Your hold is ready! (9. 27. 25)

Author

Cavar S
September 27, 2025

Hi all! The weather is very slowly cooling down here in Knoxville as we head toward October, and I can’t believe I’ve already been here at the residency for more than a month. So far, I’ve done quite a bit of work –– on my yet-untitled & unfinished third novel, on my very very early monograph, and, of course, on my piles of miserable academic job applications. In the latter case, the only thing really keeping me going is the sheer generosity of those around me, many of whom have been willing to give me painstakingly detailed feedback on how, exactly, to sell myself to the Powers That Be. Existential anxiety about said Powers notwithstanding (and notwithstanding the fact that I’d much rather be holed up doing writing that I actually want to do) I’m grateful to be surrounded by people who truly want me to succeed.

The other thing keeping me going: running. Who knew I’d be regularly getting up at 5am to run 5-8 miles while it’s dark out? Here’s my stats from yesterday. Slow and steady, etc.

More news: Failure to Comply! Is a year old! I celebrated its book birthday a few days ago by breaking down over state surveillance and the exponential collapse of free expression in this ‘country.’ How about you? In seriousness (and I am very serious) I did not mean to write something which would be made manifest in ways quite so similar, quite so soon. I feel like a time traveller watching my undergraduate self unwittingly predict the future. Powerless to stop them, powerless to look away. Anyway, buy my book? Perhaps from Loyalty Bookstore, a queer, BIPOC-owned indie bookshop that lost significant business when trump sent the national guard to terrorize DC.

In other writing-related news, I’m excited to be involved in several queercrip & transMad creative projects, from helping out as staff at Sundress Academy for the Arts’s Survival and Healing Retreat, to writing an introduction for ANMLY’s Autistic Protest Poetry Folio (accompanied by a hearty bowl of Tylenol Extra Strength to maximize its impact), and celebrating the publication of Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds in January.

NO TRUER WORDS!!!!

Housekeeping:

Submissions: manywor(l)ds is open through Oct. 31. We want more multimedia, visual, translation, and review/interview pieces! Send ‘em in!

Take a peek at how we sheep, co-written with scholarly-(anti-) crush/comrade/collaborator ulysses/constance bougie, is out with Ethel Press. For background on what we’re doing with queerness, Madness, and (a)sexualities, check out our work in) Kairos and Asexualities. You can order it on its own or purchase it bundled with my third chapbook and first with Ethel, Out of Mind & Into Body.

And 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:

Worthwhile Clicks & Listens

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

Essays and Articles:

My Recent Work: