As an editor, I always always wanna back writers and help you find the best wildest weirdest versions of your voices and stories, but I will also always real talk you, bc as a reader of many things, I have too often caught myself whispering over a page, “who let them do this to themselves and why?”

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Do you like writing the whimsical in your short fiction? Do you amuse your readers, or make them muse? If so, send me a story at Necessary Fiction! I'm guess editing this month: necessaryfiction.submittable.com/Submit

the world is bad and I had a migraine for 8 days, but I felt better today and took my partner out for omakase for his birthday and the nice and super talented chef let me sear some tuna with a blowtorch!!

taking a few small forays out of my lit events hiatus, and it’s going ok, but idk, y’all, still feeling like awp might be a bridge too far?

Hey @marchxness.bsky.social fans! It's cover reveal + preorders day for HIT REPEAT UNTIL I HATE MUSIC: THE MARCH XNESS ANTHOLOGY, edited by @angermonsoon.bsky.social and @meganc.bsky.social! Available for preorders (+ ARC requests) NOW, link in our bio or www.splitlippress.com/march-xness-anthology

anyone read a good literary novel lately that’s wrestling with big ideas but leaves space for joy and humor and levity, too? The world is bad and also my friends are very funny, sometimes food is good, trees are stunning. I am hungry for this in books, too, not only unrelenting bleakness. Any recs?

A small good thing: I finished this novel draft in 8 weeks. It’s possible! I let myself get it printed with the nice cover binding, as a treat. There’s a lot of work yet to be done, and after I let it collect dust for a few more weeks, I’m excited to step away from the desk to do this part by hand.

@jamesyates.bsky.social james! among all the rotten things to see, I was very happy to see you pop up here.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read anything on the long list but this is the first time in a long time I have wanted to read a lot of stuff on the long list!!

Bruce Springsteen is releasing the Electric Nebraska album to fortify his Omaha stronghold in the event that Sufjan Stevens restarts his fifty states project. You want Nebraska, you've got to go through The Boss to get it.

officially broke the “working new again again.docx” barrier this evening, so drafting is going great, thanks for asking

Once again, I’m thinking about this @kathyfish.bsky.social poem

Had a dream last night, of which I remember no details except: my 2 dream besties (theatre gays I don't know IRL but wish I did) were praising me effusively for my outfit—of which I remember no details—which was "giving Kevin Costner menswear babe," & I fear recreating it is gonna be my white whale.

Y’all I’m having second thoughts about carrying around a device for most of my waking hours that has all of the sadness of the world inside it

DO SOMETHING ALREADY, the writer yelled, hoping for action, choice, revelation. His characters did not hear, lost as they were in pages and pages of senseless interiority, dreaming of sprawling backstories, of dialogue they decided not to say and of things they would not actually do, ever ever ever.

someBODY once told me the pizza’s pepperoni

Last reminder to get your name in for the lottery if you want to write for March Sadness 90s Edition 2026. We will start pulling names TOMORROW: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I’m just an editor, standing in front of a bunch of writers, begging you to choose literally any other way to describe laughter.

It becomes ever harder, more tempting, & more problematic to harken back to the "good old days" of anything, let alone Twitter, but remember when Kwame Dawes used to post advice to poets? I must've heard him say 1000x that questions are not as interesting as their answers. I think about that a lot.

staring down a submission deadline, so naturally today's the day I drag in some furniture my neighbor put out on the side of the road in the rain. it's almost like I'm still in MFA school, almost like i don't actually contain multitudes, just am still exactly who I've always been

After 3 years in this impossible city, I was finally kinda sorta a regular at the weekends-only overpriced eggs & coffee place around the corner. The lovely woman who worked there & knew my name is gone now. Farewell, Allison, my almost-friend. I miss you too much, would’ve liked to say goodbye.

Short Story, Long submissions open tomorrow! I updated the language on the form, trying to be as transparent as possible.

One of the best/worst parts of being a freelance editor is the only books I'm reading right now are people's manuscript drafts, but occasionally they are just so good I want to tell you all about them, but I can't. It's like I'm in a secret society that's just myself + a handful of writers? magic

BREAKING: The United Mineworkers and United Steelworkers unions are suing the Trump admin over its decision to delay enforcement of a lifesaving new silica rule meant to curb the black lung epidemic in Appalachia. My exclusive for @inthesetimesmag.bsky.social: inthesetimes.com/article/trum...

The stupid coup's stupid energy policy--coal is just a dirty, expensive, moribund way to make electricity, and it's also some kind of symbolic Ye Mannehood of Olde stuff that the right gets all sentimental about, while screwing over actual coal miners.

Some creatives I admire are starting a new press venture focused on sharing the untold stories of women's lives. Consider joining me in backing the kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/thi...

why didn't the grinch just move. there's other caves

Yesterday was my birthday, and I got to spend it and Christmas with my parents at their new house. It’s not the house I grew up in & I’m wretchedly nostalgic by nature, but it’s the right accessible home for them & this change is good & I’m so grateful to still have them & spend this time with them

A traditional Korean three-line poetry translated: I shall cut a chunk of the long, long Yule-month night, Coil it tightly under spring-wind sheets Then unwind and unfurl it , on the night my love comes.

author pickup line: hey girl, you got any plot holes that need filling?

Font is such an underrated sense memory

the Red Bulls didn’t win, but I had fun cheering and hoping and feeling heartened by a solid underdog effort (that first sloppy, brutal goal aside), a thing I’ve not felt for the Predators in a hot minute

"One of my teachers at Columbia was Joseph Brodsky...and he said 'look,' he said, 'you Americans, you are so naïve. You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language.'"

You know those people who make you feel smarter & more creative just by talking to them? I'm working with a writer like that—lawless, ambitious!—& reading her work with the intention of aiming to give her meaningful feedback requires that I (attempt to) get on her level. Exhilarating! A privilege

Anyone looking — or know anyone who's looking — for a content editing role? I've got a spot opening up on my team: FT, fully remote, benefits, $50-55k, fantastic colleagues (if I do say so myself). Would love help spreading the word! More details here: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/40...

@mrbearstumpy.bsky.social Georgia!

I'm going to the Nashville Predators vs. New Jersey Devils game in enemy territory tonight, and yes, I'm going to be wearing yellow, and yes, I'm already bracing to get featured on television as the lone, sad away-team fan. Do me proud, guys.

Line editing challenge of the day: search your manuscript for “There was an X that did Y” constructions and change as many of them as you can, specifically aiming for the punchiest and most surprising verbs you can sub in.

it’s been a minute but tonight I had that thing where you meet a new person at a party and they hear you’re an editor and loudly demand you explain semicolons to the whole group, a classic buzzkill move

just read something really lovely an old friend/student published in a solid litmag, and I will brag about it in another post later but what a nice quiet evening just hanging out in his brain for a while. one of the best parts of having friends who make art, I think, is the quiet intimacy of witness

Writing-adjacent marketing dayjob post: I don’t think I have the right connections on this platform for this, but if anyone knows anyone cool looking for a new SEO job, my company is hiring (FT, remote, benefits, decent salary, cool coworkers, etc). compose-ly.breezy.hr/p/34ea223dc0...

I've never been a publisher tempted to publish for rage clicks, but as an editor, idk, I feel a moral imperative to do my level best NOT to let writers hang themselves out to dry? It is part of the job to ask is this REALLY how you want to tell this story/how you want readers to hear you?

just almost signed an email with "Beset" instead of "Best" and lord if that ain't the truth

strongly considering starting to part my hair on the other side where the sweet silver stripe is less pronounced simply so fewer strangers will tell me I look like Tulsi Gabbard

I have to use LinkedIn for my dayjob, and today the feed showed me a person I don’t know with the same name as a character from my WIP, and they’re nothing like my character, and I don’t know what to do with this information.

The botany of the sidewalk

I put some little window-cling bats on the windows of the shared front door last month, and today one of my neighbors … took them down? weird flex but ok