Looking to build your physical library? Willing to give these 5 literary novels to a good home. I'll cover shipping to a mutual in contiguous US.

It’s a Sunday afternoon in the dead center of the year. Life barrels along. Best of times, worst of times, y’all know the score. Please consider checking out my two new books this year: Boxcutters has been out in the world for two months and Feast is but a month away!

Celebrate Summerween with Ploughshares! Join us at 6pm on July 16th at Trident Booksellers in Boston, MA, for the launch of our sinister Summer 2025 issue, guest-edited by Victor LaValle and filled with werewolves, monsters, and more. Register here: https://pshr.us/sinistersummerlaunch

My first book will be out May 2026 🖤

At church today we sang Get Together by The Youngbloods. You know how it goes: Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now

The cat is meowing at ghosts again.

Our sinister Summer 2025 issue is out now! Guest-edited by Victor LaValle, this issue features prose by Helen Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, S. A. Cosby, Joanna Pearson, Carolyn Ferrell, and more. Grab your copy today: https://pshr.us/summer25

We are pleased to present Ramona Ausubel with the annual Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction for her story, “Perfect Numbers,” published in the Summer 2024 issue. Read the full announcement and a profile in our Summer 2025 issue: https://pshr.us/summer25

Reading @nadiabulkin.bsky.social in @pshares.bsky.social edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social : "She has never had therapy. Doctors take five minutes, and exorcisms take five days, and she figures this is a good compromise."

Will you be in Boston next Wednesday? Come out to hear us read from Sinister Summer, edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social.

@variantlit.bsky.social’s own @barbaralockmd.bsky.social Her story’s sunlit-subtle menace will have you looking over your shoulder in a literary way!

Will you be in Boston next Wednesday? Come out to hear us read from Sinister Summer, edited by @victorlavalle.bsky.social.

What's in the box?

What an honor! Thanks @variantlit.bsky.social for seeing something in this story!

Have you read our newest issue yet?!?

The masterful narrative and metaphoric content of Vittorio Ottaviani's work takes my breath away.

Celebrating new work from one of our poetry readers!

Thank you, Tessa!

Thrilled to share the cover of #MOTEL, the anthology I'm editing for @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social

Reading Thomas Merton's anti-poem, "Original Child Bomb."

Join me @writesloud.bsky.social and friends for a moment of peace and poetry this Friday. All donations are for humanitarian aid via Doctors without Borders. PoetsforPeace.Eventbrite.com

Have a new flash in @havehashad.com today about Slappy, the dummy from the Goosebumps books. Check it out. Link to the story: www.havehashad.com

The butterflies in my stomach can attest that this is happening tonight www.eyeoftheheartcenter.org/conversations

The new journal my grad students and I are creating has gotten a flood of poetry and fiction submissions (yay!), but the editors are especially hoping for more open genre (hybrid, multimedia) and nonfiction pieces too! Send them some good longform work!

If you'd like to vote for my story PEACE PROCESS for Irish Short Story of the Year, please vote here: The short story category is at the bottom of the page. Your support is much appreciated and anyone can vote! www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/

@barbarabyar.bsky.social’s story is stunning. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s here: variantlit.com/peace-process/

Harvesting the sage.

It’s a wonderful essay, @abigailmyers.bsky.social

Once, when I was transitioning from one job to another, I sought the advice of a dean who was also a psychologist. She asked me:  when you were 13, what did you think you would be when you grew up?  The she said: each night, just before bed, write a list of what you did that day that you enjoyed.

Morning. Son tells me to be a wide receiver and I catch the ball through the fog, touch down in the driveway. In my noticing, I forget to have opinions.

Write a poem, then nap for a while. Inspect the crawling insects. Stare down a cat staring down a squirrel.

In case anyone’s up for it, here’s an exciting literary event being held this Friday in Hartford in a cool art gallery to boot! A panel of six 2023 O Henry Award winners (including David Ryan), with series editor Jenny Minton and prize judge Lauren Groff! www.riverbendbookshop.com/event/bestsh...

Retreated with these writers, so fun!

"...in any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean." ARTHUR KOESTLER

“You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.” MILAN KUNDERA

Bay Area cat lovers: These 6mo sibs (a boy and a girl) need a home. Got one you can share? (If not, I know they'd appreciate it if you could boost this beyond my paltry 25 followers.) Thanks

A story about writing, vulnerability, and relationship to the reader. Read it here! www.invisiblecitylit.com/fiction/make...

Kids singing thriller on the microphone in the living room and school doesn’t start for a week.

I just want to say that the close neighbor of stability is stasis and the close neighbor is stasis is….

Infinite like. That’s the mood I’m in.

At some point I’m going to get up off this sofa and edit something.

Lying on a sofa on the porch listening to frogs counts as writing.

Good luck to all the teachers and students starting this week! May you be gentle with each other.

True story: once I worked a hospital which installed speakers in public corridors that put out subliminal messages. An admin, who had one of these speakers right outside her door, was unable to tell me the content or intention of the messages, and soon after my question she dropped dead.

Recommend

Went to a great book launch in Brooklyn last night—basically a craft talk. Read Witness by Jamel Brinkley!!

We adopted this beautiful girl today. She's a rescue. We fostered her through a medical journey. She's healthy and purring and spreading love in the household.

Tara Campbell is one of the best writers and teachers! Happy to have the chance to talk with her about her new book & a few of her masterful #flash stories. "The World Is An Uncomfortable Place: An Interview with Tara Campbell" in X-RAY @taracampbell.bsky.social @xraylitmag.bsky.social #author

I recorded a clip of me reading from my story "Rabbit" for the video launch of Channel's Issue 8. Word is it premiers in two days? channelmag.org/issue-8-launch