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On Your Forty-fifth Birthday
The magic of a best friend
Teresa Van Santana
Writer. Rambler. Secretist. Nonbinary transfemme. They/them. https://www.patreon.com/tvs
Newsletter
The Deep End
She said she didn’t want to write about writing, and you agreed. But you did it anyway. I could ask why, but I know. And you got your answer, didn’t you, like you always do. What then is there? If you were to refrain from ranting about every
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Coming soon: Saucy Secrets
So I made a lowkey pledge to y’all that I wouldn’t put stories behind a paywall. And that is still going to be true, yet at first glance it may not appear to be. A lot of my stories have sex in them—‘graphic’ sex, whatever the fuck
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A Collection of Other Voices in the Living City—Part 2
Last time, I reminded you of the irl origins of Azza-Jono, the Living City, then reintroduced all the storylines so far, and lastly set you up with a collection of various voices dispersed throughout the City. So here rounding out that collection is part two … Homecoming The verdant hills spilled
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Shiz I Forgot About
So over the years, ole TVS has tried out a lot things. You know, writers give out tons of advice to other writers. So do editors. So do agents. So do publishers. And I’ve been at this silly game for about a decade now, so I’ve tried a
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T-Rex: April 2022
Whatup. Got a ton of rex this time, so let’s get right to it! Films The Batman (HBO Max) I could say a lot about the character Batman and the whole milieu of white superheroes, but lemme just stick to this film. It does the whole superhero-meets-epic crime film
gaucho
City in the tree branches
The branches move like silk through my hands. Like they’re massaging me. One of them turns to look at me and speaks: “Hello there.” I smile even though it scares me some, to talk to this branch that is clearly now a snake. “Hello,” I say. Then I feel
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A Collection of Other Voices in the Living City—Part 1
As you may (but likely don’t) recall, Azza-Jono is a multidisciplinary art project born on Ello. So in its original form, there were lots of bits and pieces happening at once from many different contributors. This poses a challenge for recreating that experience in a newsletter format—even with
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Casual Internet Pundits and How to Live With Them
Just cos I know someone could immediately go here, let me affirm that, yes, the subject of this talky-talk is in itself a form of punditry. So feel free to apply everything in this ish to this ish. And so, wasting no time, let me not bury the lede and
gaucho
Are what you eat
The story behind the story … I was feeling burned out on my flagship series, The Secret of Secrets—a highly layered metafictional sci-fi kina dealie, and I was also playing a lot of retro video games, like the 8-bit inspired ones. The result of that union birthed Gaucho, a simple
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Why Don’t Folks You Know Want to Pay You?
Okay, so let me start by acknowledging that some of my bought-in subscribers (and all of the first of them) do, in fact, know me irl. And they bought my book, too. But there are loads more who haven’t purchased my novel or a paid subscription, many of whom
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What Should I Focus On?
Last ish, I asked y’all what I should write, and you gave me some great answers. This time, I’m wondering what I should focus on. Allow me to elaborate. I’ve very rarely (read: never) had a problem composing. I’ve got stories for days, about twenty books