“We strongly request that you do not send us any more of your work, and that you abstain from sending it to any other literary magazine so as to not waste any time on either parties.” Read new writing by Ellie Goins on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“I dreamed last night that I was a saint. Before that, I dreamed that I was a piece of paper. And before that, I dreamed that I was nitrogen.” Read six new poems by F. Keith Wahle on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/six-...

“And how could he look like lightning If he was wearing clothes? And how could the clothes be white as snow If there was never any snow?” Read two new poems by Donald Berger on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“I sit around to reduce
my spending
to change
my way of life
tomato, mozzarella, basil
to look forward to” Read four new poems by Paul Maziar on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“The worst is feeling I must spend my life trapped inside a tree with you.” Read three new poems by Elaine Bleakney: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“‘You don’t know a thing you’re talking about. A leprechaun could crawl over right now and whip you in the skull, and you’d think a piece of airplane had fallen from the sky and hit you.’” New fiction by Alex Ransom on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“That trusty time-tested
cottonwood-leaf hat, rustling,
sussing, chuckling just overhead.” Read four new poems by Merrill Gilfillan on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“the party's
over, it was a
good time, you can tell,
all the cabinet doors
got left open” Read six new poems by Michael Klausman: www.relegationbooks.com/article/six-...

“I turned on the TV with my phone. Tight suits on men who’d played for years and still made a living from the game. They analyzed, and I checked the messages on my phone.” Read new fiction by Alexander Fredman, with artwork by @tvbeaches.bsky.social www.relegationbooks.com/article/the-...

“You’ll see me When the flock of small black birds Warps the air around tree branches And launches into a swarming cloud of chattering grey dust You’ll see me I am dead I am not invisible.” Read three new poems by Paul Kahn: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“still you make your own life
though it begins before you are ready
and there is never enough time
there are rabbits even the dead one
whose skin I keep
change inside” Read four new poems by Serena Solin on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“That I'm not to be a poet because I'm not one now is not all that sound a reason, I sometimes think. It (writing) is what compels me.” Read six new poems by Cliff Fyman: www.relegationbooks.com/article/six-...

"It isn’t that you read the whole novel and then you get the payoff. I wanted it to be a payoff all the way along... I wasn’t into plot. The books don’t have plots." —novelist Sherril Jaffe, interviewed by @josephgrantham.bsky.social www.thebeliever.net/an-interview...

"Now that I’m old, that’s my material... I want to write about the reality of pain and age, and in a matter-of-fact way." —novelist Sherril Jaffe, interviewed by @josephgrantham.bsky.social

“Anders and Laura walked through the door. He found it depleting. Time and energy were like disposable income for these people. They spent it just to spend it.” Read new fiction by Benjamin Jasnow on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/theo...

“I ask him what he does, I hope he is a football player on the Lions or something, but if he was he’d never tell me anyway he says he is a diesel mechanic” Read “The Night-Sucker” by Scott Watson on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/the-...

middle daughter has an appointment, so my usual stack of reading: this interview with American writer Sherril Jaffe in The Believer might be a new favourite, // @thebeliever.net

“I'm stuck in dread Hollywood in a two-banger on Fuller Street outside simulated introvision of purgatory. Feel like shit. Feel like wallowing in it. Hate everybody. Can't wake up. And I'm doing a scene about love.” Read new writing by Will Patton: www.relegationbooks.com/article/indo...

“How can I make the fiction as strong as poetry? That was my ambition. I didn’t want to challenge poets. They’re very sensitive.” —Sherril Jaffe, interviewed by @josephgrantham.bsky.social

“And the whole pageant of the world—all of life—falls in behind her and everybody gets a nice little lunch with a soup. There are daffodils and a guy with a snare drum, plus a careening truck full of bozos.” Read new writing by Stephen Emerson on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“Watch this video of a river. Or don’t. I’m not comfortable telling anyone what to do. You will learn what’s done
and you will do it.” Read new poems by Jacqueline Waters in R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“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...