Fun with ghosts! Check out Matthew’s new chapbook: bottlecap.press/collections/...

3 adults bring some mortally-ill UK kids to Disney World. Haha. I’m surprised Disney didn't sue. The writing's top notch. Whole sections are written in different styles. There's chapters of only dialogue, metaphor, epistolary, etc. I love his short stories but this is the longest I’ve read 8.5/10

So last night I finished Emergent Strategy. It’s about dialectics and meeting facilitation. It was good. A lot of the nature writing sounds like dialectical materialism to my ear. I wonder if the groups she mentioned are still around - Ruckus & others. I guess a revolution has to be facilitated 8/10

Five-hour alert! It's time!

It’s some idioms & philosophies of writing, how it’s unfun & obsessive behavior lol. The end, where she focuses on a pilot, bored me. The rest is great: dividing writing & painting, & extended metaphors that gel. I like her point to use an idea now rather than save it for later. School read 8/10

Repost of worm moon issue (March 3) index since the changed image . . . this makes us ill, pulling a cover work, we've never done it before (willfully). But these are great writers with great works and check it out check it out, please! gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

4 French friends get into relationships. The plot's just there to let jokes, weird ailments & a talking mouse to come through. Someone sleeps on rifle muzzles to make them grow. I’ve wanted to read him forever. Reminds me of Queneau & Roussel. Still I was ready to be done w/ it before the end 9.2/10

An anthropologist time travels- found it in a romance guidebook. Felt like it wanted to be a movie. The s3x scenes were long. The violence surprised me. The characters were interesting; I wasn’t sure if some were stereotypes or what. The end wrapped things up…tidily, but I'm not complaining 6.1/10

It’s a language-heavy novel about a guy in Dublin going to the dentist, a funeral (or maybe not), drinking wine out of coffins. The 1st page hooked me but it was a lil uneven after that. I thought I wanted to put it down at 1 point but stuck w/ it – I’m glad I did- Dalkey doesn't disappoint! 8.1/10

A doctor gets banished to Italy's south during fascism's rise. He deals w/ townspeople's superstitions in a way that reminded me of Russian revolutionary campaigns. There’s a pig operation that felt climactic. Levi's a painter & that carries into stellar language. But I got bored near the end 5.2/10

Issue 7:4 is live! Check it out here. chestnutreview.com #chestnutreview #litmag #prose #poetry #art

A twentysomething returns from jail after refusing to serve the US in WWII. It’s structured as him meeting people who have different ideas, Waking Life-like. The drama of being Japanese-Am & refusing serving the US War machine was poignant. I’ve wanted to read this for years. It was good 7.8/10

It’s about Claudia Jones, a Black woman in the CPUSA who the US gov deported in the Smith/McCarran days. The librarian in me loves how the author details her research process. I wished it was more theory friendly; she gets points wrong on Workers Super Democracy. But ultimately it's sympathetic 9/10

Someone jumps off a ship & stays w/ a family & their help on a Caribbean island. I couldn’t get enough of the interactions btw the family & their fights. A face "as tight & mean as broccoli” killed me. Tragedies felt real & often came out of nowhere as revelations that shook the whole book 10/10

A young man gets pulled, via school research, into what could be a murder plot with possession & doubling going through the centuries. I liked it a lot - it's my 2nd Evenson novel. The echoes and transformations thrilled me less but I was engrossed enough to keep reading on 7.9/10

Sojourned to the Public Library Association conference in Minneapolis to present on 10 Years of Lending Musical Instruments. I also fit in some Replacements tourism

Pantry Prose: Taking Food into Other Rooms by Perry Genovesi inkpantry.com/pantry-prose...

Hi I’ve got a new spooky story in Wales’s @inkpantry.bsky.social ! Read at your own risk 👻especially if you’re a Philadelphian inkpantry.com/pantry-prose...

I think it's about multiple realities? There’s an assassination & metamorphosing. Rogue actors, directors, & a border separating worlds. I got lost in the sauce & wanted to put it down. The ending was good. I wanted to like it more. The audio messages & different voices were cool 5.5/10

It’s about Italian immigrants bringing food to the US. Ingredients like garlic were at 1st alienating but became powerhouses. It deals w/ how marketing & an authenticity quest busted the red sauce trend. It talks about celeb chefs, & the history of penne alle vodka & other dishes I grew up w/ 8/10

Thrilled to see my story published in the latest issue of Gone Lawn. Big thanks to editors @amygcb.bsky.social and @owenwyke.bsky.social. gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

Proud to have two dreamy micros in this edition!

Hi I have a new story published today in @gonelawn.bsky.social Thank you for reading! Link: tinyurl.com/GoneLawn

certainly lifts my mood to see 2 excerpts celebrating trees and other life of Taiwan in the newest Gone Lawn, alongside work from @emilyrinkema.bsky.social ‪@beerdistributor.bsky.social @brettpribble.bsky.social @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social @woodenmormyrid.bsky.social etc gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

It’s about an upper class Italian Jewish family & their lives together and what happens when fascism descends. The fact that it felt like memoir and not fiction bored me, but I forgot all about that when Mussolini’s campaign closed in. I was pretty hooked from there on out 8/10

It’s essays about fiction: Donald Barthelme, the idea of melodrama, epiphany, stillness. Often I thought he said things in the weirdest way, like I could’ve done a better job writing about this stuff lol. But I liked the idea of zeroing in one concept. School read 8/10

An orphan shows up on a guy’s doorstep. He gets into trouble especially w/ women & eventually a solid relationship ensues albeit w/ scandals. Some of the twists worked spectacularly, especially for a 200 year old novel. I couldn’t sum all the birth dramas and resolutions if you asked lol 8.6/10

It's 4 essays about DEI work, humor, being what the author calls a feminist killjoy, and how patriachy conditions men. The author loves language. There’s almost a Gertrude Stein-esque syntax flair in every other paragraph: ‘Society's hold on women hold women to society.’ Recommended. 9/10

A woman remembers her life in different cities. Plotless & short – scenes deal with Marxism, art, drugs. A lot of it washed over me. I didn’t hate it. Sold to me as a Sad Girl novel, which I guess it is lol 6/10

It’s about the Labor, Civil, & Welfare Rights movements. The welfare chapter was a deep dive into an org’s collapse. It compares legislative and lobbying tactics with the disruptive, mass force events our class is capable of. A useful book 9.1/10

It’s essays from the ‘60’s-‘80s by the former CP leader on theoretical issues, current events, & racism. His Lenin paraphrase that bringing a racist around to a point of non-racism (before even anti-racism) is a victory stuck in my head. A lot of quotables for sure. & peep that cover! 10/10

Scaffold magazine has honored my story “5 Metaphors for Greg Ginn’s Guitar Tone on Black Flag’s Damaged (1981)” with inclusion into their Best 50 Micro Writings of 2025! Thanks to Booth for publishing & @mattjakubowski.bsky.social for letting me know I’d made this list or I would’ve missed it lol

A young queer woman deals w/ lovers. It’s intercut w/ news stories of crocodiles, some in human suits, living in Taiwan under scrutiny. It was angsty, reminded me of Catcher & Wallflower where feelings get excavated in clumsy but passionate words. I confused the characters sometimes 6/10

It compares socialism to the anarchy & planlessness of capitalism. Diagrams abound. Takedowns of economic philosophers of the day (written in 1912). I wasn’t sure if she was agreeing or disagreeing w/ Marx half the time lol. Later chapters that told the story of imperialism were my fav 8/10

It's about creatures that feed on ideas & the gov agency in charge of containing them. Guns & gore. The writing about thought-eating had me glued. I liked characters forgetting their husbands & wives & where doors were located. Events like a planet-destroying explosions felt low-stakes tho 8.2/10

Over COVID lockdown I began this ridiculous art project of posting reviews of everything I read. As we all side eye this so called ceasefire, here’s another year of sharing my fav first-time (fiction) reads of 2025

Over COVID lockdown I began this ridiculous art project of posting reviews of everything I read. As we all side eye this so called ceasefire, here’s another year of sharing my fav first-time (nonfiction) reads of 2025

It’s the story of Davis’s time in trial & prison & her childhood & college & philosophy & politics. I liked how setting mtg agendas stressed her out. She dealt w/ so much guilt that people weren't paying attention to other political prisoners as much as they paid attention to her, a celebrity 10/10

FFF27012025 I Need A New Human by Lynne Curry lynnecurryauthor.com #FlashFiction #writingcommunity #flashfiction #shortfiction #fiction #writing #writerslift #microfiction freeflashfiction.com/fiction/i-ne...

A boy enters a learning institute/private school. He meets friends & something sparks btw him & the headmistress. The best parts were his thoughts & witty one-liners to himself. I started out loving it. But the plot & even what I liked about it wore on me. It’s very short though 7.3/10

A guy tries surviving a vampire holocaust. It’s set in the 70s so I thought it was written then but it’s actually the ‘50s! Feels not dated. The hero’s constant women cravings bored me. Each twist surprised me. An amateur phlebotomist’s take on vampires. Unfortunately the stories were weaker 8/10

School Read. It's about the Rwandan genocide. The descriptions of each tribe was meant to blend them together so you know how random and anonymous this tragedy was. The author wrote from interesting angles - interviews with people at a bar, etc. 8/10

The sentences of “the only untranslatable English writer," are worth price of admission. Plotless love stories w/ nouns & verbs mixed like you've never seen. I do a writing exercise jumbling nouns & verbs surreally & I've published 1 story this way. But it'd take eons to craft a true GL story 8.7/10

School read. Felt like an update of 1 of my favs, Egri’s Art of Dramatic Writing. The end was specific, talking abt taxes & readings. But the tips are super useful: putting characters in a locked room, starting with emotions at 40%. Using 2 characters who want a glass of water to explain drama 8/10

It's Baker's phone s3x novel. A friend told me Clinton gifted this to Lewinski- I found 0 truth to the legend. My fav parts were descriptions of turning up speakers as songs faded & little noticings. It's all dialogue. The ending was disappointing but there was nowhere else for the story to go 8/10

A woman comes back into a thirtysomething’s life and wants to restart an affair. I loved it. I wished I knew more about the historical context of the setting. The ending felt a little like a cop out but I don’t want to spoil anything. It’s my second Turgenev and I think I love this guy 8.2/10

It’s abt these furby-ish pets w/ cameras in their eyes. Someone watches from home & controls the furby & another person lives w/ it. I wasnt super attached to the characters. Nothing beat the opener. I think Schweblin tried to exhaust all plots that could come from these toys w/ mixed results 7.9/10