Huge thanks to @charlottelit.bsky.social for giving it a home, and to @abelmont.bsky.social for creating and choosing the art that appears alongside it and the rest of the pieces in this gorgeous issue!

This is so tender and honestly written. Just beautiful.

You've just won the lottery (see if you catch the reference) because you've got a chance to read this haunting read from @lindseyjameswrites.bsky.social in @necessaryfiction.com

necessaryfiction.com/stories/by-a...

Absolutely! The framework of "run, hide, fight" is superior to the old model of hunkering in a classroom regardless of the circumstances. But since that was our first, last, and only training on it, and given in ways so oblivious to the audience, it did far more harm than good.

That tension teachers face—to love and build relationships with all their students while also being on the lookout for warning signs of violence—isn’t new, but I’ve never felt able to fully reconcile the two.

And having it thrown so forcefully in our faces that morning has haunted me since.

Then the bell rang. We went to our classrooms to look our tweens and teens in the eyes and wonder which of them we were supposed to recruit to help us murder what statistically would be a classmate, maybe even a friend. And to wonder which of them might snap and bring a gun in the first place.