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rgvaughan.bsky.social
Robert Vaughan
@rgvaughan.bsky.social
3K followers 1.2K following 310 posts
Author of 6 books, newest is ASKEW. I am the EIC of Bending Genres, LLC. Work in Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2019. Norton's Exceptionally Short Fictions 2018. www.robert-vaughan.com. www.bendinggenres.com
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Robert Vaughan @rgvaughan.bsky.social · 4d
All new Bending Genres Issue 49 is now live! Our Jan/ Feb 2026 issue is filled with hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue!
www.bendinggenres.com
Congratulations to our hard-working Bending Genres editors and talented writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity
Current Issue
www.bendinggenres.com
rgvaughan.bsky.social
ICYMI: @neonpajamas.bsky.social is leading our February 20- 22 @bendinggenres.bsky.social weekend workshop: asynchronous, fun, oddball, safe... come and write your ass off!!! More here, and DM with any questions:

bendinggenres.com/writing-grou...
Writing Groups
bendinggenres.com
February 14, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
voicemailpoems.bsky.social
“Taste what the tree
roots know, Bend your
back at lightning snaps.
Submit to the murmurs
of rabbit children.”

- Oisín Rowe (@orowe.bsky.social)

voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/g...
February 13, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
chriscottom.bsky.social
Thank you very much, Matt, and for introducing me to 'lanky' metaphors on your inspiring course Glorious Words. Thank you to @bendinggenres.bsky.social for publishing this piece, and to @norami.bsky.social and Smokelong Fitness's Jan Cardio Group 4 at @smokelong.bsky.social for their help with it.
mattkendrick.bsky.social Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 4d
" This is someone who could swell to five times the height of Snowdon, with an anvil top from here to Abersoch."

Wonderful use of an extended metaphor from @chriscottom.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social

bendinggenres.com/dad-served-t...
Dad Served Thirty Years as a Career Cumulonimbus
bendinggenres.com
February 12, 2026 at 7:04 AM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
nomad-sw18.bsky.social
"I wheel him to the window to peer at the troposphere over Colwyn Bay. While he rages about ‘prissy cirrus clouds’ or ‘namby-pamby nimbostrati’, I nip into the bedroom with a set of dry sheets."

@chriscottom.bsky.social blowing a hooley in @bendinggenres.bsky.social
mattkendrick.bsky.social Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 4d
" This is someone who could swell to five times the height of Snowdon, with an anvil top from here to Abersoch."

Wonderful use of an extended metaphor from @chriscottom.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social

bendinggenres.com/dad-served-t...
Dad Served Thirty Years as a Career Cumulonimbus
bendinggenres.com
February 12, 2026 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
longtail.news
Feed: "Bending Genres"
By: Joseph Gorodnitskiy on Tuesday, February 10, 2026
4 Tips on How to Survive Alone on an Island
First, go to the closest Dicks or Dave’s or Deasel’s and ask the teenager working the register for a kayak.
bendinggenres.com
February 11, 2026 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
kossworks.bsky.social
thanks also, @neonpajamas.bsky.social, @bendinggenres.bsky.social, and @rgvaughan.bsky.social for the fun workshop in which this was birthed.
February 12, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
elisabeth-66.bsky.social
Thanks so much to @rgvaughan.bsky.social and the Bending Genres staff for publishing my story "Hound Dog Dreams" in their new issue which I can't wait to read!
Thanks too to @smokelong.bsky.social for the prompt last summer.
bendinggenres.com/hound-dog-dr...
Hound Dog Dreams
bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 10:17 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
mczyzniejewski.bsky.social
Thanks to @rgvaughan.bsky.social, @amymarques.bsky.social, and the entire Bending Genres gang for publishing this new story in their new issue. Thanks, too, to @courtneyb77.bsky.social for the prompt and the early eyes. Honored to be alongside so many great writers!
'https://bendinggenres.com/peck/
Peck
bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
catherineobrien.bsky.social
Hi there, friends and enemies!

I'm back in @bendinggenres.bsky.social and interesting fact I've somehow convinced them to host my eccentric brain five times. Sincere gratitude to @rgvaughan.bsky.social and all the team.

bendinggenres.com/can-a-meteor...
Can a meteorite collide with a star? It can but it is rare.
bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
sudhab.bsky.social
I'm delighted to have a story in the latest issue of @bendinggenres.bsky.social !
Many thanks to the editors @rgvaughan.bsky.social
@amymarques.bsky.social and David O' Connor.

bendinggenres.com/thrum/
Thrum
bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
delgeo14.bsky.social
I'm delighted to have a new piece in the fantastic 49th Issue of @bendinggenres.bsky.social. Thank you to @rgvaughan.bsky.social and the editors. 🥰

You can read 'When the Music Stops' here: bendinggenres.com/when-the-mus...

& listen to Antoneta's Playlist here: open.spotify.com/playlist/4n2...
When the Music Stops
bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 5:48 PM
rgvaughan.bsky.social
All new Bending Genres Issue 49 is now live! Our Jan/ Feb 2026 issue is filled with hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue!
www.bendinggenres.com
Congratulations to our hard-working Bending Genres editors and talented writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity
Current Issue
www.bendinggenres.com
February 10, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
vanwinkle.bsky.social
Happy Friday y'all. Thanks to them that have bought COUNT THE DUST from @leftoverbooks.bsky.social. Today I'm offering to give away 2 copies. Repost this post between now and the end of the weekend and I'll put your name in a random draw machine thing Monday and pick 2 winners.
February 6, 2026 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
neonpajamas.bsky.social
who will be joining us in a few weeks?
neonpajamas.bsky.social Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪 @neonpajamas.bsky.social · 22d
Leading a generative writing workshop next month on humor. Hoping it will provide some much-needed lightness.

bendinggenres.com/register/lau...
Laughing to Keep from Crying: A Generative Writing Workshop on Humor with Ben Niespodziany February 20- 22, 2026 About the Course The comedian and TV show host Milton Berle once said, “Laughter is an instant vacation.” Now more than ever, we could all use a good laugh. An escape from the doom scrolling, from the news cycles, from the terrors outside our windows. In this highly generative writing workshop (my fourth with Bending Genres, if you know, you know), we’ll be discussing the many ways to include humor in poetry, prose poetry, microfiction, and flash fiction. Tips and tricks to help you incorporate humor into any type of literary medium. From Matthew Olzmann’s mantra of “Start with a joke, end with a prayer” to the conceptual narrative humor of Zachary Schomburg and Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi to the more laugh-out-loud humor of Russell Edson and Jack Handey and Jennifer L. Knox. Other authors we’ll be reading include Mark Leidner, Rachel B. Glaser, Richard Brautigan, John Maradik, and S.E. Smith. With an excessive amount of examples, we’ll also feature an excessive amount of writing prompts. Enough prompts for you to choose to work on and share over the weekend with plenty of extras to take home with you (virtually) after the workshop is over. We’ll be laughing, chuckling, cackling, howling, and roaring away. Who knows, we might even invite a chortle or two. Modern life can be stressful and overwhelming, and in this weekend workshop, we’ll offer an escape from reality for a little bit, looking at ways to use your imagination and disconnect as well as ways to turn your stressors and anxieties into something funny and expressive on the page. It’ll be a safe and welcoming space to be goofy and silly for a little while. Anything can happen. Pack your Groucho glasses. Bring a Slinky. We’re going to have fun.
February 1, 2026 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
periodicities.bsky.social
newly posted: Elena Zhang @ezhang77.bsky.social : Two poems
periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2026/02/elen...
Elena Zhang : Two poems
Barophobia The superhero could not find a cure for his lice. Invisibility streamed dreams into his scalp. Flying burned his hair into ...
periodicityjournal.blogspot.com
February 4, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
lmariharris.bsky.social
"This town I once touched on a map is small enough that I see the same faces at the market, at the laundromat, at the diner by the railroad tracks."

This is beautiful. Elise Blackwell up at @jmwwjournal.bsky.social
February 4, 2026 at 2:10 PM
rgvaughan.bsky.social
Some magic from the talented @claudiamonpere.bsky.social in the new issue of the innovative @lynnmundell.bsky.social Centaur Lit!!!
February 4, 2026 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
chelsdingman.bsky.social
I’ve got a new poem up @therumpus.net today. Thank you to Saeed Jones & editors for giving it such a wonderful home.
Given Limits Exist, Streets, Oblivion I don't want to be at peace. Outside, the buffalograss rails at the houses. Terracotta storms the bougainvillea. Each street in any direction is directionless. I'm beginning to think the concreteness that I seek in theory is waking each day, walking along a tree-lined pond. Today, approaching a fallen aspen, my child turns to me and asks, do you want to live forever? Beyond April, trees are wildfire. The child is a stranger I held in a blood museum once. Our narrative, one of proximities. I like to imagine I knew aloneness before I was occupiable. Reterritorialization: a migration from within desire (or do I mean language?) —reality's jumble of tenses & imagined borders. Something must give. I have everything I thought I wanted, still I'm incurably lonely in the way of capitalism or an abandoned child. In the only photo I have of my dead father, the image refuses identity. Whom I can or cannot remember I murder or save. To stay alive, even the dead must endure temporariness. Despite disease. Despite the burden, by which I mean a refrain. Its vows. Without her child, today, a young friend calls home a chapel of wet grass. The black trees. Absence. And what of the symbolon? That unpronounceable name transmitted as a promise that connects touch to a touchable silence. Sometimes, I think pain is a world I am too tired to carry. A creek, creeklight. The bee crawling on a rope in the basement I crushed this morning. Lest, beestung on a Tuesday in some future June, I arrive. Last words: the rain falling through the child. My body, failing to imagine me. Asking to be known. What is death if not a dream of distance? I wish I could see my child to the end of their life and not see them die.
February 2, 2026 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
stephieosaurus.bsky.social
Aaah! I am on this list! Thank you so much @bendinggenres.bsky.social 🤯💕💃
rgvaughan.bsky.social Robert Vaughan @rgvaughan.bsky.social · 17d
Bending Genres Best Small Fictions nominations:
Bethany Bruno- The Tilt-A-Whirl Knows My Name
Kellan Jansen- 5/8
Stephanie Frazee- Trattenuto
Kelle Schillachi- Vanishing Point
Carolee Bennett- Why Girls in the 80s Never Learned to Speak Up
Good luck, everyone and thanks, BG editors!!!
January 29, 2026 at 1:24 AM
rgvaughan.bsky.social
Bending Genres Best Small Fictions nominations:
Bethany Bruno- The Tilt-A-Whirl Knows My Name
Kellan Jansen- 5/8
Stephanie Frazee- Trattenuto
Kelle Schillachi- Vanishing Point
Carolee Bennett- Why Girls in the 80s Never Learned to Speak Up
Good luck, everyone and thanks, BG editors!!!
January 28, 2026 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
nikitagill.bsky.social
This hit so fucking hard today.
CHARLES RAFFERTY The Problem with Early Warnings People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.
January 26, 2026 at 8:52 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
neonpajamas.bsky.social
Leading a generative writing workshop next month on humor. Hoping it will provide some much-needed lightness.

bendinggenres.com/register/lau...
Laughing to Keep from Crying: A Generative Writing Workshop on Humor with Ben Niespodziany February 20- 22, 2026 About the Course The comedian and TV show host Milton Berle once said, “Laughter is an instant vacation.” Now more than ever, we could all use a good laugh. An escape from the doom scrolling, from the news cycles, from the terrors outside our windows. In this highly generative writing workshop (my fourth with Bending Genres, if you know, you know), we’ll be discussing the many ways to include humor in poetry, prose poetry, microfiction, and flash fiction. Tips and tricks to help you incorporate humor into any type of literary medium. From Matthew Olzmann’s mantra of “Start with a joke, end with a prayer” to the conceptual narrative humor of Zachary Schomburg and Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi to the more laugh-out-loud humor of Russell Edson and Jack Handey and Jennifer L. Knox. Other authors we’ll be reading include Mark Leidner, Rachel B. Glaser, Richard Brautigan, John Maradik, and S.E. Smith. With an excessive amount of examples, we’ll also feature an excessive amount of writing prompts. Enough prompts for you to choose to work on and share over the weekend with plenty of extras to take home with you (virtually) after the workshop is over. We’ll be laughing, chuckling, cackling, howling, and roaring away. Who knows, we might even invite a chortle or two. Modern life can be stressful and overwhelming, and in this weekend workshop, we’ll offer an escape from reality for a little bit, looking at ways to use your imagination and disconnect as well as ways to turn your stressors and anxieties into something funny and expressive on the page. It’ll be a safe and welcoming space to be goofy and silly for a little while. Anything can happen. Pack your Groucho glasses. Bring a Slinky. We’re going to have fun.
January 24, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
maggiethornton.bsky.social
Dr. West was a student of Dr. Louise Stokes Hunter, UVA’s first Black woman graduate, and I got to know Dr. West in my time researching Dr. Hunter. If you ever use GPS, thank this amazing woman!
January 20, 2026 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Robert Vaughan
joshdale.co
rage bends genres
January 16, 2026 at 7:19 PM
rgvaughan.bsky.social
Today on our @bendinggenres.bsky.social Blog, @swethaamit.bsky.social interviews Josh Dale, EIC of @thirtywestph.com about his new flash collection, RAGE:

bendinggenres.com/swetha-amit-...
Swetha Amit interviews Josh Dale about Rage, his new chapbook of flash gems
bendinggenres.com
January 16, 2026 at 6:46 PM