The killing machine never sleeps, only pretends to need your pamphlets, spectacles, and esotericism, and exists to kill and kill again.

We have some new fiction for you up at cover.pub

Anyone who uses information technology terminology or schemas to describe the mind has joined the lamest death cult in history.

A post reflecting on 2025 ryanshea.info/2025/12/31/w...

Very excited about a story I accepted yesterday. Apologies that we've been a bit behind the past couple months. You know, like, work and toddler and the usual general chaos.

Compression in writing is not lossless.

Twice, yesterday, my dentist got my name wrong, and instead addressed me by the first name of the protagonist in the novel I’m revising.

Ready for draft 3

Excited to share this one with you

Excited to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor tonight. One of the bands I’ve listened to most consistently over time.

Ordered and you should too

we're live baby! send em if you got em 🙏

Some writing I read on the web and liked in August. There's a poem in this one. ryanshea.info/2025/09/02/f...

Some writing I read on the web and liked in August. There's a poem in this one. ryanshea.info/2025/09/02/f...

psst: if you’d like email notice about our next submission period (very soon), please join our NEW mailing list! sign-up link is under the “Future” tab on our website!

The index of the DSM is a lot of fun

Have you ever published a story, poem or essay online, only to have the venue fold and your work disappear? It's not fun, but there is a good technique that can help you out. I put together a quick video that shows how to find a saved copy of your work: youtu.be/v_Pym4yd528

One of the fucked up things abt the spam texts I receive on my work phone every day is that 70% of them are addressed to “Patricia” the name of my grandmother who died at 59 and who was an influence on naming my son Patrick.

I know I married the right human bc we hang out in the backyard dissecting Sebald’s writing tips vs his prose after our kid is asleep.

Drove past someone standing in their front yard during heavy downpour, watering the flowers.

Fucking thrilled for Joe Koch - his STP story "These Are His Memories" will be part of Undertow's Best Weird Fiction of the Year! Get your grubby mitts on this one, it looks sick af.

And here's my brother's second one: open.spotify.com/track/2mrbHz...

Sometimes when I'm writing several short sentences in a row, I feel like mindset involved is fear-driven and concussed. Like maybe I've been bludgeoned in the face with a shovel repeatedly, and through that bludgeoning have achieved the mindset that favors these short sentences.

Impossibly, I've made my selections for The Best Weird Fiction of the Year. Will announce the contents soon. Here, though, are 20 other stories I found quite notable, to be acknowledged in the book. undertowpublications.com/shop/best-we...

I read Blanchot and feel seen.

Sometimes you just have to reorder the paragraphs.

Liked this one.

Every popular chess player seems depressed in demeanor.

get swept up with us today into today's square from Ivy Grimes "...he said he had news. He was going to ask our mutual friend to be his girlfriend. It was the first time I'd ever been alone with R. "Why are you telling me this?" I said." https://www.havehashad.com/ud9j6

Pet Sounds is one of the most exciting and surprising first-listen albums I've ever encountered. When people talk about albums with supposed objectivity, I'm always uncomfortable and feel like first-listen experience, tied to the time you listened to it, is one of the only real ways to assess.

Nothing improves handwriting like writing out a full novel draft. I ended up swapping to cursive bc it was faster, and my blocky print was pretty illegible, then my cursive got decent.

Wrote a little about some of the stories I liked in May. ryanshea.info/2025/06/06/f...

I’m sorry I was 28 minutes late to our meeting, I lost track of time reading stories on the web.

Wait guys your choreography is showing.

Dear Bluesky: We are now officially open for submissions via our new submission manager! www.alwayscrashing.com/submissions

The same people who used to insist on cookie cutter structure in stories now insist on cookie cutter ethics. It feels exactly the same to me.

Liked Bring Her Back.

If you like music, you will probably like my brother’s latest song: open.spotify.com/track/2OZXzq...

A significant majority of the people I know are overwhelmed and have stopped reading the news.

It’s 7:30 pm and the Jeeps are at the liquor store.

Interpol Summer

I like The Rehearsal and Nathan Fielder generally.

Had to stop Substack notifications. Too many posts. Too many titles that set up a kind of revelation tone about an idea that is obvious. Too much “we”. Like, many posts on Reddit are better thought out at this point. It’s okay to post little, publish little, on no schedule.

These letters withdrawing grants are going out to artists and small arts orgs today. The new NEA priorities don’t seem to have much to do with actual art

Love these, thanks @wakeisland.bsky.social @raviddice.bsky.social for making them.

NYC for the weekend, seeing Othello tonight.

Wrote a little about 3 stories I liked in April ryanshea.info/2025/04/30/f...

Making a list of fav web fiction from April -- any recs?