"At twenty-four, I fucked wherever I could while my boyfriend did the same, an impossible competition." Love this new essay by Alicia Gee, "I MAY LEAVE," up today at Pool Party. 🔥

"Fucking is good cardio, I tell her. I have a soft spot for infidelity." Check out Alicia Gee's amazing essay "I May Leave," a meditation on family, fidelity, and desire, up now at POOL PARTY 🦋🔥

Metal albums? Childhood nostalgia? Christian/Satanic cult vibes? Guy Cramer's "The Pool Pit" checks ALL the boxes 🔥

"Inside were his Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and KISS albums. All the dudes on the album jackets looked like party guys" Get your Halloween vibe on (& pour one out for Ace Frehley) w/ this AMAZING story "The Pool Pit" by Guy Cramer 💀🔥💋

"Some creatures themselves are like large apartment buildings for the smaller ones to live in." Check out @jaimefountaine.bsky.social's amazing interview with artist Soso Capaldi where they discuss religious experience, their shared family, and David Lynch. 🎨✨

This one pretty much sums up the relationship I have with poetry and - who am I kidding? - with myself 😬😬. Thanks so much to @poolpartymag.com for publishing it recently; they’re doing really cool stuff 📱

"...mysterious like someone on an app inviting you to meet to drown in their self-regard." Check out this amazing poem "He’s as deep as The Mariana Trench (when it writes poetry)" from @ewenglass.bsky.social & come back tomorrow for another banger 🔥🔥🔥

Sometimes you read a first line and you're like... oh fuck this is going to be good. Casey Jo Graham Welmers' essay "Conjuring a Life" delivers and then some. Sooooooooo good. Up today at @poolpartymag.com 🔥

"Maybe when kids like Jessie & John grew up they wanted to be firefighters or teachers or someone that excavates dinosaurs, but you never really knew what you wanted to be because you always had this inexplicable notion you’d be dead." Check out Casey Jo Graham Welmers's 🔥 essay "Conjuring a Life"

📚📚 WHY POOL PARTY BOOKS??? 📚📚 • Ryan-Ashley’s 15 yrs as a creative director w/ publicity experience = thoughtful & marketable promo materials, a strong promo plan & gorgeous art • Kevin’s experience as an author w/ 3 book pubs means you’re working w/ someone who understands the process soup-to-nuts

📚📚 ANNOUNCING: POOL PARTY BOOKS!!! 📚📚 Pool Party is open for book submissions!!! We will have two reading periods and publish two books/year. The first reading period runs from now until December 15th, 2025. Visit our website for details 🔥

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this story by @aubrirose.bsky.social is every bit as good as people are saying h/t to @dmartincampbell.bsky.social for sharing it and to @poolpartymag.com for publishing poolpartymag.com/megalohydrot...

Hey all! Pool Party #3 is TOMORROW! We still have a few tickets left!! Weather looks good! If you already have tickets, invite a friend. If you haven't bought your ticket yet, get on it now! www.eventbrite.com/e/pool-party...

Honestly, I kind of get it.

Um. Everybody... stop what you're doing and check out @mmkaufman.bsky.social's new banger "PLATEAUED"... up today at @poolpartymag.com 🔥🔥🔥

New @mmkaufman.bsky.social!!

"Her breath caught in her chest and wouldn’t release. She hadn’t taken an edible, but this felt like a terrible trip." We're soooooo excited to publish the story "Plateaued" by one of our favorite writers in the world, the carwash queen @mm_kaufman 🔥 poolpartymag.com/plateaued/

One of my fav things about Pool Party is how it pairs the 🔥 writing happening in indie lit w/ interviews & reviews about incredible work happening in other disciplines. Today, we're publishing @femmeintheory.bsky.social's interview w/ performance artist Autumn Knight, where Autumn turns...

"My favorite thing about performance is its liveness. Its ephemerality." Check out this 🔥 interview between @femmeintheory.bsky.social and multidisciplinary artist Autumn Knight where they discuss group dynamics, being present, & the intimacy of being fed. 🍒👄 poolpartymag.com/group-dynami...

Um... so this is happening 👀

HEY PORTLAND. If you've been thinkin... Pool Party's cool, but like, when are u going to host a reading at an actual swimming pool? Well... the answer is Sep 7 4pm! ⛱🏊‍♀️🥂 Secret location in the West Hills. $12 or $20 w hot dog & bev. Tix gonna go fast. (link in comments)

You’re gonna want to read this one!

This is one of my favorite things we've published yet on Pool Party. Stop whatever you're doing and read it. @aubrirose.bsky.social is 🔥. Soooooooo good!!!

Very much love this @aubrirose.bsky.social essay

My new practice of subbing 1 piece to 1 magazine that I think it’s really, really right for is paying off. Got a 102 minute acceptance from @poolpartymag.com! Been wanting to sub there for ages, but waited until I knew I had something up their alley. Let’s go swimming!

"When I told people about this fear, they’d laugh and I’d laugh and I’d say, “I know, I know” and I’d do this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and we’d move on." We're FUCKING THRILLED to publish "Megalohydrothalassophobia, or Something" by the wildly talented @aubrirose.bsky.social 🗿🌊😱 poolpartymag.com/megalohydrot...

"We love without demand and bitch with a tender eye like the pull of Hockney’s pool paintings" Check out @hubbsd.bsky.social's Hockney/pool themed poem THE BLUE TERRACE. We're all HUBBS all week. Come back tomorrow for more 🔥 poolpartymag.com/the-price-of...

ANNOUNCING: a weeklong Pool Party takeover featuring the amazing poetry of @hubbsd.bsky.social!!! First up, "The Price of Okra." 🔥 "Lit crit with the speedo architect aw god what a narky bitch When lambo, buy the dip two suicides off the Williamsburg Bridge" poolpartymag.com/the-price-of...

Yooooooo this was such a good conversation with Naya Clark for @poolpartymag.com — like for real she came to get INTO the thing. 🤙🏾✊🏾🫶🏾

“I come from a world that’s very clear that it’s not in any way about me, so to say that something is about me is kind of a revolutionary act.” Check out this incredible interview w @scryptkeeper.bsky.social by Naya Clark discussing Bashir’s I HOPE THIS HELPS 🔥 poolpartymag.com/its-outside-...

"We weren’t close. Just basement cousins. Shared trauma, seasonal allergies, and a group text nobody knows how to leave." Groupchats, family nostalgia, and horror movies? Hell yes!!! Check out this total banger of a story: "Deadass" by Mallory Smart 🔥 poolpartymag.com/deadass/

New poem about Minecraft and heartbreak. Huge thanks to @poolpartymag.com for featuring it. ☠️🏹

“I remember the first time we played Minecraft.” That’s how you open a Pool Party poem!!! Read the rest of Brandon Diehl’s banger “LET’S START FROM AN EARLIER BLOCK OF SAVE DATA” up today 🔥🔥🔥 poolpartymag.com/lets-start-f...

Sometimes you read a piece and you're like... immediate acceptance. Check out this total banger from @seanennis.bsky.social. So fucking good!!!

Big thanks to @poolpartymag.com for running my piece, “The Last, Great Letter-Writer”! I’m real pleased.

"My friend Shadow wrote me a note the first time I took care of his dog, Apple. I’ve kept it as a valuable reference, and also like a wartime letter from the battlefield." So excited to publish this amazing story/letter by @seanennis.bsky.social. Check it!!! 🐕🍎✨ poolpartymag.com/the-last-gre...

"As you all know... I have been studying the relationship between men, rats, hope, and arrogance, and have prepared a general overview of my findings." Sooooo excited to publish "Grant-funded Missing Men" by Lydia-Mae, which we first heard at a reading in Portland. poolpartymag.com/grant-funded...

When the texts in your metatextual story flirt with each other maybe more than the characters do

"Sam was older than me and one of her nipples was pierced and I did whatever she said." We're sooooooo stoked to publish this amazing story by Portland's beloved poet, storyteller, and fiction writer @brianstephenellis.bsky.social. Can't wait for you all to read it 🔥🔥🔥 poolpartymag.com/diaries/

"I was standing in his living room, and his spirit clung to the house like the sticky residue of his cigar smoke." We're so stoked to publish this incredible essay "A Ghost Like You" (her first published literary work) by PDX music legend Katelyn Convery 🔥 poolpartymag.com/a-ghost-like...

"We called Kofi the People’s Champ because he was the only manager at the Vide Hotel that didn’t care about us drinking on the job...." So stoked to publish this 🔥 story by @kylekouri.bsky.social up at Pool Party today!!! poolpartymag.com/the-peoples-...

📣 May 14 reading Announcement 📣 Theme: ‘Teenage Makeout Spots’ Feat. PDX writers Frayn Masters, Genevieve Hudson, Margaret Malone, & Seattle’s Lauren Lavin 🔥 First 15 ppl get a FREE mixtape (yes, an actual tape) of the authors reading various works! FREE TIX! RSVP! bit.ly/poolpartymay2025

This poem is visceral and hot and full of banger lines. Check out "The Bee Charmer" over at @poolpartymag.com 🐝🐝🐝

The is poem rife with hauntingly evocative imagery.

"...she laces honey-lacquered twine around her face, her head. Then she opens the hive to let the bees swarm around her most delicate organs." So excited to publish this amazing poem "The Bee Charmer" 🐝 by Portland poet Lauren Mantis. This one is 🔥🔥🔥 poolpartymag.com/the-bee-char...

“Your sadness trapped me in the scheme, and I resolved to give you what you wanted. How hard could it be?” @janstinchcomb.bsky.social in @poolpartymag.com poolpartymag.com/ben-wiley-bu...

BIG NEWS!!! Pool Party is launching a new column for film, book, and art reviews (and interviews) called THE DEEP END! First up, @femmeintheory.bsky.social reviews @charleneelsby.bsky.social's new novel THE ORGANIZATION IS HERE TO SUPPORT YOU! 🔥🔥🔥 poolpartymag.com/the-organiza...

“How hard could it be? Ditch the head, plant the cross. Next stop: the prom.” Fantastic new work from @janstinchcomb.bsky.social for all your teenage selves

ICYMI It’s so nice to have a dark little story in a hot new zine @poolpartymag.com #WIHM