Movie night is back! We’re thrilled to return with Litquake for ZYZZYVA Movie Night with @ingridrojasc.bsky.social The first installment: @tkiramadden.bsky.social joins us to watch and discuss Alfred Hitchock’s Strangers on a Train. Tickets: tinyurl.com/4psr6py4

Marjane Satrapi 1969-2026

in which @talkscratch.bsky.social goes to the movies and I find myself deploying the phrase “RETIRE, BITCH“ www.talkscratch.com/the-devil-we...

When you have a newsletter on how writers are surviving, sometimes you get triggered at the movies. The @talkscratch.bsky.social Group Chat this week watches The Devil Wears Prada 2 & mourns that no billionaire wives are coming to save our magazine careers 😭 www.talkscratch.com/the-devil-we...

“The proliferation of destructive wildfires continues to increase both in the American psyche and in reality. And who better to write on these fires than those who fight them?” Caio Driver reviews three memoirs from wildland firefighters Jordan Thomas + @riverselby.bsky.social +Kelly Ramsey

Every time I hear someone ask what writers are supposed to do instead of starting a Substack, all I can think is, my god, literally anything else. Go create something! Start a blog with your friends! Make weird stuff! Let some of it fail/succeed unexpectedly! It's 2026—you've got dozens of options!

Diogenes’s Lantern, roadside, late golden hour 🌱

I am guilty of still having 2 newsletters on substack but the idea of moving them is overwhelming given the state of *everything* For @talkscratch.bsky.social I reached out to @thefrankiedlc.news @leahreich.com @mindahoney.bsky.social to ask how they made the move www.talkscratch.com/why-cant-wri...

this book is excellent and funny as heck and you should definitely buy it and read it and if maybe you end up doing some class warfare afterward it’s probably totally unrelated 😎

say it with me fellas 🗣️ with the hook of life still in us still we must wriggle 🗣️

“…[at] the zine fest, I am perhaps looking for something that I think I may have recently lost track of, a couple decades into a peripatetic but also arguably successful career in publishing: the drive, freedom, and confidence to just make something. No promise of audience or sales… no regrets.”

orb life

Now is a good time to announce that I am planning to start an in person Zine Distro in 2028 right here in NYC. So... if you have space hook ups for me, please reach out. The Distro space will also be available to local organizers who need a space for their meetings.

A few months ago, some friends in Vallejo took me to see this extremely weird and bad AI generated mural. In a town overflowing with artists, how did this happen? The answer is a lot weirder than I expected: www.coyotemedia.org/how-did-an-a...

ONLINE SUXX LET’S GO MAKE WEIRD LITTLE ART www.talkscratch.com/i-dont-miss-... @talkscratch.bsky.social

This essay is craft at its best and should be taught in nonfic writing courses 💙📚 Also really important topic!

“Personally, I would much rather make 10% of 3,000 paperback sales at $20 each than 15% of 300 hardcover sales at $32 each, but that isn’t how it works.“

when we mourn le guin, we mourn one of our greatest writers & thinkers. but we also mourn one of our all-time greatest haters

“The paperback nonfiction bestseller list has been a reminder that there is a world beyond the US. Beyond consumption. Beyond ourselves. There are peoples & pasts; there is nature & its plundering; there is context . . . “ @rahawahaile.bsky.social on 📚🗡️🔥 www.talkscratch.com/list-full-of...

Finally, some good news: workers at Hachette are unionizing, and you can sign an open letter of support. This is the way! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Our newest issue this way comes… And you can preorder your copy now! Find Issue 132 at zyzzyva.org

Some Earth Day reading, plucked from the (towering) pile of books I’ve purchased or been given so far on this road trip. @manjula.bsky.social @calflyn.bsky.social

We’re so excited to share that “Muscle to Muscle, Toe to Toe” by @kimsamek.bsky.social, which originally appeared in ZYZZYVA No. 129, has won a 2026 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction! Congratulations to Kim. What a joy to revisit this strange and singular story.

Trying to figure out the difference between "attention" and "exposure" and why I want to throw my smartphone in the ocean but also feel like that would ruin my career but also it's the thing that keeps me from writing the most... @talkscratch.bsky.social www.talkscratch.com/smartphones-...

Hoo boy, does this ever hit me where I live (she posts, postily).

“At some point my smartphone became a constant reminder of all I wasn’t.” —@maggiemertens.bsky.social went ahead and said it. Smartphones, dumphones, delusions of virality…. and an extremely satisfying 2010s ASMR moment, if you click through to the essay!

This week on Scratch, we have an essay by @maggiemertens.bsky.social about how her itch for a dumbphone is largely burnout from the need to constantly self-promote one's writing or risk professional oblivion.

My big takeaway from reporting this story is that it's not JUST about the Forest Service. The closure of these stations threatens to upend a delicate system of mutually beneficial collaboration and resource sharing, and the impacts will ripple out far beyond the Forest Service itself.

Everyone with a culture newsletter that went out yesterday should get to reshare it today here. At Scratch, we had a long chat about writers’ dwindling employment opportunities and whether we could even land retail gigs at this point. www.talkscratch.com/should-we-al...

We're hosting @robertmoor.com and @manjula.bsky.social at the Mill Valley Library one week from today to celebrate Rob's new book, In Trees: An Exploration. Join us! ptreyesbooks.com/event/2026-0...

I’m so looking forward to speaking with Robert Moor next week (April 14) at the (lovely, tree-bedecked) Mill Valley Public Library. Come out and talk trees with us, Bay Area! www.newsbreak.com/mill-valley-...

Come out tonight to see/hear our senior editor @manjula.bsky.social with Suzanne Simard + @greenapplebooks.bsky.social 7pm, SF Botanical Garden, free to attend!

Remember when Buzz Bissinger revealed his wild af shopping addiction to designer leather goods in a Vanity Fair article? Yeah, this @talkscratch.bsky.social interview with THE Angela Garbes is also about shopping, clothing, writing & addiction (but much better): www.talkscratch.com/angela-garbe...

Also: Simard will be in conversation with @manjula.bsky.social in San Francisco this Thursday evening, April 2, talking about her new book "When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World." You can register for that here: greenapplebooks.com/event/2026-0...

For this week’s Scratch, I interviewed icon Angela Garbes about her next book deal, retail therapy, addiction, and why midlife lady authors deserve expensive pants. www.talkscratch.com/angela-garbe...

God this is brilliant

Today’s Scratch newsletter is a personal essay on being a Black critic at the end of arts criticism by @latriagraham.bsky.social. Come for the killer lede, stay for the dream deferred.

Who wants to see Dead Kennedys without Jello Biafra anyway? The future of punk rock is bright, diverse, and interesting as hell — head to the East Bay’s Doll Fest this weekend to see more than 20 bands leading the way. www.coyotemedia.org/doll-fest-oa...

In this week’s Scratch, the great @latriagraham.bsky.social looks back at the arts writing career she couldn’t have. What is lost when criticism disappears? What else — whom else — might we all become, if the arts were valued differently? www.talkscratch.com/the-job-i-wa...

This is a very good, very subtle novel that manages to be about things that a lot of writers think is too mundane to touch (when was the last time you read literary fiction where the protagonist had a regular job?) and other things that are too huge to grasp, like the hyperobject of fossil capital.

Scratch got a nice little write-up in @sf.gazetteer.co today. (Thanks, @cydhayes.bsky.social!) sf.gazetteer.co/a-beloved-ma...

When Manjula Martin first read the draft of an interview that appeared this week in her new newsletter 'Scratch,' she was moved to tears. The topic? Freelancer taxes. sf.gazetteer.co/a-beloved-ma...

Are you a freelancer? Do you have questions about taxes??This isn't a how-to guide, but it might help you get over that emotional wall many of us hit when it's time to figure out what we owe to the government after scrounging for our gig work pay in this economy www.talkscratch.com/self-employm...

Widespread industry layoffs and unemployment mean that virtually every writer I know is either awash in 1099s or scrambling for work and likely has been for years. We hope this interview about taxes helps to reaffirm that your labor IS labor and that it matters. www.talkscratch.com/self-employm...

Freelancers of Bluesky, this week’s Scratch newsletter features a long talk with an anonymous author/tax preparer about how our system sets us up to feel extraordinary shame, stress, and guilt around taxes. (This post will always remain unpaywalled, because we think it’s that important.)

I swear every dystopian tech development is like "Hey, are you OK with being this much not-a-person in our eyes? How about this much? One or two? <clicking noises> OK, how about now—one or two?" like I'm at the devil's optometry office.

*taps internet microphone* After months of work, a project i've been coordinating for @literaryhub.bsky.social in conjunction with @maris.bsky.social is now live ... We've commissioned 13 reviews of books by LGBTQ folks not covered by the NYTBR under Pamela Paul ... lithub.com/what-was-los...

It's rare for writers to talk about their advances (usually it's decontextualized like the nyt bestselling writer in the NYMag $$ feature yesterday). I'm so glad Scratch is reincarnated! This group convo about the masthead's money situations is very illuminating!! www.talkscratch.com/the-group-ch...