In @dawnsteffler.bsky.social's interview w/ @lumchanmfa.bsky.social, they tackle how the title BITTER OVER SWEET came to be, how living in Japan influenced Melissa's writing, & more over on @fracturedlit.bsky.social! buff.ly/6xvbIOc Get BITTER OVER SWEET: buff.ly/aVGstGt @susanschulman.bsky.social

Today is not an Election Day where I live, so instead I’ll be telling myself off-color jokes about Dick Cheney dying so he didn’t have to see NYC elect a Muslim mayor. For those interested in participating, the polls of my brain will be turned on until approx. 7PM CST.

Happy Book Birthday to @lumchanmfa.bsky.social Bitter Over Sweet! A real AF, absolutely exquisite banger! Dig it! 🤙 @sfwp.bsky.social sfwp.com/books/brownlee

You could linger in the Sunday scaries, or you could get up offa that thing and have a time with us! @1weekcritique @whiskeytit.com

My pancreas fending back the onslaught of the walking dead, I’m back on the road to MORE HELL this weekend: - Today at Bennie’s Cleaners in Downtown Rockford for their Grown Up Books Fair (5-10pm). - Tomorrow at 1-Week Critique’s Salon Reading #4: uso6web.zoom.us/j/86085409061? @whiskeytit.com

Hello!!! electricliterature.com/9-books-that... @sfwp.bsky.social

So touched by this piece about my book over at TriYou, which also has the most captivating review opening I may have ever read. To “Midwest, pessimistic, Buddhism” in all its hellacious forms—and better hotel soap! triyou.com/f/more-hell-... @whiskeytit.com

You ever brush your teeth at the same time as somebody for the first time and find yourself in a standoff of like 10 minutes of determined molar scrubbing?

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Something’s been bothering me all morning and maybe a longer-lived friend knows: you know that Shirley Temple song about the animal crackers in her soup? At some point in history were animal crackers more salty/neutral/savory? Or was that child just singing about ruining a broth for whimsy?

As someone who WFH in a generationally diverse neighborhood, I can confirm tradesmen love it when you hire them, watch them like a hawk, then shout helpful advice like, “Be careful! Those new windows are breakable!”

Thanks to the SIUE Bookstore, Valerie Vogrin, and everyone who came out yesterday to hear me read from MORE HELL and talk literary citizenship. And to Sarah Kunch for the photo and Megan Hudgins for the art, which isn’t pictured here but will feature prominently on my desk 🤭 @whiskeytitbooks

Portrait of the Artist in His 30s Revisiting the Places his Mind and Liver Went Skewy in the Past Come hang at the SIUE Bookstore 3PM We’ll be raising MORE HELL

Coming soon, again. whiskeytit.com/product/the-...

MORE HELL in bad company at @mazebooks.bsky.social 👀👀👀 @whiskeytit.com

Heading back to my favorite old stomping grounds to read from MORE HELL at SIUE, piddle in STL, and hang with the one in only wonder that is Valerie Vogrin ❤️❤️❤️ @whiskeytit.com

Updated calendar of MORE HELL events… In the words of the late, great Robert Hunter, “What a long, strange trip it’s been…” @whiskeytit.com

The best part of moving back to Rockford has been Screw City’s literary community. Super excited to get my copy of The Rockford Anthology, edited by the spectacular Rachel León and published by one of my new favorite indie presses @beltpublishing.bsky.social.

I got to this poem late this week, but I am obsessed with Zeina Hashem Beck's mirror sonnet! poets.org/poem/standup...

Happy Banned Books Week! Also, not for nothing, this is my yearly soapbox to any and all that most books aren’t banned by the Florida Moral Panic Club but tacitly by publishers, editors, writers, and readers who presume the weird and untested is unmarketable, unremarkable, unimportant, unreadable.

Had an amazing time reading at @republicofletters.bsky.social and discussing publishing with Christina Kubasta of Shake Rag Alley. Rad to see all the cool artistic endeavors blossoming in the Driftless, including these I picked up on the journey.

Get your aspect to Mineral Point. Delving into circles of MORE HELL at Republic of Letters then chatting publishing with our friends from Shake Rag Alley! 5PM! @republicofletters.bsky.social

Standing O 👏🐻👏 alaskapublic.org/news/environ...

As someone said to me at a recent reading, “If there really is an eternity, there must always be MORE HELL…” @whiskeytit.com

Super, super stoked to be back in Mineral Point to read from MORE HELL and chat about what small/indie presses are all about! Thanks to @republicofletters.bsky.social and Shake Rag Alley! Come hang! @whiskeytit.com

Rolling into MILTON!!! with a bushels of MORE HELL, SFWP, and Whiskey Tits! Come get weird with us! @inkcapbooks.bsky.social @mazebooks.bsky.social @sfwp.bsky.social @whiskeytit.com

For those still counting, it took exactly two bananas to establish MORE HELL plays in Peoria 🍌🍌

After a brief hiatus to breathe and focus on editing some crazy-good books by Jerry Wayne Longmire and @stepheneoannou.bsky.social, I’m returning to the road to raise MORE HELL. Come get weird with me this weekend:

In the mad abundance of my recent good fortunes—and those of my book, MORE HELL (@whiskeytit.com)—I’ve hardly had time to stop and thank some of the people who’ve made so many wonderful things happen. So a photo dump with some unendingly grateful shoutouts to

This is tomorrow in Philadelphia and the more of you show up the more of a public spectacle Hannah and I will make of ourselves

We are almost sold out at the Brooklyn Book Festival! Get to the table now folks! #bkbf

Raising MORE HELL in the Quad Cities tonight thanks to @atlascollectiveqc.bsky.social, The Midwest Writing Center, and exceptional local writers Ava Miller and Esther Windt. Come hang with us! Come speak with us! Come get weird, because we can! @whiskeytit.com

Anyone tries cancelling Fat Bear Week… We got beef. www.npr.org/2025/09/19/n...

Come hang and dig books! The pull tabs will be at the bar when we’re done... @inkcapbooks.bsky.social @whiskeytit.com

If you live in Moline, IL, make sure to stop by The Atlas Collective - Brews & Books this Saturday at 6:30pm CDT for a reading and signing of MORE HELL by @adamalsirgany.bsky.social, with special guests Ava Miller, and Esther Windt! buff.ly/HCtbLO6 @whiskeytit.com

Thursday! Thursday! Thursday! Gettin stoked for Stoughton! Gonna read weird stuff... Maybe gonna film myself eating Limburger on rye while I flip the bird in the general direction of Vermont over their inferior cheeses... @inkcapbooks.bsky.social @whiskeytit.com

Lowkey butthurt about the number of AI voice assistants my friends have that will hang up on me because they think I’m a bot…

Always love this stage of publication, when your book starts looking like a book! Coming in April 2026 from @masonjarpress.bsky.social!

Just had a teenager ask me if they could tell a fire joke they thought of, but it was at my expense. I said, Sure, dude. He said, Get your hair growth up, king. And, you know, the part that gets me is that that joke was mid at best.

Happy #ThrowbackThursday to when @adamalsirgany.bsky.social's debut collection MORE HELL made the Independent Book Review's list of Anticipated New Releases of August 2025! buff.ly/ptlauxi Get MORE HELL from @whiskeytit.com! buff.ly/SKTsEIV

I'm thrilled to be in a lineup between RF Kuang and Mitch Albom and I'm pretty sure I can take them

Cool sh*t I’m doing: sign-up, join us, hear some rad Midestern folk read. withfriends.co/event/267408... @atlascollectiveqc.bsky.social

Book haul from Printers Row… Thus far! @whiskeytit.com will be rocking it a booth TT (shout out to the layout person who saw that joke), where we will be fighting back the evil forces of book MLM with microphones. Come find us!

Ah, should have eaten the whole sheet of paper… 'One and done' dose of LSD keeps anxiety at bay : Shots - Health News www.npr.org/sections/sho...

More MORE HELL: A Partial September Events List for Midwestern Enthusiasts of Character-Driven Short Fiction

Woohoo!!! Go @rachellayown.bsky.social!!!! 🥳 🥳 🥳

"The physical demands of survival barely give room for the self to reflect, process, remember, or write." KÁNYIN Olorunnisola's interview with @adedayoagarau.bsky.social on his new book “The Years of Blood” (@fordhampress.bsky.social) is out now. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/09/02/t...

Annnnd the people say the Chicago Mafia is dead… Kraft Heinz is splitting up, separating hot dogs from ketchup www.npr.org/2025/09/02/n...

Getting stoked about returning to some old stomping grounds to sign books at the phenomenal @rubberrosebooks.bsky.social! @whiskeytit.com