Your Hold is Ready! (04. 08. 23)

Hi all! It’s been a while!

Those of you who follow me on other social media know that the last few weeks have been full of upheaval. There has been positive news –– my acceptance to a writing residency in Iceland in early 2024, my amazing time presenting and chairing panels at NeMLA 2023 –– and some heartbreaking news.

Namely, my Mad press-baby, swallow::tale, has shuttered unexpectedly after my former collaborator, Feyxuan, locked me out of the press’s finances overnight, shut down our website, and entirely cut off contact with me without warning. This is a part of a pattern of abusive, manipulative behavior on their part that I am only beginning to come to terms with. Expect a paid post on that sometime soon, after I get my thoughts together.

In the meantime, see this thread for ways to support myself (such as signing up for the paid version of this newsletter or sending me a tip) and the swallow::tale authors. Thank you to everyone who has reached out with compassion and support. I love you all so much, and you’re the reason I continue to believe in crip/Mad writing.

Speaking of crip/Mad writing: Stone of Madness Press, of which I’m EIC, is still going strong. The next issue of Stone of Madness drops April 15, and we have 20+ issues archived on our site. Submissions reopen for our July issue on June 1.

Okay, I think that’s everything. Now, time for an extra-long list of recs with even more categories than usual. Enjoy, and see you sooner rather than later.

Today’s Recs:

Books (Prose):

• Carolyn Mackler, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things.

• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Islands of Decolonial Love.

• Blair Braverman, Small Game.

• Yoon Ha Lee, Phoenix Extravagant.

• Connie Willis, Doomsday Book.

• jia qing wilson-yang, Small Beauty.

Books (Plays, Poetry, Hybrid):

• Jesi Bender, Kinderkrankenhaus.

• Candice Wuehle, FIDELITORIA: Fixed or Fluxed

• tommy blake, Peanut [the cat] auditions as Courage [...from Courage the Cowardly Dog].

Graphic Novels:

• Rachel Smythe, Lore Olympus (Vol. 1).

• Philippa Rice, Soppy.

Media & Music:

• Bed of Lies Podcast.

• Tanya Tagaq, Animism (2014).

• Ólöf Arnalds, Vid og Vid (2010).

• Water From Your Eyes, Structure (2021).

• Virginia Wing, Private LIFE (2021).

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

• Orchid Tierney, a field guide to future flora (2022).

• Agusta Funk, Color Study (2023).

• Grace Dunbar-Miller, Eat Your Feelings (2023).

• Monica Youn, Two Poems (2023).

• Alex Mountfield, Two Poems

• Rachael Daum, Why does Rumpelstiltskin Hide in Sarajevo?

• Jeremy Radin, Why the Great Silence (2023）

• Rania Mamoun, tr. Yasmine Seale, I float on worry (2023).

Essays and Articles:

• Lincoln Michael, Fairytale as MFA Antidote (2022).

• Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, These Black Icons Have a Novel Idea to Save the Ocean (2023)

• Christy Tending, Things That Able Me (2023).

• H.L.M. Lee, Bookmobiles have a new mission: delivering banned books (2023).

My Recent Work:

• My fourth chapbook, bugbutter, is available from Gap Riot Press and up on Goodreads.

• My third chapbook, Out of Mind & Into Body, is available from Ethel Press and up on Goodreads.

• My 2021 chapbooks: Buy The Dream Journals and A Hole Walked In. And add them on Goodreads! [x] [x]

• How to Know if You Are Trans Enough: a ten-step plan for transreal-ization in Sinister Wisdom 127: trans/feminisms.

• Master Doc: in Spoon Knife 7: Transitions.

• transfinite::a dialogue in Just Femme & Dandy

• Two Poems in Electric Lit: The Commuter

• The Queer Aut of Failure: Cripistemic Openings for Postgraduate Life in Lateral: The Journal of the Cultural Studies Association. [academic]

• Headcase! in The New Orleans Review.

• The Beholding & Beheld in Nat Brut.

• Hybrid Interview: Claire Oshetsky in CRAFT Literary.

• I AM GOING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT MOLI in X-Ray Lit.

• Toward transMad Epistemologies: A Working Text in SPARK: A 4C4 Equality Journal. [academic]

• Diagnostician's Note in Mudroom Magazine.That’s all for now! Again, feel free to let me know what you think, what you’d like to see more of, and if you have any recommendations of your own!