John Lechner
@johnlechner.bsky.social
I'm an author, illustrator, animator & puppeteer. I write stories and comics about nature, especially insects! Currently seeking an agent. he/him www.johnlechner.com 🍃
Pinned
Here's a drawing from last year's Folktale Week, sharing again for #KidLitArtPostcard day. I'm an author/illustrator with a pile of stories in progress, currently querying agents. See more at my website: johnlechner.com 🍄🦋🍃 #kidlitart
I heard music overhead and looked up to see this glorious sight. Within ten seconds they were gone, as though they were never there.
December 27, 2025 at 4:55 AM
I heard music overhead and looked up to see this glorious sight. Within ten seconds they were gone, as though they were never there.
Reposted by John Lechner
December 25, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by John Lechner
I'm who
my owl calls to
slow truths
through long night songs
of found beauty
#TankaThursday (true)
#DailyHaikuPrompt (night)
#whistpr (beauty)
my owl calls to
slow truths
through long night songs
of found beauty
#TankaThursday (true)
#DailyHaikuPrompt (night)
#whistpr (beauty)
December 25, 2025 at 9:22 AM
I'm who
my owl calls to
slow truths
through long night songs
of found beauty
#TankaThursday (true)
#DailyHaikuPrompt (night)
#whistpr (beauty)
my owl calls to
slow truths
through long night songs
of found beauty
#TankaThursday (true)
#DailyHaikuPrompt (night)
#whistpr (beauty)
Reposted by John Lechner
So it's time for the literal #Crustmas themed crabs, to match my Hannukah and Halloween threads! (And to kick off #InverteFest I guess!) 🦑
Most obviously, the Christmas Island red crab, featured in this viral skeet
1/8
Most obviously, the Christmas Island red crab, featured in this viral skeet
1/8
when we say we want more streets to be pedestrianized, this is what we mean
December 25, 2025 at 12:58 PM
So it's time for the literal #Crustmas themed crabs, to match my Hannukah and Halloween threads! (And to kick off #InverteFest I guess!) 🦑
Most obviously, the Christmas Island red crab, featured in this viral skeet
1/8
Most obviously, the Christmas Island red crab, featured in this viral skeet
1/8
Reposted by John Lechner
These longdarks crawl wiv never-weres spat out by the old year.
Wot's mutters of unhappenstance reach rufous pointy ears.
Winter foxes stalk lost chances, before they disappear.
Apparently, they taste like sweet hopes, salty lickle fears.
9/10
#whistpr (spat)
#inkMine (happenstance)
Wot's mutters of unhappenstance reach rufous pointy ears.
Winter foxes stalk lost chances, before they disappear.
Apparently, they taste like sweet hopes, salty lickle fears.
9/10
#whistpr (spat)
#inkMine (happenstance)
Meanwhile, on the boating lake, swans float on their reflections.
They ain't really mute, of course, more fond of introspection.
Swans' yule gift is to ask their mirror symmetry a question.
To hear half-answers, upside down, wiv whispers of affection.
#whistpr (symmetry) 8/10
They ain't really mute, of course, more fond of introspection.
Swans' yule gift is to ask their mirror symmetry a question.
To hear half-answers, upside down, wiv whispers of affection.
#whistpr (symmetry) 8/10
A cormorant spreads its wings for sleepy sun to dry.
Them seacrows, says Beach Crow, is charmed on midwinter nights.
Instead of diving under waves, they dives up into skies.
Fishing for star glitterings, bobby-floating on moonlight.
#whistpr (float) 7/10
Them seacrows, says Beach Crow, is charmed on midwinter nights.
Instead of diving under waves, they dives up into skies.
Fishing for star glitterings, bobby-floating on moonlight.
#whistpr (float) 7/10
December 24, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by John Lechner
Moths I have met
(& photographed)
Top row - beautiful wood nymph moth, cecropia moth, arcigera flower moth
Bottom row - yellow-collared flower moth, pale beauty moth, clymene moth 📷 #Invertebrates
(& photographed)
Top row - beautiful wood nymph moth, cecropia moth, arcigera flower moth
Bottom row - yellow-collared flower moth, pale beauty moth, clymene moth 📷 #Invertebrates
December 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Moths I have met
(& photographed)
Top row - beautiful wood nymph moth, cecropia moth, arcigera flower moth
Bottom row - yellow-collared flower moth, pale beauty moth, clymene moth 📷 #Invertebrates
(& photographed)
Top row - beautiful wood nymph moth, cecropia moth, arcigera flower moth
Bottom row - yellow-collared flower moth, pale beauty moth, clymene moth 📷 #Invertebrates
Reposted by John Lechner
December 23, 2025 at 10:22 AM
A friend was watching Home Alone with her 11-year-old son, and he said, "Mom, what's an answering machine?"
December 23, 2025 at 10:09 PM
A friend was watching Home Alone with her 11-year-old son, and he said, "Mom, what's an answering machine?"
Reposted by John Lechner
Violet fox is always excited to see her vintage reindeer ornaments every year. She’s dressed as a candy cane to go caroling.
The 2nd in my christmas costumed characters series.
#KidLitArt #KidLit #CharacterDesign #illustration #christmas #holidays
The 2nd in my christmas costumed characters series.
#KidLitArt #KidLit #CharacterDesign #illustration #christmas #holidays
December 23, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Violet fox is always excited to see her vintage reindeer ornaments every year. She’s dressed as a candy cane to go caroling.
The 2nd in my christmas costumed characters series.
#KidLitArt #KidLit #CharacterDesign #illustration #christmas #holidays
The 2nd in my christmas costumed characters series.
#KidLitArt #KidLit #CharacterDesign #illustration #christmas #holidays
Reposted by John Lechner
This comic is actually about how amazing healing is and how humor helps. Sometimes our bodies are so used to being disregulated that being regulated feels wrong and we chase the high of stress. I’m on this journey and learning what safe feels like!
#comic #mentalhealth #ifs #anxiety
#comic #mentalhealth #ifs #anxiety
December 23, 2025 at 4:07 PM
This comic is actually about how amazing healing is and how humor helps. Sometimes our bodies are so used to being disregulated that being regulated feels wrong and we chase the high of stress. I’m on this journey and learning what safe feels like!
#comic #mentalhealth #ifs #anxiety
#comic #mentalhealth #ifs #anxiety
Reposted by John Lechner
Day 22 #ArtAdventCalendar • This #SciArt #symptomatology #embroidery depicts the neurological fatigue of post-exertional malaise (PEM), the hallmark symptom of #MECFS: neuraesthenia (2017).
December 22, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Day 22 #ArtAdventCalendar • This #SciArt #symptomatology #embroidery depicts the neurological fatigue of post-exertional malaise (PEM), the hallmark symptom of #MECFS: neuraesthenia (2017).
I haven't been outside to take pictures lately, so here's one from six years ago. I still visit this pond often. ❄️
December 22, 2025 at 3:45 AM
I haven't been outside to take pictures lately, so here's one from six years ago. I still visit this pond often. ❄️
Reposted by John Lechner
Collage of some of my photographs ...
December 22, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Collage of some of my photographs ...
Reposted by John Lechner
In case you missed it. Either way, you go there for Tressie and get Jason. Go there for Jason and you get Tressie. Major twofer for social science academics who also write kidlit. 🎶
December 21, 2025 at 2:27 PM
In case you missed it. Either way, you go there for Tressie and get Jason. Go there for Jason and you get Tressie. Major twofer for social science academics who also write kidlit. 🎶
Reposted by John Lechner
Did you I know I finished a drawing yesterday? And that it involves elliptic curves?!?
A daring escape past y^2=x^3+x+3 over F14641
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
December 20, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Did you I know I finished a drawing yesterday? And that it involves elliptic curves?!?
Reposted by John Lechner
Kitties do their Catmas two ways. Second, stretched beside yer fire.
Dint yer wonder, Beach Crow asks me, how yer felines got so tired?
Cos Catmas Eve, they jump the moon. Some soar a lickle higher.
And singing all the way updown. (They ain't much of a choir.)
#whistpr (fire) 4/10
Dint yer wonder, Beach Crow asks me, how yer felines got so tired?
Cos Catmas Eve, they jump the moon. Some soar a lickle higher.
And singing all the way updown. (They ain't much of a choir.)
#whistpr (fire) 4/10
But lickle hedgehogs, Beach Crow goes on, they pops out of hibernation.
They's dreaming cacti or wotever, then ~tickle-tickle~ up they waken.
Summoned by Great Squirmworm to one yulenight's jubilation.
Wot ain't booze, food & telly. Nah. It's starry meditation.
#whistpr (cactus) 3/10
They's dreaming cacti or wotever, then ~tickle-tickle~ up they waken.
Summoned by Great Squirmworm to one yulenight's jubilation.
Wot ain't booze, food & telly. Nah. It's starry meditation.
#whistpr (cactus) 3/10
Fink of woodlice, Beach Crow tells me. Curled up beneath old leaves.
They celebrate midwinter wiv Queen Deepdream Chigglepea.
Who doesn't bring 'em presents, but ancestral memories.
Of sweet drifty weightlessness far under long lost seas.
#whistpr 2/10
They celebrate midwinter wiv Queen Deepdream Chigglepea.
Who doesn't bring 'em presents, but ancestral memories.
Of sweet drifty weightlessness far under long lost seas.
#whistpr 2/10
December 19, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Kitties do their Catmas two ways. Second, stretched beside yer fire.
Dint yer wonder, Beach Crow asks me, how yer felines got so tired?
Cos Catmas Eve, they jump the moon. Some soar a lickle higher.
And singing all the way updown. (They ain't much of a choir.)
#whistpr (fire) 4/10
Dint yer wonder, Beach Crow asks me, how yer felines got so tired?
Cos Catmas Eve, they jump the moon. Some soar a lickle higher.
And singing all the way updown. (They ain't much of a choir.)
#whistpr (fire) 4/10
Reposted by John Lechner
Amazing science thread about Placozoa, the maybe-should-not-be-called pancake animals 🧪
(1/n) What if you never had to make your bed? What if your laundry could fold itself? Folding is everywhere around us - but did you know that folding flat sheets are at the ❤️ of diversity of shapes in the animal world - since 500 million years ago. Our latest work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nudC...
Self-folding laundry
YouTube video by PrakashLab
www.youtube.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Amazing science thread about Placozoa, the maybe-should-not-be-called pancake animals 🧪
Reposted by John Lechner
December 19, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by John Lechner
13. Common wasp AKA Jasper
Back to pencil & watercolour, this a good stripey girl who cleans up the dead fruit around neighbourhood. Wasps should be appreciated for their services. Just no pet, no boop, ok? Ok.
#SciArt
#ArtAdventCalendar
Back to pencil & watercolour, this a good stripey girl who cleans up the dead fruit around neighbourhood. Wasps should be appreciated for their services. Just no pet, no boop, ok? Ok.
#SciArt
#ArtAdventCalendar
December 19, 2025 at 11:15 AM
13. Common wasp AKA Jasper
Back to pencil & watercolour, this a good stripey girl who cleans up the dead fruit around neighbourhood. Wasps should be appreciated for their services. Just no pet, no boop, ok? Ok.
#SciArt
#ArtAdventCalendar
Back to pencil & watercolour, this a good stripey girl who cleans up the dead fruit around neighbourhood. Wasps should be appreciated for their services. Just no pet, no boop, ok? Ok.
#SciArt
#ArtAdventCalendar
I love everything about this painting, the colors, the texture, the perfectly-placed moon, the smoke from the chimneys, the lone rabbit. 🐇
December 17, 2025 at 2:57 PM
I love everything about this painting, the colors, the texture, the perfectly-placed moon, the smoke from the chimneys, the lone rabbit. 🐇
Reposted by John Lechner
I'd planned on announcing my book was now live, but we're going through another atmospheric river again--along with high winds, and my poorly-named dog, Tempest, has been losing his mind. He's 70lbs and goes full parrot perch with wind. *sighs* It's a lot. So here's a link.
a.co/d/j4PqArw
a.co/d/j4PqArw
Snips, Snails, and Hell Dog Tails: Death's Daughter & Her Hellhound Book #1 (A Cozy Armageddon Paranormal Urban Fantasy Series)
Snips, Snails, and Hell Dog Tails: Death's Daughter & Her Hellhound Book #1 (A Cozy Armageddon Paranormal Urban Fantasy Series) - Kindle edition by Sparrow, Wendy. Paranormal Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
a.co
December 17, 2025 at 11:40 AM
I'd planned on announcing my book was now live, but we're going through another atmospheric river again--along with high winds, and my poorly-named dog, Tempest, has been losing his mind. He's 70lbs and goes full parrot perch with wind. *sighs* It's a lot. So here's a link.
a.co/d/j4PqArw
a.co/d/j4PqArw
Reposted by John Lechner
December 17, 2025 at 5:58 AM
Reposted by John Lechner
December 16, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by John Lechner
Well lookie here! It's my best of/most notable/favorite young adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror books of 2025! reactormag.com/notable-youn...
Notable Young Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror of 2025 - Reactor
Check out 30 of the best young adult titles of the year
reactormag.com
December 16, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Well lookie here! It's my best of/most notable/favorite young adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror books of 2025! reactormag.com/notable-youn...