One of the neighbors’ rabbits—it’s unclear whether they’re pets or meat—escaped and has been living in our backyard. I feel like Elmer Fudd out there every morning chasing it out of the garden and trying to catch it as it leisurely hops away, totally unbothered.

Time totally expands when a long fly ball is headed toward your kid in the outfield. That ball was in the air forever and my heart was in my throat. I’m happy to report he caught it.

Can’t wait to delve into this @ruadanbooks.bsky.social anthology of dark fiction inspired by the alternative era and featuring stories by @chrislterry.bsky.social and a host of others.

Last night at the ballpark, a visiting coach of a team of 11-12 year-olds lost his shit, got tossed out of the game and escorted from the site for arguing with an ump. Story prompt: Write an all-dialog story about the conversation that happened when he got home and his wife asked how the game went.

This Sheldon Birnie story is such a blast — some of the best voice I've read in a while. I picked up Where the Pavement Turns to Sand at AWP and it's so, so good. You should pick it up & read it alongside me! And if you do, tell me, I'll gift ya an SSL subscription! malarkeybooks.com/store/pavement

Watching my 12 year old play his first real baseball game was about the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve done.

My flash fiction story, Inauguration Day, is up at @frazzledlit.bsky.social www.frazzledlit.com/p/inaugurati...

Listen to this. Then check out CJ's tribute to Kinky's detective fiction from this past fall: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/issue-101-a-...

I’m writing about the quest to read a book by a writer from every country in the world at my Bookmark Planet SubStack. Karina Sainz-Borgo’s It Would Be Night in Caracas was my Venezuelan pick: open.substack.com/pub/bookmark...

Surely there’s a band called Devour Feculence in the wake of Mr. Milchik’s moment by now, right?

I wrote about Nnedi Okorafor's Noor as part of the Bookmark Planet reading project. open.substack.com/pub/bookmark...

"Yes, David Lee Roth is best understood as camp." It strikes me that one might spend a lifetime categorizing 80s hard rock artists by the degree to which they are best understood as camp.

I used to say "dream publications" don't exist. Then Aaron brought Short Story Long into the world. This is a big deal for me.

You’d have to pay me a lot of money to listen to that cheese grater voice blow his own horn and blatantly lie to the to the American people, so we finally started Severance last night instead of watching the State of the Union. Both are chilling in different ways.

New Malarkey Public Radio episode: @ljabouttown.bsky.social talks with Itoro Bassey about writing and living, and who came before you, and who you come back to… open.substack.com/pub/malarkey...

It's been a while since I wrote anything for the Bookmark Planet read-the-world project. Here's the entry for South Korea, Han Kang's The Vegetarian, which touched an unexpected nerve for me. bookmarkplanet.substack.com/p/by-bread-a...

Started a rewatch of my favorite popcorn franchise with the fam last night with the first Jurassic Park. I always cheer gleefully when Wayne Knight as Nedry gets eaten by the Dilophosaurus and can't help but yelling Hello Newman when the thing first pops up in front of him.

I'm halfway through Han Kang's The Vegetarian. It's good, but the first two sections so far are written from the most frustrating POVs possible given the story. It's a choice that works, but also one I'm sure a lot of readers found it off-putting. I'm trying to think of other books that do this.

I have a new short story out! It's a working class comedy about a box jockey trying to go straight The story was taken a while back before I took on the column & interview series I'm doing for them. In case you are wondering why all the Frank Bull stuff of late. mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

Joe Ely's into TEXAS WIND. You probably should be too. bookshop.org/p/books/texa...

There must be no OSHA regulations in the Star Wars universe. All the architecture has skinny-ass catwalks with no handrails running out over empty spaces with thousand-foot drops.

Why are cave diver memes everywhere right now? Did something happen or do they just resonate because we’re all feeling a bit trapped?

I'm reading Han Kang's The Vegetarian for my read-around-the-world Bookmark Planet project, and I'm finding it maddening in a way I can't quite put my finger on yet.

I haven’t quite closed it down in the other place yet, but it’s coming.

Beyond thrilled and honored to have my next book coming out from @leftoverbooks.bsky.social next year. It’s the most creative yet restrained writing I’ve done and I’m excited for folks to read it. Many thanks @patricktrotti.bsky.social 🙏✊🖤

Will try to remember to make a note on our actual website after work this evening, but for the rest of this month every order from our site will come with a free book. If you contribute to the Kickstarter at $20+, also a free book.

I have a story inspired by Jacques Deray’s The Swimming Pool in this anthology edited by @ABPattersonAuth and @realVernonSmith coming out soon.

I’m desperate to get my 12 year old, who reads well above his grade level, to fall in love with reading. He’s not digging The Hobbit, which he’s reading for school, and I’m thinking of reading Stephen King’s The Body along with him. Am I remembering the book well? It’s age-appropriate, right?

Small town SC drama: The whole McColl police force and the chief recently resigned citing “toxic work environment created by one member of city council.” Now the mayor just died in a crash being chased by cops “for his own protection.” He was also under SLED investigation.

After a recent thrash metal nostalgia rabbit hole, the algorithm that puts articles in the news feed on my phone really thinks I want to read a thousand different articles on why Jason Newstead's bass on And Justice For All is so low in the mix. How many different dudes got paid to write about that?

In my quest to read a book from every country, it's fascinating to see detective novel/murder mystery tropes translated across cultures. Just finished Arnaldur Indriðason's Jar City (Iceland) and Kwei Quarty's Wife of the Gods (Ghana). Investigator Erlendur and Darko Dawson have a lot in common.

My kid had a short list of books to choose from for a reading project and chose The Hobbit, which seems like a hefty tome for a 12 year old. I think I'm going to read it along with him. I made an aborted attempt to read the LOTR books as a teenager, so it'll be my first time too.

Is there anybody in here? Just nod if you can hear me.

I've been writing about a project to read a book from every country in the world. open.substack.com/pub/bookmark...

I'm almost a decade late to this party, but we finished Fargo season 2 last night, and I'm now devoting my writing life to writing Ed and Peggy Blumquist fan fiction.

Local birders are excited to see orioles, a rare occurence in our area, at their feeders. I offered some oranges, but the only action I've seen is a red-tailed hawk taking a squirrel trying to puzzle out how to get the oranges. The hawk's fed, so I guess the bird feeder worked.

Everybody wants to talk about the saddest songs of all time, but what about the most terrifying? I nominate this one. Every day is a fight against cynicism and despair, and that struggle is all we got, but here Leonard Cohen makes it seems so alluring, a siren call urging me to just give it up.

Read # 4 for the year will be Kayli Scholtz’s St. Grit from @ghoulish.bsky.social in eBook form. I was fortunate to read an early draft of this one and I have a story alongside one of Kayli’s in the Nightmare Diaries anthology coming later this year from @moonstruckbooks.bsky.social, so here we go.

Anyone watch Netflix's Bodies? I dug it, but I got some questions.

This year some of the rotating Cinema Chop Shop crew and I issued a movie challenge to each other, selecting 52 categories to be filled with fitting films of our choice. Feel free play along on #Letterboxd if you’d like. letterboxd.com/jrpoole/list...

Minor Christmas miracle: I assembled my son’s new basketball goal with no busted knuckles and only a modicum of cussing.

Y’all leave Mariah Carey alone. I can think of 25 more annoying Christmas songs without even trying.

I’ve blocked and muted so many accounts across social media recently, not just MAGA trolls, but people I more or less agree with too. I just don’t have bandwidth for culture war stuff. So much of it’s just shrill posturing to score internet points, not aimed at real dialogue.

Scene from a marriage— Wife, fretting in the passenger seat: I’m running late, so can we hurry? Me: [speeds up] Wife: Oh my God. Don’t drive so fast. Me: So I should hurry but not actually go faster? Wife: Yes. [End Scene]

I can’t say our rooting interests were ever aligned, but much respect to #GamecockJesus, such a fixture in the baseline seats since the days of the old Carolina Coliseum. I’m glad we’re playing the Cocks in Clemson tonight. www.wistv.com/2023/12/06/m...

What do you consider your benchmark for #Wordle? If I get it by the 4th chance or better, I feel like it’s a going to be a good day. I solemnly promise I will never post a pic of my stats if you’re worried about that.

I just don’t think I can sit through Home Alone again this year, y’all.

I hate writing pitch copy, but here goes: Buried, a horror novel about a woman who enacts vengeance on her sister's killer, a US senator, after being turned into what she can only assume is a vampire by a one-night stand with a man who just might be Hank Williams Sr.

Old guy to the bartender at the brewery yesterday: “Son, this beer is like a sore peter—it’s hard to beat.” That’s gonna show up in dialogue soon.