Great day at @bkbookfest.bsky.social yesterday. 21 attendees recorded readings from our books at our booth. Here's Laura reading Melissa McCarthy. youtube.com/shorts/-jTUd...

Ian Monk, poète, traducteur en anglais de Perec et de Pennac, est mort

New Yorkers: please come say hello tomorrow (Sunday, Sep. 20) at the Brooklyn Book Festival. We'll be at Booth 333 with books old, new and forthcoming, and we'll have a video giveaway: read an excerpt on camera, get a book. @bkbookfest.bsky.social

Ian Monk talking about translation and formal constraints: youtu.be/eQC5pp5wT9g?...

Sad news today —

'What does the lover demand from the body of the beloved in order to secure certainty. Little things. Eternity.' the divine Alina @alinaetc.bsky.social This is a fabulous interview by @monalisavitti.bsky.social, I need more

"The best poems inspire envy." As do the best poets. Mike Silverton, Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe for full access. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/more-enduring-than-a-diamond/

Cover reveal: Joseph D. Reich's monumental SCENES FROM THE PLANET EARTH, a book-length poem, coming in October. Preorders at @asterismbooks.bsky.social: asterismbooks.com/product/scen...

"every word Ophelia speaks, whether in the Second Quarto text or the First Folio, has to make its appearance in 'let me tell you'." WJ Davies and Paul Griffiths on the latter's Ophelian (and somewhat Oulipian) novels. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/constraint-and-release/

"I have previously stated that it is impossible to go to Brezakia. But it is possible to come from there." Ron Ginzler on the little-known musical legacy of an even-less-known country. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/the-brezakian-symphony/

Our editor spills out on Substack.

The Coast of Everything

Got a piece in @exactingclam.bsky.social Here’s proof

“My identity is not fully understood,” Issue 18 added. And may never be. More Christopher Boucher metamagic. Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe why don't you. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/the-book-and-the-sea/

"It was in the castle of Tiffauges, the lair of Gilles de Rais, that I first encountered the sinister truth regarding that terror-stricken head . . . " A new translation of Jean Lorrain, by RJ Dent. Exacting Clam 18. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/the-man-who-made-wax-heads/

"Neither Shirley with her black coffee nor Mrs. Castle with her two eclairs stand on ceremony." Kat Meads on Mavis Gallant's 'A Fairly Good Time', from NYRB Classics. Subscribe today. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/anatomy-of-a-scene/

"No, here we have controlled scripting, deracinated sentences minus jouissance that audit a world gone wrong, gone bad . . . " Michael Hampton on Sean Ashton's 'Massive Massive Oil Slick'. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/sean-ashtons-emmassive-massive-oil-slickem/

"He embodied, more inescapably than anyone else, the absurdities, the affectations, the paradoxes and the perversities of the Decadent lifestyle and the Decadent world-view." RJ Dent on Jean Lorrain. Exacting Clam 18. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/jean-lorrain/

"I don’t think Homer has it quite right: with Circe’s first ointment (yes ok oinkment) the sailors don’t actually forget, they’ve just changed a bit." Another Melissa McCarthy odyssey. Exacting Clam 18. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/category-errors/

(Many of these essays appeared first in Exacting Clam)

" . . . a distillation of historical consciousness into poetry." Charles Holdefer on 'A Black Doe in the Anthropocene' by Artress Bethany White. Exacting Clam 18. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/artress-bethany-whites-ema-black-doe-in-the-anthropoceneem/

"We were like two nations at war: he some mysterious Greek, I his Turkey." Where is PJ Blumenthal going with this? Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe for full access.  https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/why-i-killed-pasolini/

Here's @ljabouttown.bsky.social (author of STILL ALIVE) reading from @guillermostitch.bsky.social's forthcoming THE COAST OF EVERYTHING (preorders at www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/the_...). Thanks LJ! ljpemberton.com youtube.com/shorts/g31Na...

"The boulder was not magnetic and yet it drew us to the creek bed where it sat beside the dark waters while we sat on it and looked and listened" Nothing like Kurt Luchs. Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/the-boulder/

'But “anti-novel” is an over-used and imprecise term. Let’s use the term “novel-in-negative”—less snap but more precision.' David Rose on Edmund Caldwell. Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe for full access. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/for-the-fallen/

"The hotel’s rich with guests, the ones who came And never left, who never wanted to be Alone again." Ernest Hilbert on sub-par accommodation. Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe today for full access. https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/hotel-antihistamine/

"But in truth there are no rules except the tacit rules of intelligence and taste and instinct for what is right in the moment . . . " Kurt Luchs on Robert Bly. Exacting Clam 18. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/hunting-everything-but-pheasants-with-robert-bly/

The new novel from our Executive Editor...

"It’s one of many ways in which the voluntary constraint upon the writer becomes palpable and shared, a pleasure for the reader too." Kevin Davey on Paul Griffiths. Exacting Clam 18. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/paul-griffiths-emlet-me-tell-youem-and-emlet-me-go-onem/

"This is no place for such as you are now." Fiction by Gregory Feeley, online and in print. Exacting Clam 18. Subscribe for full access. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/petraglyphe/

"Ideally, I should aim to find myself less annoying . . . " Jake Goldsmith on being miffed. Online and in print. Exacting Clam Issue 18 Subscribe today. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-18-autumn-2025/on-annoyance/

Many of these tribute poems and essays appeared first in Exacting Clam!

I will be signing copies of my new book/latest essay collection In Extremis (published by @saggingmeniscus.bsky.social) at Woodbridge Books, Friday 12th September from 11am

#booksky #comingsoon #guillermostitch2026

Clam contributor Roberta Allen offers us the following childhood memory of the Ansonia, no less, in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, a website of NYC stories: mrbellersneighborhood.com/2025/08/verb...

My brief essay 'On Annoyance' in the latest issue of Exacting Clam (@exactingclam.bsky.social). Also featured in my new essay collection 'In Extremis', published 9th September. www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18...

My interview with writer, librettist and music critic Paul Griffiths is out now in the latest issue of Exacting Clam. It's also free to read on the website: www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-18... @disgwylfa.bsky.social @exactingclam.bsky.social am.bsky.social

Really enjoyed reading and reviewing You, From Below by @emjparsley.bsky.social , published by @splitlippress.com

My review of The Only Wolf Is Time by Dan Tremaglio felcherman.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/t... this was a fun read. Thanks to @saggingmeniscus.bsky.social #BookReview

IN EXTREMIS, new essays by @jgoldsmith.bsky.social, is available now for preorder at @asterismbooks.bsky.social: asterismbooks.com/product/in-e...

AND coming up this week ... — an extract from Kat Meads' new book w/ @saggingmeniscus.bsky.social — Miami-based fiction from Zachary Issenberg

In Extremis Published 9th September 2025 @saggingmeniscus.bsky.social www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/in_e...

From @exactingclam.bsky.social & our #DisabilityPrideMonth reading list: This issue features “extraordinarily varied writing relating to disability and chronic illness,” including excerpts from four books longlisted for the 2023 Barbellion Prize. www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-8-...

"A skilled writer who is highly attuned to the lies we tell each other, and to the lies we tell ourselves." Charles Holdefer on 'Where I Went Wrong' by David Galef, from Regal House. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/david-galefs-where-i-went-wrong/

"Taking offense, giving offense, ignoring, getting in the first shot, putting it out there, puzzlement and feigned ignorance. Nothing helps." Fiction from Ian Boulton, Issue 17. Subscribe today. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/futureproofing-against-nominative-determinism/

"The reader is left with the profound sense that we are inextricably connected to the people in our community and to the physical place itself." Laney Lenox on Em J Parsley's "You, From Below" from Split/Lip Press. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/em-j-parsleys-emyou-from-belowem/

i have a hybrid piece consisting of various words arranged in manner that does not displease me in the fall dada issue of @exactingclam.bsky.social — so maybe subscribe now so you don’t miss it

"I remember these erasers. Do they still exist? (They do. Amazon offers them as collectibles, $19.50.)" Mike Silverton on Ron Padgett. Issue 17. Subscribe today. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/ron-padgetts-empink-dustem/

"Andrew was the jealous type. When he saw how smitten Doreen was with Fred, he decided to put an end to it." Fiction by Roberta Allen. Issue 17. Subscribe today. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/four-wise-women-who-were-not-always-wise/

"Smart, sad, and horribly beautiful." Jesi Bender on 'The N-Word of God', a graphic novel by Mark Doox, from Fantagraphics Books. https://exactingclam.com/issues/no-17-summer-2025/mark-dooxs-emthe-n-word-of-godem/