Road to winter

Once in a blue moon I write a poem.

One detail from my day—the narrowest of footholds.

Leaf peeping

The book I was writing wasn’t something that could be hurried into existence. Rather, it had to be lived with and through.

Once upon a time as a child, early one spring, out with my folks while they prepped the garden for another year, I felt a chill seeping out of the still-hard earth. A robin chirped in a tree somewhere. A cloud pushed by, divided & re-divided by a March breeze. It was enough. I lean on that memory...

"How has being part of jmww influenced you as a writer?" Reading the queue at jmww has influenced the way I edit my own flash fiction. Get to Know: Lisa Thornton, Associate Flash Fiction Editor jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/10/28/g...

@dem8z.bsky.social I was so excited to discover you here! Missed you from the other place!

The book I was writing wasn’t something that could be hurried into existence. Rather, it had to be lived with and through.

Thrilled beyond words with this review of Cold Toast at @smokelong.bsky.social! Massive thanks to Amanda Krupman and the SLQ team! 🤩🙏🥂

I took this picture of a pear in 2016. If nothing else, I did that. Sometimes it helps to hold onto one good thing.

I think it was Gaston Bachelard who said these kinds of buildings were the most affecting. They say: humanity has carved a shelter out of nature, but nature will reclaim it all (& us) eventually…& that’s the deeper comfort.

Like an actual heart this one is all torn up but still beautiful.

A Sunday night reflection.

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

@britt-kathryn.bsky.social rounds up the most banned books of 2025.

Moonrise

Dystopian thought of the morning: book publishers will use AI to remove the so-called offensive & inappropriate aspects of banned books so they can still be taught.

Some reflections on Wounded Knee in my weekly essay. www.adamsowards.net/a-time-for-s...

Absolutely thrilled to have been Highly Commended in one of my favourite literary journals!! Huge thanks to the judge Tim MacGabhann, and to @the-big-quiet.bsky.social & @ajwoodhouse.bsky.social for reading and commenting on first drafts 😍

‘Real friendships felt mythical to me’: On autism, reading and growing up

My conversation about She's Under Here, with NPR's Courtney Collins at KERA / THINK, is up. She asked thoughtful questions about disappearance and identity, root causes and consequences. Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and Radio Public. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

My teenager said, “Dad, your pretty intimidating. Except for your dad bod & those jeans you always wear & your weird beard.” I’ll be over here crying now.

We still have this.

I’m happy to say my first poem ever is in the Writers Resist Fall 2025 issue. Thanks to @kbgressitt.bsky.social and the entire WR staff for making the biggest wish of teenage-me-poet come true. Thanks also to @smokelong.bsky.social where this story (and pretty much every story of mine) was drafted.

I learned SAD GROWNUPS was removed from consideration for Kansas Notable Books (along w other books the deciders worried might endanger future federal funding). This isn't a bitter post. More sad that libraries feel compelled to make choices like these in these censor-y times.

New England, one leaf at a time.

This is a beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing it, @the-big-quiet.bsky.social.

Found the good light.

You know what I say when the potatoes go bad? Looks like the eyes have it.

Text from the review.

THE PERILS OF GIRLHOOD by @mfraterrigo.bsky.social is a "raw and courageous exploration of her own life, the lives of her friends and family, and the lives of her two now-teen daughters," writes Patrick T. Reardon for Third Coast Review. bit.ly/3Kb1qY8

Don't wait until you have a book coming out to write your acknowledgments page. It's not a bad little activity (especially in moments as fraught as this one) to remind yourself of the impact of other people (so many other people!) & institutions have had on your life.

There are so many better people we could all be talking about.

“Mosquitoes. Crickets. Cabbage moths. The yellow stripe in the grass where the garden hose has lain all summer.”

A self-portrait in things

A self-portrait in things

Reminder to all fellow parents that we have two jobs: keep our kids safe and give them a future The climate crisis is a parenting crisis. Among other things. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I’m the happy host of a new website. Swing by & say hi!

I keep getting asked for my salty thoughts about the Salt Path as my position on nature cure narratives is v clear! A mere fraction of those thoughts published here @literaryhub.bsky.social, with thanks to @bookwormvaught.bsky.social and @nicwilson.bsky.social for their earlier pieces linked below.

Take a breather

For me the best thing about the here & now is how clearly I see the there & then. I’m not 50 in this cricket-filled late-August dusk—I’m a kid playing hide & seek in my neighbor’s backyard, waiting for the streetlight to flicker on & tell me it’s time to go home. One long summer evening, all of it.

Four years ago I published my favorite essay. Here at the start of another school year, I’m sharing it again.

A short story of mine first published in the wonderful @splitlipthemag.bsky.social

I'm too tired to do it right now but I could riff on how those giant, bloated, grotesque, prize-winning state fair pumpkins are the perfect emblem for modern American life & politics.

It’s only August 17. Why does the month already feel like it’s over? 😭

My very Hoosier dad on our Sunday night phone call: “It ain’t funny but we gotta laugh at it.”