Your hold is ready! (5.5.2022)

Hi all!

So, it’s been A Week. And it hasn’t even been a week since the devastating news about Roe leaked, and since then, anxieties about the future of reproductive freedom, trans healthcare, and hitherto- “settled” matters of fundamental rights for marginalized people have risen exponentially. My own included. Frankly, I’ve been struggling to keep my head clear enough to do my work; the escapism stories and albums provide has been especially crucial right now. I’ve had a few people reach out with their appreciation for this newsletter and the recs I make, so I really hope that, wherever you are, these links can provide a short reprieve from the shittiness of *gestures* all of this.

For those also interested in the possibilities of creative production during this terrible time, I wanted to share that I’m reading submissions for a special issue of beestung magazine. I’m looking for nonbinary/genderqueer/two-spirit speculative work –– whatever “speculative” means to you. I’m especially interested in hybrid forms/genres. If that’s something you’re interested in, check out the call for submissions!

Also: be sure to check out swallow::tale press, a Mad press for Mad manuscripts, co-run by myself and my co-conspirator and fellow Mad creator, Feyxuan. Browse our bookstore and be in touch with questions and suggestions. Also, keep your eyes peeled –– next month, we’re going to be announcing an open reading period for manuscripts by Madpeople of color, and would love to read your work! We’ll be announcing on our website and on twitter.

Okay, now to the recommendations.

Today’s Recs:

Books:

• Sassafras Lowrey, Roving Pack.

• Alice Oseman, Loveless.

• Sadia Bies, UNBECOMING.

• Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions.

Podcasts and Media:

• The NoSleep Podcast

• The White Vault

Albums:

• Jessica Law, Rogue's Gallery (2011).

• FRANK/IE CONSENT, Gut Health (2022).

• Emperor of Mind, Resistance (2017).

• SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH (2021).

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

• S. Qiouyi Lu, As Dark As Hunger (2020).

• Theo LeGro, The Good Life (2022).

• Lee Min-Ha, trans. Jien Han, Three Prose Poems (2022).

• Laura Cesarco Eglin, July 8th (2022).

• Rita Rouvalis Chapman, Light (2022).

• Michelle Moncayo, Dispatch from the Psych Ward: 02 (2022).

• Mara Beneway, Girl in Five Parts (2022).

Essays and Articles:

• Jaya Saxena, The Labor Disputes at Amy's Kitchen, Explained (2022).

• Esmé Weijun Wang, A Life in Banquets (2022).

• David Grundy, I Worship at the Shrine of Poetry (2022).

• Lincoln Michel, Conflict is Only One Way to Think About Stories (2022).

My Recent Work:

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

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

• UPON HEARING YOU WISH ME DECONSTRUCTED in A Velvet Giant.

• to a specified fate) in The Institutionalized Review.

• in response to the viral r/AskReddit thread titled “what’s classy if you’re rich, but trashy if you’re poor?” which received second place in Invisible City’s flash CNF contest.

• Tulip Monologue in Foglifter.

• Late Summer Dispatch (winner of the 2021 Princemere Poetry Prize)

• t four terrior in Epoch Press.

• Two Flash Fictions [1] [2] in Bodega Magazine.

• Xenogenders, Neopronouns, and the transMad Toolbox in the Queer Disability Studies Network.

• Salvation in Santa Fe Writer’s Workshop.

• Again Soon in Flypaper Lit.

• Narrow Flights in Superstition Review.

• Review: The Kissing of Kissing by Hannah Emerson in Barrelhouse.

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!