Rachel E. Tell (is querying)

Went from reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, to watching David Goggins videos, to playing Stardew Valley. Found all of them very regulating, esp after a post-work meltdown yesterday. My nervous system is so weird.

#yayhyperfixations #neurodivergent

Lol yeah sometimes they steal the mic. It generally improves things when they tell us their stories, though, even if some stuff has to go in the background in the edits.

Actually kinda sorta yeah! Only it was undiagnosed autism and I found out after I wrote the book when my readers were like "so you see..." and I was like "O.O I must research this for 20 hours immediately" and they were like "yeah there you go."

Sign me up for cathartic baklava plzkthx.

I love this!!

Thank you so much!

a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a desk ALT: a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a desk

I NEED to read this.

Fake conversation hearts that say "block the door" "bee mine" "your magic looks tasty" "do you like bats?" "don't die" and "till the well runs dry." In the center is text that says, "It might just be Valentine's Day. I have no idea. They removed all the calendars and keep changing the schedule. help me. XOXO."

It might be Valentine's Day!
Or Christmas.
But they removed all the calendars and keep changing the schedule.
Happy Valentine's Day, maybe?
Help! ❤️💜💙
XOXO, Willa Cartwright

Querying THE REFINEMENT: MERCURY, a dark academia cult horror with candy.
#UnhingedPit #YA #F #H #Q

Now querying THE REFINEMENT: MERCURY!
Best described as:

Pride & Prejudice x Jacob's Ladder x Return to Oz
but with cults
and bees
and autistic Darcy-coded hot guys
and scene-stealing morally gray antagonists
and ball pits
and bubbles.
#UnhingedPit #amquerying #YA #F #H #Q #booksky

A heavy metal wheel crank laid against a wrought iron fence among various other free items

*sigh* great. There’s obviously some sort of device nearby I’m gonna need to use this on to compete a puzzle so I gotta lug it to the leftist coffee shop and bookstore with me

A moodboard for Work in Progress novel The Ariad. Color palette is violet and faded green and it features a city taken over by plans, a group traveling on foot, a soldier in a ghillie suit, an eye with a black sclera and white pupil, a creepy-looking flower, a couple about to kiss, purple-pink weeds covered in spider webs, an eclipsed sun over a sea, and a profile of a young man with long hair.

I think I'm invested in this WIP enough to start posting about it properly. The Ariad is a YA/NA dark romantasy, but in a post-apocalyptic eco-horror setting. I'm doing a lot of world-building/monster design & so far I'm pretty stoked. Here's the moodboard!

#amwriting #ya #booksky

I think she will be! But now my writing just has to live up to her expectations. 😅

The protagonist in my 🥀🗡️ WIP is getting interesting. I expected plucky survivor, but what I got was a fatalistic teen with gallows humor who's pretending to be a plucky survivor.

#amwriting #booksky

Y'all. This new project is slow going. I like what I've gotten down, but yeah, only 5k words. Inciting Incident is the next scene. 😬 I think perfectionism brain is putting too much pressure on me to make it Good™️, you know?

#writingcommunity #amwriting #booksky

What? #WSPit. Author Hype Event. Industry Participation Welcome. When? February 25, 2026, in your time zone. Where? Bluesky only. Authors: Do your due diligence to vet anyone who requests your materials before sending.

Hey, #WIPSnips, mark your calendar!

#WSPit returns February 25th, 2026

This is an Author Hype Event

WIPSnips is already great with hype, but this gives you a chance to pitch your work as a whole, published work included.

#WriteSky #WritingCommunity

The talk to your friends app and the witness the horrors app being the same app is not great for the mental health is it

A photo collage of early 1900s images (all black and white) - a luxury liner, a mirror with a hand and face trapped inside, a woman in a straitjacket, a sitting room on a luxury liner, a woman reading a book, a ghostly ship

When their luxury liner sinks, Edith is rescued by a passing ship.

But one by one, the other survivors disappear...people the crew insist were never on board

Terrified & unable to escape, Edith must hurry to unearth the ship's sinister secrets or become its latest victim…

#A #H #MupPit #WIP #goth

The mood-board

🖤 Southern Gothic mystery
🩸 Modern, Vampire Chronicles–inspired
🖤 Rivals to lovers
🩸 A millennium-long family feud
🖤 Ancient vampires vs. modern life
🩸 Secret societies
🖤Founding families
🩸Several PoVs

Also…🏳️‍⚧️, 🏳️‍🌈, and autistic rep

#MupPit #NA #goth #WIP

A demon is assigned to run mortals off his cursed lands, and is soundly frustrated when a group of aloof goth podcasters trample through his turf, threatening to drive tourism to his domain. Working the tiered haunting process, local folk creatures attempt to move in on his job #MupPit #Com

OMG! Check out this Airbnb I found! I think it'd be the perfect getaway to explore Romania and try to reconnect with distant family!

We have to go! 👀

(Any #editors want to join me? Drop a ❤️)

#Goth #R #MupPit *92k words

I love how you designed this!!

babel on callisto• queer sci-fi horromance now querying Every civilization writes of a moment when the sky cracks. Few record what steps through.

Now querying!

• • •

ANNIHILATION x BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

💫two exiled men (and their secrets)
💫one lunar prison (and its horrors)
💫a cosmic entity that wants them dead
💫the love they’ll lose if they don’t survive

#SF #H #R #LGBT #AmQuerying #muppit

Pitch for The Refinement: Mercury by Rachel E. Tell, complete 90k word upper YA dark fantasy. "When the insecurities of a powerful but anxious girl make her the prime target for an exploitative cult, she must learn to accept herself before she's consumed." Along with a small tagline for the book, "Till the well runs dry."

Mood board for The Refinement: Mercury by Rachel E. Tell. Includes a picture of Rhodes College, a mushroom circle, bats in a purple night sky, a well hung with lanterns, books and tea, silhouettes of a couple dancing, a silhouette of a girl being pupeteered, and a hand holding a crown. In the corners are gold images of mushrooms and a bee.

Excerpt from The Refinement: Mercury by Rachel E. Tell: The figure dropped to the ground on all fours, its wings falling to either side, limp and useless. And it screamed. It was like the distant roar that sounded while the energies fought inside of [Redacted name], but this was unleashed, enraged, and very much here. The figure’s face was like [Redacted name]'s but twisted into a mask of fury and hatred, mouth too wide, limbs now distorted, too thin, too long. And there were patches of blackened, charred skin, rimmed in red that slowly expanded. Like a fallen angel, a demon summoned from the depths of hell, it started crawling, four limbs moving quick, insect-like, leaving scorch marks on the floor. It rushed straight for [Redacted name], dragging its dead wings behind it.

Comps and Themes for The Refinement: Mercury by Rachel E. Tell. Comps listed are A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, The Honeys by Ryan La Sala, HBO's The Vow NXIVM documentary, the anime Mob Psycho 100, and Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson. Themes listed are: dark academia psychological horror cult indoctrination (love bombing, unfreezing / changing / refreezing) grief and healing neurodivergent rep found family perfectionist cinnamon roll slow burn grumpy mentor → lovers morally gray allies an egregious amount of Jungian theory

Didn't realize #MupPit was on here too, hi!

The Refinement: Mercury
A Study in Drowning x Ninth House x HBO's The Vow

🕯️ Upper YA dark academia
🐝 Cult indoctrination
🩸 Gilded cages & ritualized ego-death
🎭 Neurodivergence & masking to survive
🚩 Suburban horror w/grooming red flags

#Q #YA #DF #Psy

we live in the ruins of a greater civilization

The cover of JITTERBUG features a stylised rocket silhouette at the centre of an orrery, with a space suited figure dangling in its wake

A disillusioned bounty hunter. A betrayed pirate queen. Unlikely romance.

Stolen data. Political chicanery. A spaceship that thinks it's a parrot. A desperate race to uncover a cosmic threat.

Wild planetary engineering. Literal world building. That cover.

JITTERBUG is published on March 3 by @titanbooks.bsky.social. Here are 10 reasons you should read it.

#books #scifireads #scifibooks #scifi

I was at the beach yesterday. I was swimming when I had a hypoglycaemic attack!

I almost didn't make it but a man threw me a small round sweet lolly and everything thing was ok.

It was a lifesaver

Two cats lying next to each other in front of a sunny window, one large and silver, the other small and white with spots of brown tabby stripes.

The best soundtrack for work: my cats trilling at each other and scrabbling up and down the hall. It's hard to be down about a spreadsheet or email when my 19yo cat is still healthy enough to run and play like a kitten with his roomie. This #CatTax is the closest they've cuddled.

#CatsOfBlueSky

It helps me to remind myself that even the authors who have "made it" have imposter syndrome!

You ever try to be a Very Professional Querying Author

but then you see your favorite, formative but niche, game/movie/anime EVER on an Agent's list and you restrain yourself from gushing OMG YES IT'S SO GOOD because doesn't belong in your query?

Yeah me neither. >>

#amquerying ... #andgeekingout

🎵 If they ask you to pay money it's a scam 👏👏
🎵 If they ask you to pay money it's a scam 👏👏
🎵 that is not your favorite author or a stunning book club offer
🎵 They are asking you for money=it's a scam 👏👏