When I left Twitter after Elon Musk beat it to death and then ground its dead body into ash, I grieved the loss of the incredible writing community there. I made so many friends and watched them start their writing journeys and find different levels of success; I also learned a lot about the publishing industry following agents and small presses and indie authors. It was a truly beautiful community and one of the reasons I stayed on Twitter as long as I did.
Now, I’m beginning to find a similar community on Threads. Poets and authors and indie presses and indie bookstores have been coming across my feed. The support they show each other is unmatched, especially on Poetry Threads. There’s a level of connection and determination among poets that is different from other genres. I made a post yesterday about how I currently have 50 active submissions on Submittable and that I needed to slow down, and one writer encouraged me to do the opposite; he said publishing is a numbers game and (this was what really got me) that I should “burn brilliantly.”
I am going to carry that with me for the rest of this year. “Burn brilliantly.” Because, yes! That’s what writers are supposed to do. There’s no rule about keeping active submissions under 50 at a time. There’s no rule about only sending out one manuscript at a time. There’s no rule about how many manuscripts you should be working on at once. Why is our impulse as writers to dim our light? I would never tell another writer to slow down their submission process (unless they needed to for medical/personal/mental healthy reasons), so why am I telling myself to slow down?
Furthermore, isn’t this part of being in this world as a woman/femme presenting person? We’re constantly conditioned not to take up too much space, not to be too loud or pushy, not to be too confident, etc. It’s our default at this point, and why? So that other people can be comfortable taking up all the space?
“Burn brilliantly” should be the motto, the mantra, of every single writer, especially those who are women/femme/trans/nonbinary, BIPOC, queer, disabled, and neurodivergent. So today I’m taking his advice and I’m choosing to burn brilliantly. I sent out three more submissions this morning, putting my total at 53. And so far this year, I have written 13 new poems. It’s not much, but I’m still getting myself back into the habit of writing poetry every day. I am reading more poetry; I finished a poetry book yesterday (Sermons & Lectures by Matt Hart) and I started a new one today (Dunce by Mary Ruefle). I have a long list of poems I’m going to ready over the next few months and I’ve been buying more poetry books from indie bookstores and publishers because it’s where my money will go to the best use.
2026 is a year of poetic living.
2026 is a year of burning brilliantly.
Burn with me.
Love and light.
