiful from every altitude I’ve seen it…surface to 250,000 miles

Yes - we laughed at a screening because nobody who hangs out with molecular biologists could find it credible they’d know anything outside of their incredibly narrow research focus.

🚨 This was the Artemis II crew's view this morning from 41,756 miles (67,200 km) up No human has seen a crescent Earth in full since 1972

This little poem always undoes me.

I'm looking for readers for both @FracturedLit & @uncharted_mag_. It's a laidback way to get involved with a literary magazine, and it will help level up your writing! We ask for 2-4 hours of volunteer reading each week, but I'm flexible with vacations and other commitments.

@YizzyYu Oh, thank you so much, Izzy! This means so much, coming from you 💕💕

@FoggWriter Oh my God! Way deep into the heart, Vanessa and the mind. It has such beautifully important things to say about the cycle of things, and loss and beauty and art. The imagery is just wow. The lines too (mmm!.."it's always winter on the moon"). Love your work!

My latest story is now out in Lightspeed Magazine! It's inspired by Chinese myths of immortality plus a love for tea, and it's one of my favorite things that I've written yet. lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/lotus-…

tea forgives overthinking each sip resets

It's so easy to stay tucked up inside on winter days, when it's cold and damp and dark, but I promise you that there are rich colours, soft light and the delicate tracery of bare trees all waiting for you out there. Wrap up warm, and you always return home with your heart a little lighter than when you set out. 📍 Peak District, England

Thanks to @strangehorizons for this lovely review of THE HOUSE OF ILLUSIONISTS by Vanessa Fogg! strangehorizons.com/wordpress/non-…

In the Midwest we play a game called “am I still on the road”

Who would expect such an emotional and tender paragraph in a book about physics?

The translator is Prof. Eileen Chengyin Chow (@chowleen), whose name was removed from the original post.

Remember this pensive 12th century Chinese general's poem the next time someone shits on small talk

You have no idea how much I resent AI for completely ruining a perfectly good sentence structure: "It's not just x – it's y." You cannot write that anymore. Everyone will assume it's AI or get derailed wondering if it's AI. We've been robbed of an entire sentence form.