Issue 80 of Mud Season Review is here! Featuring art by Roger Camp, poetry by Julie Shulman, fiction by Sally Cunningham, and creative nonfiction by Emily Alice Katz. 📸: "Light Music 19" by Roger Camp.

ICE is making its way through Columbus. CRIS (Community Refugee and Immigration Services) is giving gift cards to families to keep them home and fed. If you want to join in giving, here is the link to the specific area and team handling it: crisohio.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/c...

Thrilled to have a new essay up at JMWW today. Please give it a read if you like stories about love and friendship and growing up. ✨

“Do I research pre-K options? Or places to flee?” New from KC Councilor. #comics #graphicmemoir #transfamilies

ICYMI Enjoy some thoughtful, possibly fist-pumping #creativenonfiction from @jen-bryant.bsky.social and Judith Shapiro in the #Trouble issue, out now. thewoolfx.com/nonfiction/

"Sometimes he curls his nicotine-stained fingers around mine and squeezes until I squirm." Time to root for the raptors in new #creativenonfiction from @jen-bryant.bsky.social in our #Trouble issue, out now. thewoolfx.com/the-raptors-...

My little essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize! 💞 Thank you, HerStry! #pushcart

So excited to have a new CNF piece up at @thewoolfofficial.bsky.social! 🔗

Spending the past two weeks as a fellow at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming was a dream come true. Thank you for the gift of space and time! #ucross

My home state showed up and showed out at the polls. Sic semper tyrannis! 🌊

Your donations to Matter News are doubled through the end of the year. Here's a letter from our editor as we kick off our biggest fundraising campaign yet. matternews.org/community/do...

“The real horror comes not from the specter of witches among us, but from the fact that people who can become pregnant have found themselves transported back to the 15th century…” Excerpted from @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social’s GRAPHIC RAGE: COMICS ON GENDER, JUSTICE, AND LIFE AS A WOMAN IN AMERICA. 🌙

If SNAP benefits vanished tomorrow, feeding 42 million Americans for a month would cost about $7.8 billion.That’s less than 1% of the combined net worth of the three richest men in the U.S. A reminder of how obscene inequality has become and how easily hunger could be solved if we chose to.

“And then it came, the realization that—at least in my mind—79 years old was so young for a famous rich white woman in America like Diane Keaton and that 78 years old was practically a miracle for a black trans woman like Miss Major.”

Ever wonder what it would be like to attend a wedding with an ex? I wrote 100 words about it for Five Minutes. Thanks for the opportunity, @fiveminutelit.bsky.social ! ✨

Last month, I interviewed Heather Marie Cline about memoir writing, cycle breaking, and storytelling as reclamation. Read it here and check out @hmcline.bsky.social ‘s gorgeous essay in Issue #79 of Mud Season Review! #essays #interviews

“If there’s a legislative agenda we should have, it should be to eradicate houselessness in our city,” Upchurch said. “And I don’t understand why we don’t have that bigger, shared vision of liberation in our community.” matternews.org/community/re...

LOOK AT THE MOON!!!!!!!!!

“There aren’t a lot of legal alternatives for minors who need HRT [or] even just hormone blockers.” Embi also lamented the loss of access to therapy and mental health support in the absence of THRIVE. “It’s going to be a huge loss for a lot of trans youth across Central Ohio.” By Larkin Cleland.

Mud Season Review is open for submissions from 10/1-10/31! Send us your best art, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. To review the full guidelines, please visit mudseasonreview.com/submit.

Our workshop participants slay us! More than 30 publications reported to us in September! We couldn't be prouder. Congratulations, trousers! www.smokelong.com/smokelong-wo...

Issue #79 marks 10 years of Mud Season Review! 🎉 Featuring artwork by Jennifer Follman, poetry by Eli Karren, fiction by Summer Hammond, creative Nonfiction by Heather Marie Cline, and letters from MSR co-founders Rebecca Starks and Danielle Thierry.

As always, support your local station. They need it more than you know. And, if you can swing it, adopt a station in another state: adoptastation.org

So excited that my little flash essay found a home in issue #51 of Cleaver Magazine! This issue is incredible - it’s an honor to be in such good company.

support matter news, columbus.

Tonight Tonight!

“There are campuses where professors are being fired for statements made in classes. And there’s this sense of am I being recorded? Are people signing up for classes simply to antagonize? And all of that does feel even more amplified now, especially in the aftermath of this killing.”

Being a 2025 Ucross Foundation Fellow in Literature is a dream come true. See you soon, Wyoming! #ucross

Come hang with us in Brooklyn on Wednesday! Details at the link. 🔗

One of the things we do right in Ohio (despite the current administration attempts to change that) is have an amazing system of libraries.

Loved this beautiful event last night at the Columbus Metropolitan Library for The People’s Project! I could listen to @theferocity.bsky.social & @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social in conversation all day. ✨

Three years after the end of Roe, prochoice orgs are still fighting to keep abortion legal and accessible across Ohio. I spoke with a few of them for Matter News. ⬇️

An executive order issued by Trump in July could affect everything from the types of programs available to the unhoused to how those experiencing homelessness are treated in their own communities. matternews.org/community/a-...

This country is doing everything to kids EXCEPT protecting them from gun violence.

Thrilled to have a piece about teenage rebellion in the Riot Grrrl era up at IN A FLASH today. Check it out!

As someone who grew up in Jerry Falwell’s town and lived just three miles from the Liberty Godparent Home during my own teen pregnancy, T.J. Raphael’s Liberty Lost podcast really resonated with me. So grateful for the opportunity to work on this story - please give it a read! #libertylost

Join MUTHA and Pen Parentis on 9/17 for a night out with parents who are writers/artists across genres that take on taboo topics. Details and tickets at the link in bio! THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2025 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT @bkbookfest.bsky.social @penparentis.bsky.social #BKBF

A few months ago, I shared an intent to raise money for Kaleidoscope, a youth center for the LGBTQIA+ community in Columbus. It had no date for the event or where it was going to be. Now it does: www.gofundme.com/f/save-it-or...

The @smokelong.bsky.social workshops are legit! So far, I’ve received acceptances for three pieces that were born and/or workshopped in the March Micro Marathon (all forthcoming this fall). If you write flash, check it out! 👀

They mean to be as insulting to Black people, as dismissive of our lives, as resistance to our status as full citizens in this country as they can be. There is no common ground to be had at the expense of our sisters & daughters’ lives and our dignity as a people. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/u...

“I knew one thing for sure; I did not want to have a baby.” New at MUTHA: Sarah Shaw shares her abortion story. Link in comments and bio. #protechchoice #abortionstories

Powerful and worth a read. #standwithimmigrants

“[Matter News] tackles complex community challenges ... through deeply reported, narrative-rich multimedia that elevates marginalized voices.” tbh this means as much to me as any accolade considering the amount of work I've poured into this thing over three years. matternews.org/community/ma...

Submissions are open from July 1-31! Send us your best poetry, artwork, fiction, or creative nonfiction. We pay a small honorarium for accepted pieces. Visit mudseasonreview.com/submit to learn more. 🎨: "Oranges on the Train" by Josie Levin for Issue #78.

“We are always coming of age, and adulthood is also marked by moments where we leave our past self behind and enter into a new sense of identity.” New at MUTHA: Jen Bryant interviews author Marie Rutkoski about creativity, reinvention, and her new novel, ORDINARY LOVE. #queerlovestories 🌈

“Every time I had heard stories of cults or abuse, it had been with this perspective of othering them…What I was hoping to bring to the table was the ability to make the experience relatable.” MUTHA editor Jen Bryant talks to author Veena Dinavahi about cults, control, and memoir-writing. ⬇️

Drastic changes are threatening to gut the SNAP program, which would result in widespread food insecurity at a time when folks are already struggling to put food on the table. I wrote about the leaders in Ohio’s hunger relief network who are pushing back against these changes for Matter News.