Wrote almost every day this month, thanks to @chillsubs.bsky.social First Draft November. I did not finish, but I wrote 13,000 words, got my healthy writing guilt (feeling bad when I don't write) back, and got to the part where I have to figure out a shitty first ending. Baby steps all the way.

Go vote for some litmags!

Properly celebrating Thanksgiving, better late than never.

If you're looking for a gift for you or the writer in your life, the @barrelhouse.bsky.social DC conference on 4/18/26 is just $95 & includes the full day conference focusing on craft and publishing, 1 book, 1 workshop w an editor, more lit stuff from our partners! www.barrelhousemag.com/conference

Hot take: Bad Santa is a perfect movie. Every scene a banger. Plus John Ritter and Bernie Mac.

this is set the night before christmas, but the night before thanksgiving gets a shoutout, so you should all read it today. “Biggest bar night!” he says again. “Let’s go out! Like old times!” I wonder why he’s confused tonight, Christmas Eve, with the night before Thanksgiving...

Have I worked a web job my entire adult life so I could write part of this detective novel in the form of Workfront Tasks written by an evil Project Manager? Maybe!

Happy to announce that A LITANY OF SAINTS by @dianarojas.bsky.social from @artepublico.bsky.social is our 4th featured book at the @barrelhouse.bsky.social DC conference on 4/18/26! Join us for a fun, productive day talking writing/publishing and support independent presses! www.barrelhousemag.com

I'm no genius writer but one thing I've learned in 30 or so years of grinding is when weird shit starts happening, lean in and take your foot off the brakes and let it go in whatever weird-ass direction its going to go.

It was a simpler time.

Over the 50,000 word mark and about three quarters of the way through a shitty first draft of this thing I kinda like so far, appreciating the little milestones where I can.

NEW POEM ALERT! got a couple new ones in the latest issue of @lamplitmag.bsky.social. Here's the lamp-iest one :)

cover! synopsis! preorder! out in feb!! "Blending autofiction with fantasy, meta with magic, and earnestness with absurdity, 𝘛𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘢 presents a recognizable but also magical world where we ask, if nothing is real, then why not have as much fun as possible?" autofocusbooks.com/store/p/tacoma

Proposal: a full remake of Succession from Jess's point of view.

We've got 3 featured books set for the @barrelhouse.bsky.social conference in DC on 4/18/26! For $95 you get the full day conference, a 10 minute 1-on-1 meeting with an editor, your choice of featured book, and more lit swag from our partner presses. A good deal! www.barrelhousemag.com/conference

Turn the volume up!!!!

Tonight's even more proof the mainstream reporters who are still on Twitter are suffering from a brain problem akin Havana Syndrome that is preventing them from accurately doing their jobs. They are being cooked alive by a snuff-focused apartheid algorithm.

There are more of us than there are of them.

Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight

So, folks, I have a New Thing out It's a #poetry chapbook called "All the Wayward Angels: Dream Sestinas" thru Bottlecap Press & it's got keys & stars prophecies & sobbing candles ghosts & fox gods oracles & barn skeletons beasts & floods and of course wayward angels bottlecap.press/products/all...

if I were a ghost I would simply not allow myself to be busted

This seems fun. 10 books I love and either return to frequently or without having them cross my path at some point I might be writing much different (more normal) stuff now (not sure if that's the assignment here but that's what I did).

Trying to decide whether to work on 4th draft of a thing I think is good, I like all the chapters but not sure they add up to a book, or new half-done shitty first draft of a thing I think is good and fun, so I'm half-assing both, and nobody cares but me, and that is the gig I've given myself here.

Wow. What a strange, unwanted, chaotic way to demonstrate that you don't understand the internet or nonprofits, @gofundme.com.

We're up to 385 submissions, and we've capped it at 500. So if you're thinking of submitting, try to do it soon!

Almost every major news story this week is about how the entire economy is now gambling, scams, bribes and theft.

Yo writer types @barrelhouse.bsky.social is open for submissions for THE DIRTY ISSUE, an online issue being produced by @mikeingram.bsky.social's Writers at Work class at Temple University. Send us/them your dirty (not in that way) lil stories poems essays! www.barrelhousemag.com/submission-i...

Great essay by @ericarstern.bsky.social in @wsj.com www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...

Yesterday the FBI arrested an NBA head coach and a current player in a sports betting scandal that includes a high-tech version of The Sting (which is the part the NBA should be least concerned about) and sports media is too in bed with legal betting to even talk about it in a meaningful way.

The new issue of Jarnal is dropping, and you're invited! Come party with us! #launchparty #literarymagazine #literaryjournal #litjournal #poetry #prose #partytime #litliterature #shortstories #literaryfiction

Can't upload my lecture about societal collapse in a science fictional AI-run city built on a system of generational life debt to the sprawling Canvas site of my uber-capitalistic pro-AI university because Amazon Web Services are suffering a technical failure. (In this essay, I will...)

If you wanna read (or you can listen to me read to you!) the story I wrote while rererereading a buncha Denis Johnson and wanting to write something for Taco Bell Quarterly, here ya go!

My X-Files rewatch is maybe coinciding a little too much with Spooky Month

My hot sports take is that QBs should have to learn how to throw with both hands. Larry Bird once played an entire NBA game with his left hand just to be a dick, but Josh Allen can't pass the ball 10 yards while rolling to his left?

it’s been a minute since i’ve published anything, so i’m especially grateful that @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social gave this little musing on love + leavings a home. you can read the full piece here: matchbooklitmag.com/mb/relles/departures

I need to know *everything* about this commercial about a man whose love of pickup basketball has been restored by Camzyos, a drug that does something, which was created by and stars *exclusively* people who have never ever even seen people play basketball. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd9J...

in 2011, the president of antifa hired me to give fashion consultancy to the organization. i recommended everyone wear navy suits with tan shoes, dress sneakers, and golf polos with slim chinos. if you arrested everyone today wearing these things, you'd destroy antifa

I have a new story out today @maudlinhouse.bsky.social! Writing it was heavily inspired by the increasing cost of groceries and general anxieties around money and trying to live a stupid little life!

Bookshop is offering free shipping on all orders today. Just saying 🥺

Do you like writing the whimsical in your short fiction? Do you amuse your readers, or make them muse? If so, send me a story at Necessary Fiction! I'm guess editing this month: necessaryfiction.submittable.com/Submit

The brilliant writing ideas always come late at night.

The @barrelhouse.bsky.social conference is coming back to DC on April 18, 2026, and we're open for registration! It's $95, and that includes the one-day conference, 1 book, 1 meeting w an editor, and your choice of literary stuff from our partner presses. www.barrelhousemag.com/conference

Who's ready to send JAKE some weird shit? General subs open 8/20

Yo writer types save the date! The @barrelhouse.bsky.social conference, CONVERSATIONS & CONNECTIONS: PRACTICAL ADVICE ON WRITING, is coming back to American University in Washington DC on April 18, 2026! Registration will open soon. Hope you'll join us for a fun, positive, productive day!

Fuckin A.

ESPN game day crew looks like they're about to get their annual family pictures taken on the beach in the outer banks.

Physical objects!

Congratulations to Roy Kesey (@roykesey.bsky.social) whose collection LORE was selected by Ed Park as the 2025 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction winner and is scheduled for publication in May 2027!! Learn more here: www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/p...

Totally agree! Something I have in my "what are literary magazines and why you should care" thing I do sometimes for students. Gives you a very clear view of what stands out and how subjective the process is. My thick rejection skin is from those early days reading for @barrelhouse.bsky.social.