J. S. Kuiken
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jskuiken.com
J. S. Kuiken
@jskuiken.com
690 followers 280 following 2.2K posts
Writing fiction that makes folks ugly cry, even as it inspires bruisingly fierce hope. Queer (trans and bi/pan), world traveller, and tea connoisseur. UEA alumnus and Lambda Literary Fellow. He/his.

https://jskuiken.com/links/
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#Novmemeber 27: Fan-cast a character from your story.

For the most recent chapter I'm working on in my WIP, DANCING UNDERNEATH YOU, I'd have to fan-cast Diego Luna. He'd play the long-lost uncle of one of my MCs, and serve as an inspiration to my MC on multiple levels.
A profile picture of actor Diego Luna.
November 28, 2025 at 9:49 PM
jskuiken.com
You just died.

The 6th picture in your phone gallery is what killed you.

Apparently I "did it now" and it ended me lol.
A picture of the author Paulo Coelho alongside a quote attributed to him: "One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now."
November 27, 2025 at 6:12 PM
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Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want!

This is from my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, which I currently #amquerying.
The Weight of the Impossible by J. S. Kuiken 2018 Saturday, June 9 1. Love Is a Bitch She has to ruin everything.
November 12, 2025 at 11:39 AM
jskuiken.com
#queerwriters Sunday: Line Share Day!

For the theme of "glass", from my YA novel THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, which I #amquerying:
Outside the wind blows against the windows and the traffic rumbles by. My heart beats, steadily pumping warmth through my body. But the organ’s fragile as glass too.
November 12, 2025 at 11:25 AM
jskuiken.com
New gender just dropped.
A picture of a bathroom sign that reads "Teacher".
November 11, 2025 at 11:48 AM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon October 26:

Line share day! Today's theme: scare!

From my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. Zach is a 15 yo competitive figure skater, and his Coach has food poisoning.

#writesky #queerwriters #writers #lgbtqwriters
“Zach, I can’t take you to practice.” “But the short program is tomorrow!” Her grimace deepens. “I know. Keep your voice down, you’re making me feel more nauseous. I asked Daniel to take you to and from practice today, ok? You still have lessons with him, but you have to practice the rest of the time on your own.” It feels like she just punched me in the gut, hard, because I’ve never practiced on my own the day before a competition. I’ve always had her, always. All feel is fear, blinding white and hot. “Don’t be scared,” she says. “I’m not,” I snap, because I fucking hate that she knows me so well. But she’s just trying to help, even though she’s in total agony. So I say: “Sorry."
October 26, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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Omg yaaaas it's happened and just in time for Samhain season.
A screenshot showing that J. S. Kuiken had 666 followers.
October 24, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon Oct 14: I have 4 MCs in my current WIP. Here's the blurb I have on them and the book on my website's WIP page:

#writersky #queerwriters
Dancing Underneath You Novel. In an ancient world, Sivas will do anything to save his sick son, Enaid. His loyal friend, Rigan, will follow him to the very ends of the earth, even if it means forsaking her own people. The mercurial and powerful shaman, Sydan, is haunted by a great and terrible loss which threatens to take everything from him. His apprentice, Pul’me, is uncertain about her place while she comes into her power as a woman and a shaman. The lives of these people intersect, criss-crossing through the past and the present in a tale about love, choice . . . and magic.
October 14, 2025 at 3:54 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon October 12:

For today's theme, weather, a snippet from my WIP novel, DANCING UNDERNEATH YOU.
Rain begins in the afternoon, warm and seeping through our woolen korda colors. Warm and wet and slick. He's hot beneath me, on top of me, pulsing inside me. His hands are like fire on my skin. Each touch a burning wound. Yet his drowsy, blue-eyed gaze kisses and kisses me. He looks at me; he sees me. But he's gone now. The warm rain drips against my skin and it's just that. Rain.
October 12, 2025 at 2:10 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon Oct 5:

This is from my WIP novel, DANCING UNDERNEATH YOU. It uses the verb "fall", rather than the noun, but I a) really like this paragraph b) couldn't find "fall" as a noun in either of my manuscripts.
But I am falling upwards. The earth separates from my feet and I hover here, near the hearth, in the half dark of my seida. The great leaves of the tree of the soul of the world whisper overhead, through the smoke-hole, and I can see their shadows shifting, moving in the wind of the world. I have fallen upwards before.
October 5, 2025 at 11:30 AM
jskuiken.com
Chills. This gives me chills.
As these reflections appeared to emanate from invisible sources behind the paintings, the auditory and visual images overlapped merging into one multisensory experience. Although the sounds and music of prehistoric people are beyond our reach, the study shows that the physical environment actively participated in their activities, co-vibrating and creating reciprocal tangible encounters between the human and more-than-human worlds.
September 25, 2025 at 12:52 PM
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Anyways. Here's my excerpt. This is the first time Rigan and Pul'me interact in the novel "on screen" together. Rigan, the narrator, is the ace!warrior and Pul'me is the demi!shaman. #queerwriters
"There you are." Pul'me's voice sounds the way honeysuckle tastes, and her arms are warm around me. No matter how many times she has run her fingers through my cropped hair, it makes me shiver with pleasure every time. Our foreheads press together, a Skaro greeting I taught her, and we simply meet.
September 10, 2025 at 1:08 PM
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This was a cute quiz.

Mid-Winter Core poomang.com/en/t/mycore_...
Results from a quiz.
August 12, 2025 at 12:17 PM
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That said, I spent a lot of time on the first page of my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, because I knew it would be crucial towards introducing the voice, main character, and conflict. Here's the results of many rewrites.
2018 Saturday, June 9 1. Love Is a Bitch She has to ruin everything. That scent feels like it’s stabbing me in the gut and nausea races up my throat. Running to the bathroom, I leap into a stall, not caring if anyone is there. When that’s all vomited up, I dry heave. Every time I think it’s over I remember that perfume from the girl in the lobby -- the same kind Laura wore -- and start gagging again. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to be on the ice, where everything is ok. Instead I’m choking on air and stupid memories. When it finally stops, I lean against the stall wall, closing my eyes. The metal is cool and comforting against my forehead. No. No no no fucking no. This isn’t supposed to happen here. I can’t be doing my “magic tricks” during the Freemont Open, before it’s even officially started. I came here to win, not to be fucked up in the bathroom before the Exhibition. Someone else has come in and I hear him jabbering, probably on his phone, but he sounds muffled and far away. I can’t even open my eyes. What if I look at myself and it’s like seeing everything through the wrong end of a telescope? Or one of the other magic tricks, where it feels like I’m a little bird flying outside of my body? I pinch myself, hoping to draw blood, the spike of pain tearing through my skin. Noise fills me like water might fill and stretch and balloon. Opening my eyes, my feet, laced up in my scuffed black skates, don’t seem far away. I’m not drifting outside of my body. My shaking hands and arms are right here, I feel them. I even feel the stinging red crescents my nails left in my forearm. Thank fuck. The static of panic that I didn’t notice had been building up drains from me suddenly. “You know what? I don’t fucking care,” I hear the guy on the phone talking loudly. He lets out a frustrated growl and paces furiously. Pushing out of the stall I nearly run right into him. He looks like he sucked on something pretty sour.
August 9, 2025 at 4:27 PM
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A meme about the em dash.
August 1, 2025 at 12:44 AM
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Today, spending time with my favorite class of students gave me so much joy. Here they are, 40 of 41 of them, in all their glory.
July 24, 2025 at 10:37 AM
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#queerwriters Sunday: Line Share Day!

Today's theme: lead

From my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, featuring Zach, a 15 yo competitive figure skater. He's just trying to figure some things out, plus win the Fremont Open. This is one of my favorite bits of the novel.
Daniel passes by, leading a line of students dragging their luggage to a circle of waiting parents. The Rude Little Brat springs into a man’s arms. “Dad, did you see my loops?” she asks. “Yes,” her dad laughs. “They were so good. You’ve worked so hard to improve.” RLB smiles like she’d just won Olympic gold. Gag me. Sappy family moments can go fuck themselves with a rusty fork. The whole wholesome family with Mom and Dad and the 2.5 kids, everyone with their sugary smiles. It all has to be fake, because if it isn’t, the universe is more unfair than I even imagined.
July 20, 2025 at 3:32 PM
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#QueerPrompts July 13: Snippet: "gender".

This from my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, which follows 15-year-old competitive figure skater Zach as he figures things out about his trauma (ie, "magic tricks"), his abusive ex girlfriend, and his raging crush on a skating skills coach, Daniel.
I think about black spaces eating my memory and tripped-out magic tricks. I’m dying inside because it’s all so pent up and ugly. Just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. The words fly out of my mouth: “Dude, I know how that feels.” Shit. Fuck. Way to epically blow it, Zach. Daniel stops and stares at me. “I mean, not about my gender,” I add, like that means anything. I don’t know how to cover my ass without explaining this one. But if I tell Daniel, he’ll probably look at me like I’m fucking crazy. A pitying look that’s like nails on a chalkboard. Hideous and sickening. I couldn’t stand it if he looked at me like that. Plus, he’d tell Coach.
July 13, 2025 at 2:39 PM
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It's set mostly in a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer culture and it's preoccupied with four MCs as they create a found family. Here's the blurb I currently have up on my website: jskuiken.com/works-in-pro...
Dancing Underneath You Novel. In an ancient world, Sivas will do anything to save his sick son, Enaid. His loyal friend, Rigan, will follow him to the very ends of the earth, even if it means forsaking her own people. The mercurial and powerful shaman, Sydan, is haunted by a great and terrible loss which threatens to take everything from him. His apprentice, Pul’me, is uncertain about her place while she comes into her power as a woman and a shaman. The lives of these people intersect, criss-crossing through the past and the present in a tale about love, choice . . . and magic.
July 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM
jskuiken.com
Working on my July newsletter, writing about three things I didn't anticipate when I moved to Thailand. One of those three is basically Small Insects with Big Dick Energy. Here's a screencap of my notes for that section.

(That one bite was PURPLE, guys. 😱)

#amwriting #writersky #writingcommunity
2. Small Insects, Big Dick Energy (AKA, Where oh where did this bug bite come from and WHY won't it stop ITCHING?!) big angry PURPLE bite that wouldn't stop itching IT WAS PURPLE
June 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
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#QueerPrompts June 21: Snippet: "sun".

I believe I've posted this excerpt before, but it's one of my favorite lines from the book. From my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, about a 15 yo competitive figure skater, Zach.
The ice is sleek, smooth and silk beneath my blades as it presses up to meet me. The muscles in my shoulders and neck finally unwind. Coasting a few laps with the other skaters, I let the ice lift me up and welcome me. Just like it has since I was four years old and first tried skating out on the frozen waters of Black Lake. I wasn’t very good at it then, but I loved skating. Loved it like nothing else in my life. It felt as though someone had carved a hole in my heart and then filled it with sunshine. Though I was only four, I knew I would always love the ice.
June 21, 2025 at 2:04 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon June 15: Line share: color.

From my YA novel, THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. Daniel, the super hot coach that Zach, the MC, has been crushing on, takes him to karaoke. There, Daniel convinces Zach to sing his favorite Queen song with him.

#queerwriters #pride #writingcommunity
Daniel’s voice drops in and mixes with my own, an intimate tangling, our faces close together as we share the mic. He’s looking up at the projector, but I see only him, the deep brown eyes glowing dimly in the scarce light of the bar, the faded colors in his hair shining faintly. The lyrics blend with this vision and my heart swells with something I can’t name or contain.
June 15, 2025 at 1:59 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon June 8: Line share - shine

From my YA novel (which I am currently querying), THE WEIGHT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE.

#QueerWriters #pride #writesky #writingcommunity
The ice is sleek, smooth and silk beneath my blades as it presses up to meet me. The muscles in my shoulders and neck finally unwind. Coasting a few laps with the other skaters, I let the ice lift me up and welcome me. Just like it has since I was four years old and first tried skating out on the frozen waters of Black Lake. I wasn’t very good at it then, but I loved skating. Loved it like nothing else in my life. It felt as though someone had carved a hole in my heart and then filled it with sunshine. Though I was only four, I knew I would always love the ice.
June 8, 2025 at 12:17 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon June 8: Line share - shine

From my WIP novel, DANCING UNDERNEATH YOU.

#QueerWriters #pride #writesky #writingcommunity
I am bleeding, and I am a woman. The cracks between worlds are bigger for me and I can go through. The noise of this world, the living world, like the crash of the ocean's waves, ebbs. A neverending silence that frightens the spirits of the newly dead, and untrained shamans. A silence that is the beginning and ending and rebirth of all time, dark and promise-full. The tree of the soul of the world is great and black, and the stars and moons shine in her everliving branches.
June 8, 2025 at 12:09 PM
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#LGBTQWriteAThon June 1: Hey all, I'm Jesse. I write about trauma and relationships (romantic and platonic). I'm currently querying my first novel while writing the second. You can learn more here: jskuiken.com/works-in-pro... This is the first line from the second novel.

#QueerWriters #pride
Her face against mine, her palms pressing against my swollen belly, until the bones of my unborn child scream inside me.
June 3, 2025 at 1:21 PM