WINNER @oxfordflash,2nd Propelling Pencil 22; flash finalist @LIStoryPrize 22; winner RW April 22 micro & FFF13 . Member @retreatwest and @writershq communities

Joined October 2021
A NYE appropriate picture too!
Our next contributor is Maria Thomas Follow her on X: @AppleWriter BS: @appleshapedwriter.bsky.social
6
3
45
1,570
New collective project up @PrideRoars94731 'Mothers'-an ongoing conversation with @JoyceBingham10 @DelGeo14 @sugarpigblog Amy Marques @fionaemckayryan @NinaMD1 @AppleWriter "Everything is planned for us by books and magazines and paediatricians." theprideroars.blogspot.com/2…
8
12
297
Bob Mortimer once gave rescue cats daft names in order to help them get adopted. Pissing myself at some of these. 1/2
70
391
54
5,449
307,794
Maria Thomas retweeted
It’s genuinely sort of insane that Bob Mackie’s career spanned enough time for him to design for Marilyn Monroe and Madonna-doing-Monroe and Sabrina Carpenter-as-Madonna-as-Monroe
55
9,524
127
112,309
999,199
Maria Thomas retweeted
This is not a photograph, and it's not an oil painting. It might be the most unbelievable watercolor ever made... It's called Sommarnöje, which means something like Summer Delight, and Anders Zorn painted it in 1886. Look at the water, the gentle ripples, the reflections, the wet sheen of it, and then look at the two people, the fine detail of the wooden rowboat, the woman's white dress, the light on her face. It has the near-photographic realism of an oil painting, and it was done in watercolor, a medium so unforgiving that a single wrong stroke ruins the entire piece. Zorn painted this in the first summer of his marriage: the woman in white waiting on the pier is his new wife, Emma, whom he had married only months before. They had just come back from their honeymoon and were staying with her family at Dalarö near Stockholm, still looking for the home where they would spend their life. The man rowing toward her is their friend Carl Gustav Dahlström. It is a real moment from the happiest season of a young couple's life, caught and held forever. In 2010 this single sheet of watercolor sold for twenty-six million Swedish kronor, over three million dollars, the highest price ever paid for a Swedish painting. In his own lifetime, Zorn was celebrated above all for two things: his handling of light, and his ability to paint water. Sommarnöje is where you see exactly why...
620
5,042
329
29,593
521,259
Maria Thomas retweeted
Almost every indigenous language still spoken in Europe belongs to a wider family. English, Greek and Spanish are Indo-European. Finnish and Hungarian are Uralic. Basque is very different indeed, and older. It is Europe's only surviving ‘language isolate’. 1/n
19
95
7
1,337
96,029
For my birthday week, we’re toasting some #frockingfabulous greatest hits from 2026! Diana, Princess of Wales, wore this 1992 #CatherineWalker dress in a Vanity Fair spread. #fashionhistory via Historical Royal Palaces. #Diconic
4
31
3
601
6,596
Maria Thomas retweeted
In honor of Gary Larson's birthday, here is my favorite Far Side Comic. Show me some of your favorites.
702
678
154
7,147
706,432
Maria Thomas retweeted
A man who died only last year had a grandfather who was born in, wait for it: 1790 Not a great-great-grandfather. His actual grandfather. Harrison Ruffin Tyler was the grandson of John Tyler, the 10th(!) President of the United States. 1/n
113
538
57
6,905
878,482
Maria Thomas retweeted
In Argentina there is an island that moves. Not only does it move, it is almost perfectly circular. Better still, the lake it sits in is also almost perfectly circular. Unsurprisingly, many people think 'El Ojo' hides an alien base. The truth is a bit more prosaic. 1/2
39
491
23
5,645
649,752
Maria Thomas retweeted
Sometimes you see things and you’re like wow I’m so happy people are creative
90
27,398
56
360,177
4,509,467
Maria Thomas retweeted
“nothing special to see” and its the most special thing ive ever seen 🙄
Nothing special to see, just some raccoons trying to catch a rainbow.
63
11,506
27
126,683
2,867,863
Maria Thomas retweeted
The Baltic Sea has the lowest salinity level of any seawater in the world, with profound profound effects on its ecology. Some of it is so lacking in salt it's almost drinkable. Here is how a sea connected to the Atlantic became almost fresh. 1/n
92
431
59
3,557
618,371
Maria Thomas retweeted
Bradley Cooper as Rocket is legit one of the best performances in the MCU. I am so serious.
this genuinely being some of the only footage of bradley cooper doing rocket raccoon’s voice
128
5,927
48
149,009
5,102,514
“In the kitchen the breakfast stove ejected eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk. ‘Today is August 4, 2026, the city of Allendale, California.’” - Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (with a cameo by me)
6
19
2
156
3,151
Maria Thomas retweeted
I saw a post on Reddit that said, “When you walk through a museum, you’re not just looking at art. You’re moving through centuries of people trying to explain love, grief, power, beauty, and belonging.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a museum described so beautifully.
140
18,619
270
88,452
1,060,163
A single piece of confetti is called a ‘confetto.’ spaghetti = spaghetto graffiti = graffito
362
1,506
272
16,249
1,127,250
Maria Thomas retweeted
On the three-week anniversary of Argentina's bad-tempered World Cup loss to Spain, here are reasons why their claim to the Falkland Islands is very shaky. (I write this thread playfully as a long-time Argentina fan and Lionel Messi devotee.) 1/n
37
23
2
563
108,766
Maria Thomas retweeted
Tom Holland has now starred in all 4 of the biggest opening weekends of all time at the global box office. He is the first actor to ever achieve that.
746
14,036
1,432
213,918
5,103,125
Emma Thompson completely ruined the mystery behind red-carpet poses... and Luke Evans couldn't stop laughing. I never realized how ridiculous those photo-call poses look until they started acting them out. Seeing them demonstrate it is way funnier than hearing it explained. Luke Evans tries to keep it together, but Emma Thompson keeps adding little details that make the whole story even better. This is exactly why Graham Norton interviews work so well. A simple conversation about taking photos somehow turns into a comedy sketch without anyone planning it.
16
52
1
486
71,662
Country Dance Before the Archdukes (flipped, detail), by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1623, 📸 by Bart Young
31
53
1
905
265,867