“There would be no releasing of the geese. There would be no plucking of the ducks. There would be no brushing out the bangs of his highland cattle.” Read new fiction by Will Mountain Cox on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/who-...

Had a great time interviewing Sherril Jaffe for @thebeliever.net. We talked about Black Sparrow Press, a bad marriage, a good marriage, growing older, writing happiness, and lots lots more. Go get a copy of the new Believer! And go read Sherril’s books! Go go go!

“I’d believe you on a panel, behind a row of water bottles. You know, the Middle Ages had no need for architects. People used to all share the same sun.” Read three new poems by Sam Lohmann on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“Marsh grass bows in the breeze. A slow boat drones on the river. The moon rises to a first star. How could writing Ever lead to anything?” Read five new poems by Joseph Torra on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/five...

“Lauren called me a “femcel” today. I’m just from a conservative household. They didn’t let me eat M&Ms until I was ten.” Read new fiction by Iris Lee on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/sex-...

“You never heard anything like it. She was screaming screams like off this earth and Russell gave her his shirt and she just kept screaming and screaming.” Today on R&R, read another new story by Dale Herd (1940-2026): www.relegationbooks.com/article/don-...

And if you’re going to the #AWP26 Bookfair (open to the public in Baltimore for $25 on Saturday), stop by the Relegation Books booth T708 for some very limited edition merch, including @rnrmagazine.bsky.social tees, as well as lots of copies of The Relegation Reader, and more! #booksky

“I’d never done anything like this before. Berg cheated on his wife all the time. Now I was going to be just as bad as Berg.” It’s Dale Herd (1940-2026) week on R&R. We’ll have two new Herd stories on the site, beginning today with “At the Blue Fox Inn”: www.relegationbooks.com/article/at-t...

“I am a man. I am an average man. I am the most average-looking man on planet Earth. When I walk outside, no one pays any attention to me.” Read new fiction by Guillaume Morissette (@anxietyissue.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/the-...

“ther ar pot holes on
th road 2 heven or at leest sum lips in th
concrete that ar mor
thn eliptikul” Read three new poems by bill bissett on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“The older man is bald, wears a grey suit and tie, is a bit shorter than the others. They have identical noses. Not one of them wears underwear. And their hairy scrotums brush the insides of their hairy legs.” Read three new poems by Michael Earl Craig: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“The older man is bald, wears a grey suit and tie, is a bit shorter than the others. They have identical noses. Not one of them wears underwear. And their hairy scrotums brush the insides of their hairy legs.” Read three new poems by Michael Earl Craig: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

I have three poems in the new issue of the Southwest Review (@southwestreview.bsky.social). Here is one of them.

“two legs converged in a hazel wood and I
I let myself be swallowed by
coniference.” Read three new poems Sophia Dahlin on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“It was funny when you heard a random siren. Didn’t bother you at all. But when you knew the siren was calling your name, it cut through your chest, and swirled around inside you like a bullet.” Read new fiction by Robert Ward on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/traf...

Planning on being in Baltimore for #AWP26? I’ll be at the Relegation Books booth with copies of The Relegation Reader, international contemporary literary fiction (Roundabout, The Trees), @rnrmagazine.bsky.social tees with a poem by Baltimore poet Donald Berger on them and more! Stop by & say hello.

“And then it all made sense on the afternoon of Pearl Harbor Day, as I watched her sitting in the bay window eating a cluster of green grapes.” Read three new stories by Stephen Mortland (@stephenmortland.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“No one knows how it happened. But it happened.” Read new fiction by Jessica Westhead on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/tric...

““Do you grow up as I walk away, Or fade out into another world? I don’t recall you saying much about it.” Read three new poems by Michael Wolfe on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“I want to cry and sneeze at the same time I'm weird but without motives.” Read four new poems by John Coletti on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“The first thing she hears in the morning (the sound that always wakes her up) is the typewriter in her husband’s study. But when she opens her eyes she sees him sleeping next to her.” Read new stories by Ariel Magnus, trans. from the Spanish by Kit Maude: www.relegationbooks.com/article/seve...

“That food bank was once a petrol station, which was once a field where my sister looked after a horse. Mostly she just brushed it and blew softly into its nose. Some horses like that.” Read seven new poems by James Brown: www.relegationbooks.com/article/seve...

Thrilled to have four new poems up on R&R, a really beautiful online literary journal! www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“Do you like the way I have divided
this poem into six-line stanzas,
to give it more gravitas? Serious
poets divide their poems into
stanzas.” Read four new poems by Stuart Ross (@razovsky.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“A voice jumped out of a device that you had thought you had turned off. Stuff like that happens a lot these days. Just waiting for the pin to drop. Or bomb.” Read four new poems by Gillian McCain on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“I liked the sound the school copier made. Sometimes when I needed to clear my head, I made blank copies or copies with a single word—‘apple’ maybe, or ‘petroleum.’” Read new fiction by Dalton Monk on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/mr-m...

“You love poetry and baseball--are they like one another? They both get you used to something--and then comes a surprise. You love it.” Read three new poems by Canada’s first Poet Laureate, George Bowering: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“Someone cleared their throat. I looked southwest toward the promise of a never-ending day, then we all grimaced up at the sky that now seemed to be pressing down on us like the stubborn lid of some overfilled thing.” Read new fiction by Corey Lof on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/a-ro...

“sitting among the old men each singular at his own table separated by empty chairs unwrapping Burger King Whoppers my Burger is Impossible” Read four new poems by Bob Rosenthal: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

Five poems up today via R&R. Many thanks to the brilliant editor, @josephgrantham.bsky.social!

ICYMI— five new poems of mine are up over at @rnrmagazine.bsky.social! www.relegationbooks.com/article/five...

“Tree tips are silvery pricking
clouds with flat bottoms.
I'm all cut up by the blinds
and by the sconce light.
There is a dog on the baseball field.” Read five new poems by Ty Holter: www.relegationbooks.com/article/five...

“And you would laugh. And I would die laughing with you. And I would call you a dufus for laughing at me. But only in my head. And only if dead people have thoughts.” Read two new stories by Ellie Goins: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“I wear an earring. My hair is long. I don’t smoke, drink, or watch TV. I got a dog and a growth starting up on the side of my head but that’s about it.“ Read new fiction by Sam Anderson on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/pape...

“A very fortunate thing happened to me this summer. What it is, I can’t say yet—I’m writing as if it has already occurred, but the truth is it hasn’t.” Read new fiction by Daisuke Shen (@daijoubu.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/summ...

“People need to think twice before they Start throwing good money at bonehead Schemes aimed at bringing American Professional sports to foreign countries I know I speak from experience” Read four new poems by Paul Fericano: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“He dreamed that a bird alighted at his window and told him: ‘There’s a treasure awaiting you in the city of the five cypresses.’” Read new fiction by Marina Colasanti, translated from the Portuguese by Adria Frizzi: www.relegationbooks.com/article/five...

“Here I was in this shitty front yard. Ants crawling over my skin, ticks burrowing into my flesh, who cared, who cared?” Read new fiction by Jimmy Cajoleas on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/who-...

“I read Hegel and nothing else. I watch infomercials and nothing else. I eat saltine crackers and nothing else. I drink water and nothing else. My point is, I am a boring man.” Read two new stories by Matthew Washington on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“She took him on a walk early every morning. Leg protested at first, but he was able to forget himself for long stretches of the trail. Knee made a fuss. He was stiff. He didn’t seem willing to hold the rest of Leg up.” Read new fiction by Sherril Jaffe: www.relegationbooks.com/article/leg-...

““I thought it might be a good day to make spaghetti sauce. I’d made spaghetti sauce before. But this time, I decided, it was going to be different.” Read new fiction by Ken Sparling on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/hi-i...

i had forgotten about R&R after i ditched twitter and for whatever reason, just remembered it again and went digging through some of the recent stuff. really enjoy these 3 shorties from gabe jimenez-ekman!

“It feels wrong to move away from this place Listening to this music, Sitting in the car, about to pull away The leaves in the distance, all around, Don’t want you to leave yet And so you stay and listen” Read four new poems by Vincent Katz on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“He drinks so slow I don’t know whether to feel put on or just alcoholic. He spits talking and my face is in the way so what’s the dignified response.” Read two new stories by Selen Ozturk: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“one day I was out in my shoes red shop peaks my interest sign said apply inside so I gone in but didn’t smell no apples that was sad” Read four new poems by Greg Brownderville: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“I never felt anything. I had a hard time in high school, got bullied a lot. Dropped out of college after one semester. Then I started as a clerk at the grocery store.” Read three new stories by Gabe Jimenez-Ekman: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“In heaven there are no automatic weapons To be found guilty of a crime there One need only to have arrived unexpectedly” Read two new poems by Norman Fischer on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“Once you get them back to your place, you pet him and he curls up on your lap and then you see it: that sparkle in their eyes, the tenderness. Suddenly, they like you more just for petting a cat.” Read fiction by Marta Jiménez Serrano: www.relegationbooks.com/article/buddy/

“He memorized pi to nine decimal places—3.141592654—and then he squared that. Another trick he did was he typed in this number that, when he turned the calculator upside-down, it spelled BOOBIES.” Read six new stories by Paul Maliszewski on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/six-...

“I didn’t have anything, really, besides this harrowing anti-life and lightweight clerical job that I escaped to five days a week, smiling and befuddled, in order to escape my cramped, depressing apartment.” Read new fiction by David Nutt on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/slat...