Something new has crept aboard the MS Pharos, and we couldn’t be happier. Please welcome Pixie Bruner to the Duat project.
Pixie is a writer, a cancer survivor and a member of the Dread Writers Society and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. She lives in Atlanta with her doppelgänger and their sketchy cats (we have not yet confirmed which of the two signed the contract). Her work has appeared in Space & Time, Spectral Realms and Strange Horizons, among other realms and multiverses beyond. Her books, The Body as Haunted (2024), a two-time Elgin Award nominee, and Poems to Be Afraid Of (2026), are both published by Authortunities Press, and she served as Kay Snow Prize and Rhysling Award Chair in 2025.
That is exactly why she belongs in the Duat. A poet who has written The Body as Haunted understands what it means for a spirit to linger near the living, which is precisely what every Akhu at the table is doing. Pixie’s Sakhu reach past the mechanics of a spell into something more personal: grief, release, and the ache of wanting to send someone safely home. They are emotional, thought-provoking, and just unsettling enough that you may want to read them with the lights on.
To learn more about Pixie and her musings, visit and subscribe to her Substack at pixiebruner.substack.com. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself pleasantly haunted.