Up next on the Small Press Sunday roster is @rosemetalpress.bsky.social on Sunday, October 5! Join [email protected] and one of Rose Metal Press's cofounders Abigail Beckel at 3:30 PT / 6:30 ET to peek behind the curtain of one of your favorite small presses. See you there on Insta Live!

Sneak peek of the cover of FIT INTO ME by Molly Gaudry, releasing in December; Naomi Cohn's The Braille Encyclopedia wins 3 awards; Sheila O'Connor's Evidence of V chosen for statewide book club & her author event is TONIGHT; Upcoming @tmcallister.bsky.social events! All the RMP news: icont.ac/517z2

I loved this book. Everyone should read!

EVIDENCE OF V by Sheila O'Connor is the current One Book | One Minnesota selection, which gives free access to the e-book to all Minnesotans as part of a statewide book club! Sheila is giving an author talk as part of the program and that is open to everyone. Register: thefriends.org/minnesota-ce...

I started reading IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE by @tmcallister.bsky.social last week, and it jump-started a new project for me. I wrote over 2,000 words today in a flurry. I haven't felt this focused in a long time.

BTW if you're in Cleveland, Loganberry Books has 4 signed copies of IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE in stock as of last night

Having a great day so far at the Inkubator Conference run by @literarycleveland.bsky.social. Free to the public, tons of people, well organized, and great energy. Huge turnout for my memoir session yoo

Next week we kick off the 10 year anniversary celebrate of the Rutgers-Camden Writers House with a reading by me & Lauren Grodstein. Event is free, but we're also offering lots of cool extras to donors who support the Writers House. Full details writershouse.camden.rutgers.edu/10th-anniver...

Great essay by @tmcallister.bsky.social at The Metropolitan Review about his experience with large and small presses, with a clear-eyed, experienced idea of the pluses and minuses. Also a nice confirmation that querying agents is awful for nearly everybody. www.metropolitanreview.org/p/to-go-big-...

Reading in NYC next Friday, in case anyone on this app lives in New York City and is over 30 and has a graduate degree and likes to mill around in a room with other people like that

Really loved Tom’s book, IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE, and we had a great chat about it earlier this summer. Excited the convo is out and for you all to read it (and his book!)!

Still time to register for this and hang with me in Cleveland

This has been getting shared all over, as it should be, but I'm grateful for @tmcallister.bsky.social's openness about what is a more typical experience for writers than the rare instant blockbuster career. It is certainly a whole lot closer to mine.

Whoops, here's the link: www.metropolitanreview.org/p/to-go-big-...

"My grad students typically leave these meetings having processed the message that whatever you’re working on is wrong...I tell them to make the thing they believe in." Wonderful @tmcallister.bsky.social piece about @rosemetalpress.bsky.social

Wrote for The Metropolitan Review about the pros & cons of working w/ small indie presses vs. big presses, the journey from almost being a big fancy author to being a medium unfancy author, and mid-career re-evaluation of what I want out of the writing life www.metropolitanreview.org/p/to-go-big-...

"Many accomplished writer friends — people with two or more large press books — have found themselves at a similar crossroads in recent years." IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE author @tmcallister.bsky.social muses on major & indie publishers at Metropolitan Review! www.metropolitanreview.org/p/to-go-big-...

This Friday night at the Whistler! Organized by @neonpajamas.bsky.social! Come hear @rosemetalpress.bsky.social author Chris Bower and many, many other great small press writers at the Printers Row Lit Fest Offsite Reading!

Hey friends, I'm gathering flash fiction that uses poetic forms for a project. Any you know of and can link here would be hugely appreciated. I am doing my own research! But I know I must be missing some. Thanks so much. 💙

Really grateful to @sheilkapadia.bsky.social for hosting a great event at Bookish Notions in Media tonight, and to everyone who came out. It must be said, though, that the true highlight was the person who brought a mini Eagles helmet for the two of us to sign

Spending August training for this marathon. Mark your calendars. A dozen readers, a dozen presses. September 5. The Whistler.

Tom McAllister in conversation with Matthew Vollmer about McAllister's memoir, 'It All Felt Impossible'| 'Brooklyn Rail' brooklynrail.org/2025/07/book...

SESSION PREVIEW: Join us 8/17 at 6 pm ET for An Evening w/ the Editors feat. Athena Dixon (Split/Lip Press & Fourth Genre); Wendy Fontaine (Hippocampus); Steph Liberatore (In Short); Tom McAllister (Barrelhouse) & Alexis Paige (Vine Leaves Press). www.hippocampusmagazine.com/hippocamp25/

Next Big Show at Crooners Supper Club! With guests award-winning author Sheila O'Connor! Singer/songwriter Jonatha Brooke! Playwright Laurie Flanigan Hegge! Autumn Mason with the Minnesota Prison Doula Project! Plus, Silvia Pontaza, Zippy Laske & Sue Scott! TICKETS & Info: islandofdiscardedwomen.com

The next featured title in the One Book Minnesota book club is by BA alum Sheila O’Connor! You can download the ebook of Evidence of V: a Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions and register for a statewide virtual author discussion--all free. Links and info:

Had a great convo with Matthew Vollmer for Brooklyn Rail about writing with constraints, the evolution of an artistic project, and a whole lot more. Plus MV said some nice things about my book brooklynrail.org/2025/07/book...

Also really looking forward to this Summer Read from @tmcallister.bsky.social and recommended by the Chicago Sun-Times!

REVIEW: Emily Webber reviews the essay collection It All Felt Impossible: 42 Years in 42 Essays by Tom McAllister. Read it here: https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2025/05/review-it-all-felt-impossible-42-years-in-42-essays-by-tom-mcallister/

Consider yourselves invited to read this short and extremely kind thread about my book

Many thanks to @anotherchicagomag.bsky.social for this fantastic review of THE BRAILLE ENCYCLOPEDIA by Naomi Cohn! anotherchicagomagazine.net/2025/07/22/r...

Big thanks to Jaclyn Youhana Garver for this excellent review of IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE by @tmcallister.bsky.social for Compulsive Reader: compulsivereader.com/2025/07/18/a...

Hey, it looks like It All Felt Impossible is the indie book club pick for this month at the Asbury Book Cooperative, heads up to all my followers in Asbury Park www.asburybookcoop.org/event/indie-...

There’s a ton of excellent parts but the sunset description and coffee straw moment are my favorites. Great book.

Authors Darien Hsu Gee, Naomi Cohn, and Tom McAllister (tmcallister.bsky.social) participate in a craft roundtable discussion about how constraints play an important role in the writing process. buff.ly/itGlZzJ

THE BRAILLE ENCYCLOPEDIA “shapeshifts between lyric essay and prose poetry and traverses the divides between lived experience, history, and scientific knowledge.” A memoir by Naomi Cohn, from @rosemetalpress.bsky.social & our #DisabilityPrideMonth reading list! rosemetalpress.com/books/the-br...

July is #DisabilityPrideMonth! Pick your next reads from our 2025 reading list—and bookmark it for year-round recommendations from indie presses and lit mags: www.clmp.org/news/a-readi...

Hey Bluesky! My friend, the author @tmcallister.bsky.social, wrote a book that I really liked so I interviewed him about it. www.the-reframe.com/it-all-felt-...

A little delayed on posting these, but I had a great time talking IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE at Kramers in DC a couple weeks ago, with @ambersparks.bsky.social and a bunch of intrepid attendees who braved the horrible downpour to get out there and join us

Oh hey it’s the @rosemetalpress.bsky.social Field Guide to Prose Poetry in Anna Kornbluh’s IMMEDIACY

Our Week in Reviews: 6/21/25. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/our... @rosemetalpress.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social @harperbooks.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social #Booksky

grateful to @juliusgoat.bsky.social for taking the time to write about IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE for his newsletter and to ask me a few questions about writing, "the intelligent narrator" in nonfiction, memoirists needing to "justify" themselves, and more www.the-reframe.com/it-all-felt-...

DC folks! Come on out tomorrow night (Wed., 6/18) at 7 pm to hear @tmcallister.bsky.social in conversation w/ @ambersparks.bsky.social about Tom's recent RMP book IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE at Kramers in Dupont Circle. It will be a fun event & great convo! See you there! www.kramers.com/events/24869...

"The ultimate success of the collection lies in McAllister’s willingness to speak plainly and honestly to his readers. Reaching the end of the final essay... I was left with the feeling that I’d become, briefly, his companion, and I wanted to keep walking at his side a little longer."

A man takes annual stock of his life in this unique collection. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/i... @rosemetalpress.bsky.social #Booksky

I was on The Drunken Odyssey podcast with John King this week, talking about burnout, rediscovering the joy of writing, the evolving expectations of a creative career and more. Ep opens w/ me reading the first essay from IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE also thedrunkenodyssey.com/2025/06/14/e...

See you in DC on Wednesday, and I promise not to drive a single tank down the road while I'm there

DC friends, I know you have A LOT going on over the next week, and all of it more important than this, but: plz note I'll be reading at Kramer Books with @ambersparks.bsky.social on 6/18 at 7 PM. Full details here www.kramers.com/events/24869...

Our next prize for honorable mentions? “Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction” by @rosemetalpress.bsky.social. 📓 25 essays and the history of short fiction await one lucky winner. Want a copy? Submit your story in the next Jerboa Lit 500 contest for a chance to win! Register at jerboalit.com

"Another winner from Rose Metal Press!" Thanks to Seana Graham for this excellent review of @tmcallister.bsky.social's IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE for Escape into Life! www.escapeintolife.com/book-reviews...