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brandyo71.bsky.social
Brandy O’Briant
@brandyo71.bsky.social
2.5K followers 5.3K following 740 posts
54. American in England. Beagle mom. Former bookshop owner. Signed 1st edition collector. Northwestern University MFA. Writer. Literary fiction. INFJ.
Finalist, Wildhouse Fiction Prize
Honourable Mention, Craft Literary 1st Chapters
brandyobriant.com
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brandyo71.bsky.social
This.
annabookwriter.bsky.social Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · Nov 28
As I always do with boycotts, I urge: be tough with corporations, gentle with individual buyers. For some people, Black Friday sales are the way they get their kids jackets that fit, shoes that hold up to the weather. Yelling at them doesn’t help the cause.
November 28, 2025 at 5:14 PM
brandyo71.bsky.social
Happy thanksgiving from Mister Bingley!
#beaglesofbluesky
Cute beagle eying a big stuffed turkey
November 28, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Brandy O’Briant
tabtraci.bsky.social
I have never needed Friday more. TGIF, #5amwritersclub! ✍️📚 Let’s end the week with a few more chapters behind us. 🎉 #WritingCommunity
a cartoon of snoopy holding a piece of paper
Alt: a cartoon of snoopy holding a piece of paper and typing on top of his doghouse
media.tenor.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:47 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writing
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
Why did she think for a moment that she could come and have a solitary stroll with Bingley, a bit of time for reflection and grief? Now she stood before her worst nightmare: a group of people who want to express sympathy to her. Dozens of eyes turn to her as Iris walks her towards the makeshift memorial. What is it about the look of sympathy? The intensity of the kindness, the soothing tone, the soft closeness? The physicality of emotional proximity, the hand on the arm or the back, the performative attempt at a lack of judgment. But judgment is what Helen feels emanating off the people who turn from the pile of offerings to her. She wants to hide, to flee the feeling of nakedness that has overcome her. She should have curled up on the sofa and slept the day away with her dog. She should have walked in the other direction. Iris gently squeezes her arm. You can do it, she whispers to Helen. Once you’ve faced it, it will get easier. Will it? Helen asks the woman, hoping for some sliver of wisdom. Iris shrugs. Maybe. What the fuck do I know?
November 21, 2025 at 8:44 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writing
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
Why did she think for a moment that she could come and have a solitary stroll with Bingley, a bit of time for reflection and grief? Now she stood before her worst nightmare: a group of people who want to express sympathy to her. Dozens of eyes turn to her as Iris walks her towards the makeshift memorial. What is it about the look of sympathy? The intensity of the kindness, the soothing tone, the soft closeness? The physicality of emotional proximity, the hand on the arm or the back, the performative attempt at a lack of judgment. But judgment is what Helen feels emanating off the people who turn from the pile of offerings to her. She wants to hide, to flee the feeling of nakedness that has overcome her. She should have curled up on the sofa and slept the day away with her dog. She should have walked in the other direction. Iris gently squeezes her arm. You can do it, she whispers to Helen. Once you’ve faced it, it will get easier. Will it? Helen asks the woman, hoping for some sliver of wisdom. Iris shrugs. Maybe. What the fuck do I know?
November 21, 2025 at 8:44 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
There’s something else, Rosie says to her. I’m not sure how to say this, because I do understand your feelings about the bench. And I know you are protecting the family and, she pauses, perhaps yourself. No one wants to be constantly reminded of a tragedy like this. I get it. It’s just that something like this bench isn’t just for the Davies family, or for you. It’s for the community. When something like this happens, it doesn’t just happen to one. It happens to all. Everyone sees themselves in the family; they see their child. There needs to be an outlet for those feelings to emerge as a group. We all belong to each other. That’s what makes it so special on the hill.
November 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
There’s something else, Rosie says to her. I’m not sure how to say this, because I do understand your feelings about the bench. And I know you are protecting the family and, she pauses, perhaps yourself. No one wants to be constantly reminded of a tragedy like this. I get it. It’s just that something like this bench isn’t just for the Davies family, or for you. It’s for the community. When something like this happens, it doesn’t just happen to one. It happens to all. Everyone sees themselves in the family; they see their child. There needs to be an outlet for those feelings to emerge as a group. We all belong to each other. That’s what makes it so special on the hill.
November 20, 2025 at 9:56 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
George pulls up in front of Helen’s house and beeps. She gives Bingley a shinbone filled with peanut butter and heads out to find his big black van when she was expecting Patrick’s little VW Golf. She pulls open the door to see Patrick in the second row and Brian and Claudia in the third. Helen gives Claudia a smile, surprised and glad to see her and Brian are joining, and receives what feels like a curt grin. An atmosphere pervades the vehicle, and she looks at Rosie who gives a brief eyeroll. All are dressed appropriately in dark colours, and the air feels equally sombre. She sits next to Patrick and puts on her seatbelt. He kisses her cheek and asks how she is. As good as one can be, I suppose, she answers.
November 19, 2025 at 10:10 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
George pulls up in front of Helen’s house and beeps. She gives Bingley a shinbone filled with peanut butter and heads out to find his big black van when she was expecting Patrick’s little VW Golf. She pulls open the door to see Patrick in the second row and Brian and Claudia in the third. Helen gives Claudia a smile, surprised and glad to see her and Brian are joining, and receives what feels like a curt grin. An atmosphere pervades the vehicle, and she looks at Rosie who gives a brief eyeroll. All are dressed appropriately in dark colours, and the air feels equally sombre. She sits next to Patrick and puts on her seatbelt. He kisses her cheek and asks how she is. As good as one can be, I suppose, she answers.
November 19, 2025 at 10:09 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#authorsofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Elisabeth sinks down further into the armchair than before, settling in. Helen does the same, as if opening up more room for this exchange, giving it breadth and reverence, staying completely aware that this woman just did the unimaginable, made funeral preparations for her child. Made the decision to burn her child’s body. Helen believes in cremation, believes in natural burials. She finds the thoughts of spending outrageous amounts of money on preserving a dead body with chemicals and ornate boxes nauseating. But still. She could not imagine making the choice to set a child’s corpse on fire. The finality of it. As if death weren’t final enough.
November 17, 2025 at 9:57 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#authorsofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Elisabeth sinks down further into the armchair than before, settling in. Helen does the same, as if opening up more room for this exchange, giving it breadth and reverence, staying completely aware that this woman just did the unimaginable, made funeral preparations for her child. Made the decision to burn her child’s body. Helen believes in cremation, believes in natural burials. She finds the thoughts of spending outrageous amounts of money on preserving a dead body with chemicals and ornate boxes nauseating. But still. She could not imagine making the choice to set a child’s corpse on fire. The finality of it. As if death weren’t final enough.
November 17, 2025 at 9:57 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
Now that she has all these mature traits she coveted, Helen wishes she could stop the clock or slow it a bit. It’s not that she wishes to be younger; just that she failed to anticipate the speed at which the process progressed. She feels almost out of her body with this new clarity of death. A close sibling to the appreciation of life. Never one to shirk the idea of it, and something she encountered head on, especially given the sudden loss of her husband. But this feels different. This vision of herself in the mirror with the absolutely certainty she will die. Maybe not for a long while. Maybe tomorrow. She thinks to the Buddhist practice of contemplating death, maransati, a word she pulls from forty-year-old file in her brain, a word she wrote on a notecard at university, studying for a Sanskrit test. Her taking a Sanskrit class drove her father absolutely mental. Sanskrit! he would say, I want Sanskrit written on my tombstone because I will never believe it. At twenty, she found the thought of fixating on one’s own passing to be macabre. Envisioning of the decay of flesh, the disintegration of the matter that made one physical, real, material. This seems like yesterday to her. And yet. The grey hairs sprout one at a time so slowly that one hardly notices. The breasts that once defied gravity succumb to it centimetre by centimetre. She cups both her breasts and lifts them. They float like this in the water. She releases them again and even in a bra, she feels the pull of them downward. And she never ever goes anywhere without a good pair of tweezers anymore. The hairs sprouting from her grandmother’s chin, especially a long black one from a faint mole right in the centre, would make her wonder at how someone could let themselves go so much as to not notice a wiry hair like that poking out from one’s face? She has more understanding now as she has to put on her reading glasses and stand close to a bright window to identify and extract the ones she feels with her ha…
November 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#authorsofbluesky
#amediting
#litfic
Now that she has all these mature traits she coveted, Helen wishes she could stop the clock or slow it a bit. It’s not that she wishes to be younger; just that she failed to anticipate the speed at which the process progressed. She feels almost out of her body with this new clarity of death. A close sibling to the appreciation of life. Never one to shirk the idea of it, and something she encountered head on, especially given the sudden loss of her husband. But this feels different. This vision of herself in the mirror with the absolutely certainty she will die. Maybe not for a long while. Maybe tomorrow. She thinks to the Buddhist practice of contemplating death, maransati, a word she pulls from forty-year-old file in her brain, a word she wrote on a notecard at university, studying for a Sanskrit test. Her taking a Sanskrit class drove her father absolutely mental. Sanskrit! he would say, I want Sanskrit written on my tombstone because I will never believe it. At twenty, she found the thought of fixating on one’s own passing to be macabre. Envisioning of the decay of flesh, the disintegration of the matter that made one physical, real, material. This seems like yesterday to her. And yet. The grey hairs sprout one at a time so slowly that one hardly notices. The breasts that once defied gravity succumb to it centimetre by centimetre. She cups both her breasts and lifts them. They float like this in the water. She releases them again and even in a bra, she feels the pull of them downward. And she never ever goes anywhere without a good pair of tweezers anymore. The hairs sprouting from her grandmother’s chin, especially a long black one from a faint mole right in the centre, would make her wonder at how someone could let themselves go so much as to not notice a wiry hair like that poking out from one’s face? She has more understanding now as she has to put on her reading glasses and stand close to a bright window to identify and extract the ones she feels with her ha…
November 15, 2025 at 1:32 PM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Helen, too deep in her own merriment to answer, just nods. And Chris looks at her stunned for a moment. She knows it’s wrong. She cannot help herself. She knows she is behaving horribly. Committing a sacrilege. Mirth in this moment? He squeezes her hand and chuckles softly, at first out of vague politeness or perhaps embarrassment for this mad woman. Then Helen, laughing so hard, farts loudly. Chris guffaws at the sound and then laughs out loud, harder and harder, until they are both doubled over, unable to catch their breath. There they are holding hands, lying on their sides now, and laughing like madmen on the West Hill, right on the spot where his daughter died a week ago.
November 14, 2025 at 11:06 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Helen, too deep in her own merriment to answer, just nods. And Chris looks at her stunned for a moment. She knows it’s wrong. She cannot help herself. She knows she is behaving horribly. Committing a sacrilege. Mirth in this moment? He squeezes her hand and chuckles softly, at first out of vague politeness or perhaps embarrassment for this mad woman. Then Helen, laughing so hard, farts loudly. Chris guffaws at the sound and then laughs out loud, harder and harder, until they are both doubled over, unable to catch their breath. There they are holding hands, lying on their sides now, and laughing like madmen on the West Hill, right on the spot where his daughter died a week ago.
November 14, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Brandy O’Briant
atrupar.com
AOC: "It is unconscionable that what we are debating right now is legislation that will give 8 senators over $1 million a piece & we're robbing people of their food assistance & healthcare to pay for it. How can we vote to enrich ourselves by stealing from the American people?"
November 12, 2025 at 10:39 PM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Rowan has gone to the basket of toys from Rosie. He pulls out Legos of all shapes and sizes and colours and sets to building. Helen likes this. Charlie never followed the instructions on the fancy Lego sets his grandmother bought him for Christmas and birthdays, which infuriated her when she had come to visit from the States. He would open the bags with that particular crinkly Lego-bag sound, dump them all together on the floor and create something entirely new. Her mother would look at Helen and say, I spent all that money when I could have just bought him the cheap bag of random ones. Helen would just respond, yes probably. And like clockwork, every year she experienced the howling agony of stepping on one of those plastic bricks with her bare feet. Once dressed, Helen sits down on the floor with Rowan and silently watches him build. Every once in a while, she will choose and offer up a certain block which he will either take without noticing it came from her or reject with a dismissive quick headshake. After about an hour, he stops and stands up, walking around the structure, examining it. To Helen, it looks like stacks of white and black and brown blocks, concentrated in certain smaller mounds. There is a red line on top of one of the round rises. Bingley, lying on the floor near them, lifts an eye and close it just as quickly. Rowan looks at Helen. What do you think? ard. It doesn’t lie flat like I wanted it to. Bingley. Of course. Now she has something to work with. Oh, I think you did a great job capturing his colours with the white and black and brown. And the red is obviously his collar. Well done! Rowan beams at her and picks up the Lego dog. He sets it gently on the coffee table and turns it towards where the dog sleeps. Now Bingley can see himself, he tells Helen. And Helen knows that this will have a place in her home always.
November 13, 2025 at 9:17 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Rowan has gone to the basket of toys from Rosie. He pulls out Legos of all shapes and sizes and colours and sets to building. Helen likes this. Charlie never followed the instructions on the fancy Lego sets his grandmother bought him for Christmas and birthdays, which infuriated her when she had come to visit from the States. He would open the bags with that particular crinkly Lego-bag sound, dump them all together on the floor and create something entirely new. Her mother would look at Helen and say, I spent all that money when I could have just bought him the cheap bag of random ones. Helen would just respond, yes probably. And like clockwork, every year she experienced the howling agony of stepping on one of those plastic bricks with her bare feet. Once dressed, Helen sits down on the floor with Rowan and silently watches him build. Every once in a while, she will choose and offer up a certain block which he will either take without noticing it came from her or reject with a dismissive quick headshake. After about an hour, he stops and stands up, walking around the structure, examining it. To Helen, it looks like stacks of white and black and brown blocks, concentrated in certain smaller mounds. There is a red line on top of one of the round rises. Bingley, lying on the floor near them, lifts an eye and close it just as quickly. Rowan looks at Helen. What do you think? ard. It doesn’t lie flat like I wanted it to. Bingley. Of course. Now she has something to work with. Oh, I think you did a great job capturing his colours with the white and black and brown. And the red is obviously his collar. Well done! Rowan beams at her and picks up the Lego dog. He sets it gently on the coffee table and turns it towards where the dog sleeps. Now Bingley can see himself, he tells Helen. And Helen knows that this will have a place in her home always.
November 13, 2025 at 9:16 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Elisabeth stands before her crying, looking as dishevelled as Helen had this morning, wearing greyish jeans that were perhaps once white, a sheer pale blue t-shirt with a coral-coloured bra beneath. Nothing looks clean, including her. The long blonde hair greasy and pulled into a ratty side ponytail and Helen notices as smudge on one of the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses, right in front of the pupil. Helen imagines that must make it difficult to see but then realises that perhaps Elisabeth cannot tell the difference between the smudge and the blurriness of her teary eyes. Elisabeth, as if caught in the act of something unsavoury, quickly swipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
November 12, 2025 at 11:42 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Elisabeth stands before her crying, looking as dishevelled as Helen had this morning, wearing greyish jeans that were perhaps once white, a sheer pale blue t-shirt with a coral-coloured bra beneath. Nothing looks clean, including her. The long blonde hair greasy and pulled into a ratty side ponytail and Helen notices as smudge on one of the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses, right in front of the pupil. Helen imagines that must make it difficult to see but then realises that perhaps Elisabeth cannot tell the difference between the smudge and the blurriness of her teary eyes. Elisabeth, as if caught in the act of something unsavoury, quickly swipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
November 12, 2025 at 11:41 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
Already posted the piece with movement, so went with move.

#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Helen flicks a small piece of chicken to Bingley who catches it midair with the accuracy of an Arsenal goalie. Arsenal. She sees Rowan’s red shirt in her mind and feels the weight of her experience and the two, or was it three, glasses of wine she has had today. The chair on which she sits feels as if it might dissolve beneath her and her body releases its vigilant hold, morphing her from a human shape to a blob before Claudia’s eyes. Okay, mum. You’re tired. Let’s get you upstairs. I’m going to draw you a bath and then Brian and I will clean up down here. Helen wants to argue with her daughter. I am supposed to be the one drawing you a bath, putting in bubbles and toys and sitting next to you singing Wheels on the Bus or Row Row Row Your Boat. But she can’t. She hasn’t the energy to move her mouth to form the words, I am the mother.
November 7, 2025 at 9:10 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
Already posted the piece with movement, so went with move.

#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
Helen flicks a small piece of chicken to Bingley who catches it midair with the accuracy of an Arsenal goalie. Arsenal. She sees Rowan’s red shirt in her mind and feels the weight of her experience and the two, or was it three, glasses of wine she has had today. The chair on which she sits feels as if it might dissolve beneath her and her body releases its vigilant hold, morphing her from a human shape to a blob before Claudia’s eyes. Okay, mum. You’re tired. Let’s get you upstairs. I’m going to draw you a bath and then Brian and I will clean up down here. Helen wants to argue with her daughter. I am supposed to be the one drawing you a bath, putting in bubbles and toys and sitting next to you singing Wheels on the Bus or Row Row Row Your Boat. But she can’t. She hasn’t the energy to move her mouth to form the words, I am the mother.
November 7, 2025 at 9:09 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
The father emits animal noises of such affliction, such heartbreak, sounds that seems to never end, sounds Helen has never heard before and hopes never to hear again. And a sight, a sight that will live etched on the back of her eyelids for all days, the blonde head tilting back and the viscous red fluid trailing onto the green cardigan. Rowan stands completely still in the middle of the field, staring at his sister’s body fallen on the grass, trying in his child’s mind to process what’s before him. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t blink, but watches his father run toward his sister, grab her head, and try to move her chin towards her chest in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.
November 5, 2025 at 9:21 AM
brandyo71.bsky.social
#wipsnips
#writingcommunity
#writersofbluesky
#writesky
#booksky
#amediting
#litfic
The father emits animal noises of such affliction, such heartbreak, sounds that seems to never end, sounds Helen has never heard before and hopes never to hear again. And a sight, a sight that will live etched on the back of her eyelids for all days, the blonde head tilting back and the viscous red fluid trailing onto the green cardigan. Rowan stands completely still in the middle of the field, staring at his sister’s body fallen on the grass, trying in his child’s mind to process what’s before him. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t blink, but watches his father run toward his sister, grab her head, and try to move her chin towards her chest in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.
November 5, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Brandy O’Briant
gigawattconduit.bsky.social
Woke up today to the news
Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake from the SNL short “dick in a box”
November 4, 2025 at 1:53 PM