I love this essay so much!

The world needs to know that my partner woke up from anesthesia and complimented a nurse in scrubs on her outfit.

Had my hair in a ponytail, and I became a parent’s teachable moment to explain to their son to not point.

Got acceptances on the last 2 poems from my MFA from 10 years ago. Thought they weren’t good enough after one submission cycle. 9 years later, submitted unrevised on a whim and immediately taken.

Here is the writer crew at @vermontstudioctr.bsky.social. What an unbelievable residency with so many talented folks.

No homosexuality allowed in the core at A&M.

At the Vermont Studio Center to crush pages.

We are still currently accepting submissions for our annual chapbook contest! Follow the link in our bio to enter. #flreview

This just in, my partner is not thrilled that I have started to refer to finishing a novel as “beating a book.”

Last year, my resolution was to connect with old friends with a goal of calling someone every week. I quickly found that NO ONE wants to be cold-called and that scheduling a chat with people in their 30-40s is like, “I’m busy this day, week, & month, but I’d love to catch up around 2030.”

Bianca: “I’m not into hunks.” Me: 👀

Hey, in case you missed it, the new SmokeLong is out! So many excellent flash stories plus a little interview by me.

Sewanee is getting rid of publishing fellowships for needs-based scholarships. Weirdly torn. Stoked for more people to have access, yet a fellowship was a white whale for me. And since I got a stable career and won’t qualify for needs-based, I doubt I’ll ever make it to Sewanee.

Ethical question: if a student sends me an AI email, should I give an AI reply? I just spent twenty minutes responding point by point to an AI email, pretending not to notice, and I kind of resent exerting any effort.

Please join us in celebrating The Florida Review contributors Naomi Gordon-Loebl and Jason Brown, whose respective essays were honored as "Notable Essays of 2024" by Best American Essays. #theflreview

I have a graduating student who is interested in being a reader or intern for a literary magazine or small press. Do any of y’all know of anyone looking for readers?

I recently learned that if I’d been a girl, my parents would’ve named me after a ski company called Kastle, pronouncing it Kass-ley. I have no idea what to do with this information and yet it feels very profound.

Bianca: “This song is about losing your virginity by having sex.” Me: “Is there another way?”

Backing into a parking spot, I begin singing “What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.”

It’s me. Really tried to experiment with breaking a rule of fiction with this one. I wanted to try to show an epiphany that ultimately doesn’t provoke a change in the character. Bleak stuff. Enjoy!

I got a story in this issue along with a bunch of my favorite writers. Unreal issue!

Just took some Tylenol so I think this means I’m about to go ASD super Saiyan.

My followers on here skew literary instead of punk/metal, but I feel like it is still worth a little tribute to Tomas Lindberg, the vocalist for At the Gates and Disfear. Slaughter of the Soul was my first death metal listen and Live the Storm is the best dbeat lp ever. What a monster.

In the middle of a classic DND session where an insulted NPC kindly asks the party to leave his house, so the party had no choice but to escalate to a hostage situation which quickly turned to a kidnapping.

I had a reader point out that I overused “ever” and “just” in my manuscript, so I literally spent 2 hours with ctrl+f searching and changing wording. Can’t decide if this was my most productive or least productive writing session of 2025.

I just found out a picture of me as a child has been sold as a postcard for like 30 years. Where are my residuals?

I have made a grave and terrible error by committing to a show with doors at 9 and music at 10.

A close friend (and former editor of Gulf Coast and Black Warrior Review) was recently diagnosed with ALS. He’s lost most of his mobility and a lot of his medical care isn’t covered by insurance. He’s been a gift to the literary community and he could use your help. www.gofundme.com/f/support-ry...

The people who most baffle me are those that post online, “I hated this TV show with hundreds of hours of content on my first watch, but I really loved it by my third rewatch.”

Bianca hates my faculty headshot, but all I care about is my students knowing I was having a good hair day.

A note to all unpublished writers: please delete that Byron quote before submitting. Your piece doesn’t need an epigraph.

It’s nine in the morning and I’m trying to find box office projections for The Naked Gun because deep down I truly want it to be a blockbuster, and oh my god what have I become?

I’ve been editing out my beloved em dashes, and honestly, I’ll never forgive ChatGPT for making me use parentheses.

This is me after moving back to Texas.

I miss the early seasons of Chopped, before the chefs practiced and cracked the code on transforming ingredients. Those early episodes were so good cause chefs would make a Michelin star seaweed salad and then sprinkle gummy bears on top.

Boosting one of my oldest friends.

Great opportunity for flash writers who want to see behind the curtain of lit mags.

Excited to announce I accepted an assistant professor gig at West Texas A&M. Stoked to explore Amarillo and Palo Duro Canyon.

I’m at the stage of revision where I’m just circling passages and writing in the margin “Make this paragraph less bad.”

How are sports fans not considered more nerdy than every other fandom? They’ll see someone repoing the same team gear and start chanting in public. Like wouldn’t that be the same energy as two strangers in Pokémon shirts spotting each other and bursting into the theme song?

A hotel receptionist just said, “You have been upgraded to a bigger room due to… circumstances.” I’ve never received such good news that also seems sinister.

Museums are wild cause there will be a plaque that says, “Despite being famously short, this lord commissioned a painting as standing over 10 feet tall with the wives of his rivals depicted as his concubines. Also in the corner is his dresser.”

The other day, I was showing my Submittable to students. I was at 470 rejections and said, “I’d love to get to 500 rejections by the fall,” and I think my students thought I was joking.

Boom, roasted.

Woah. I got a fellowship for the Vermont Studio Center. January can’t come fast enough.

In an escalation in pet naming, @biancastephens.bsky.social has started calling me “The Ultimate Baby.” Send help.

So I’ve had an unofficial diagnosis as autistic for going on a decade, because I couldn’t afford the diagnostic. Literally met with a clinical psychologist last week for in-take in preparation for the diagnostic in a few weeks. (Pt 1)

Celebrated Easter by getting a tattoo covering up the cross I’d got on my 18th birthday. Still have a few more sessions ahead of me to completely go over my old Christian tattoos, but damn it feels great to not be wearing my religious trauma.

My talent that I have the most proud of is that I’m good at recognizing non-famous actors over multiple projects. Legit wish I could monetize being able to quickly, “She was the ex-girlfriend in that other show.”

I know most of my BlueSky followers and feed are writers and not into gnarly blackened screamo tunes. But Ostraca have a new album out today. I’m in awe and have to tell everyone how brilliant my friends are.