Your hold is ready! (2. 28. 25)

Author

Cavar S
February 28, 2025

Hi everyone, and welcome to my new place! As you may have seen in my previous republication of the January newsletter, I’ve hopped over here to beehiiv to get off the platform that bankrolls nazis. Honestly, I think that switch was something I really needed, both in terms of values-alignment and just a change in scenery, so thanks for bearing with me as I figure all of this out.

In light of the above, I’ll keep my intro simple: I have a few events going on in March, the first of which is with my beloved friend and comrade nat raum for their reading series, FRUITCAKE. Ottobar in Baltimore, MD, March 13, 7pm. Hoping to see some of you there!

(Speaking of events, you can now find audio and transcripts of my incredible event last summer with Diamond Forde at Firestorm Co-op at Honey Literary. We talk all things Failure to Comply and I even tease my in-revisions second novel at the end.)

Then, of course, is AWP! You can catch me in L.A. while wandering and looking at books, at 11am on Friday the 28th at featherproof’s booth (T1147) signing Failure to Comply, and especially on Friday night at Creature Comforts Brewing, co-hosting A Night of Trans Horror with CD Eskilson! Come through, it’s free and will be a blast.

As AWP comes closer, I’ll re-send stuff and probably be very annoying. Please be patient! I’m a debut author™, after all!

In editing news: manywor(l)ds reopens to submissions tomorrow, March 1, and is open through April 30. I especially want to see audio, visual, and mixed media works. Be weird and funky!

In self-promotion news: my sixth (!) chapbook, how we sheep, co-written with scholarly-(anti-)crush/comrade/collaborator ulysses/constance bougie, will be out from Ethel Press in March, just in time for AWP! It’s (deep breath) a chap of epistolary oulipo-flavored scholar-poetics about neuroqueering and (a)romanticizing intimacy/sexuality, in line with some of our other collaborative work in (for example) Kairos and Asexualities. You can preorder it on its own OR (!!!) bundled with my third chapbook and first with Ethel, Out of Mind & Into Body.

And, as usual, check out Failure to Comply digitally and in print and on Bookshop in both formats, on Goodreads and Storygraph, and request it at your local bookstores and libraries. Find inspo/similar reads/books that fed Failure to Comply at my Bookshop affiliate page, where each of your orders gives me a dollar.

Now, onto the recommendations!

Today’s Recs:

Books:

Music & Podcasts:

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

Essays and Articles:

My Recent Work: