Supernatural Feat - July 2025
It's July 20. Doing the July newsletter on July 20. The other two, the first two, I think were the 6th and the 6th of May and June? I'm not going to look. I don't care enough. This is a dumb conversation. Glad you're here!
Stuff I Wrote Since Last Time
So, real quick, I've been lucky and had like kind of a lot of things accepted/published since let's say May through Now. Maybe too much stuff in a short period? Is that such a thing? I feel like sometimes I want to give my things more time to breath and also the places that published them more time to get breath. But also it's the internet and nothing has any lasting essence and everything is a joke.
I think it's best to write as much as you can and get your work into other people's hands as much as you can. Unless you're a hawk. If you're that then you MUST continue flying around and hunting. And landing when you get tired or get lost.
But, for a boring explaination, I had a bunch of time off work this spring and went on a writing/submission bonanza. Then May-Now is kind of like the fruit of that labor. But it makes me happy to have people connect with and enjoy a manifestation of my conscious experience. Writing should be an expression of what it's like to have the consciousness of the writer. Anything less than that is not art. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining or whatever, just, like, art has to be true and all that, without regard for whatever else there is to regard. So I guess the hawk SHOULD do a bit of writing/sharing when it stops for whyever it stops since that would be interesting. Or it could paint or sing or dance or filmmake or I don't know. That's up to each individual hawk.
HAD - Our Job is to Design Shorts So I Guess Let's Design Some Shorts: I like HAD a lot. And I like this thing about shorts a lot. HAD put out a random call for 60 subs when I was at a work thing and I saw it in my hotel room and just quickly sent this over without thinking too much about if they would like it and they did and I like how that played out. Don't think just go. My first pub there and it feels like a nice badge of honor. I was excited.
Trash Cat Lit - Chime 3, Volume 5
Trash Cat Lit - Last Year I Got My Septic Done
Trash Cat Lit - Q&A With Dan Weaver: Trash Cat was so cool that they took TWO of my stories and also did a fun little interview with me and also made like a fun little collage with my picture. Working with their editor JP, it was clear so much care and love goes into each issue. This was their 1 year anniversary issue!
BRUISER - Right, Just a Regular Head but a Tiny Mouth Like Only a Straw Could Fit: Speaking of cool, BRUISER is pretty fucking cool. Like, I want to be a human as cool as BRUISER is a magazine. An awesome aesthetic and sensibility. I also like the just-send-us-something-and-if-we-like-it-we-publish-it,-if-you-don't-see-it-within-30-days-it's-a-polite-no model, and they do it right because it still feels like getting accepted means something, and they do custom art and stuff. It's just cool ok? It's like the cool skater kid of lit mags. Maybe they would be like fuck you that's wrong. And that would only reinforce the entire thing.
Flash Flood - What Can We Safely Assume About Blue Jays?: And you want to talk about a lot of work? Flash Flood is a thing where in one day they publish one story every 5 minutes or something. And it's all planned out. Like, I knew the exact minute this thing was going up. So just a lot of planning and reading and communicating and stuff by the organizers for this one day thing that was a lot of fun to see/participate in.
Self-published - Back to the Sea!: I had some good-time with the design on this one. The background of the page generally gets darker as you progress down the piece, but there is also a subtle animation that changes the brightness so it, hopefully, brightens and darkens a bit to reflect the tone of the work as you read. But ultimately, everything ends in darkness, in the depths.
Anyway that's everything since last time. They are all a glimpse into what it's like to be me. I like sharing that because it's a small thing that feels like it matters as far as existing goes. It puts meat on the existence bone.
Other People's Things
There was so much good stuff popping up lately. In no particular order:
The Last, Great Letter-Writer by Sean Ennis (Pool Party)
ma’s elmo phone by JC Clapp (Blood+Honey)
An Assassin, a Cop, and a Law: A True Crime Triptych by by Benjamin Niespodziany (BULL)
Inside it Now by Chris Scott (ergot.)
How to Remember Your Dreams by Matt Leibel (Afterimages)
The Roomba Has Locked Itself in the Bathroom by Benjamin Drevlow (Maudlin House)
how we survive a coronal mass ejection by Casey Jo Graham Welmer (Blood+Honey)
America the Beautiful by Scott T. Hutchison (Complete Sentence)
The Attic by Aaron Burch (hex)
The Babies Who Have No Eyes by Lillie Franks (hex)
Sunset, Sunrise by Jennifer Ostopovich (burial magazine)
Anyway, These Roundups Felt Kind of Long
Anyway, these roundups felt kind of long and I'm losing interest right in this moment so I'm going to skip any like "what else" kind of wrap up that I've done before. I kind of did a "what else" little thing at the beginning though, didn't I? Like, up there at the start. Maybe I'll "what else" you again before the next newsletter, the August newsletter. So the next newsletter is the "what else" coda to this newsletter, the July newsletter (it's July 20th, don't forget) which would not officially count as the next newsletter but it would be the next one according to what makes sense. Nobody can tell the future so I don't know what and when you're getting anything from me or what will be next as far as what's next goes.
Later.
DW