When I was a younger man in my early 20s slumming about Watauga County in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina living off of sacks of potatoes, Top Ramen, and 50 cent day-old bread from Jimmy John's in the midst of a youthful exploration of self-discovery, my primary means of spiritual sustenance being $2 40 oz bottles of malt liquor, my relationships with scoundrels, endearing friends, an abundance of hedonism, a lack of responsibility, a poor boy’s decadence, bright-eyed women, and Kamel Red cigarettes, Elizabeth Ellen was the first literary publisher to accept any work that I’d submitted. This was circa 2014. Felt that she was the Hackmuth to my Great Bandini.

What connects people isn’t color or creed or gender or stupid political taxonomies, but the existential despair that comes for us all. How do you respond to that despair once it comes for you? I never feel closer to a person than when they share a piece of their despair with me, and rarely, if ever, does it have anything to do with politics or ideology. It’s always about loneliness or heartbreak or loss, etc. It’s about life. The best art reflects that despair we all face back at us; it doesn’t separate us from other people.

Once upon a time, long before she was on Good Morning America, I met the kindest writer on Twitter. Not only was she a relatable mother-writer, but she also understood Scrivener. This was absolutely

"Style, jokes, slapstick, serious ideas, and shit-talk"
A Flash Book Review of "The Apology" and Brief Interview with Christian TeBordo

When you work in an office (or maybe any job, but in my

Often when I got poor grades as a child, and I often did, I would be told that if I wanted to be the CEO of Playboy I had to do better in school.

You’ve heard of Leigh Chadwick, of course. She’s a force of nature, a clear, true Twitter voice, even your favorite poet, perhaps? She’s a writer whose poetry combines form and imagery in unique,

Chloe N. Clark is a writer, teacher, editor, and frequent Twitter chef. (See here.) I’ve taken a ton of her poetry and prose workshops, and been lucky enough to have published two stories in the

Hobart and HAD contributor Rebecca van Laer's debut novella How to Adjust to the Dark (Long Day Press, April 12) weaves together poetry, fiction, and criticism to follow the narrator Charlotte as she

You might be reluctant to try liver mush. You might think it’s not for me. But you are at a party, and you’ve been cornered by a stranger, and there’s nobody else there you really want to talk to, and

And at its core, it’s a book about candor and creation and intimacy and talking about things that often go unsaid.

And if memoirs allow us to relive the past, novels give us a chance to change it.

Whimsy is not as prominently scarred as she imagines herself to be, but this obsession with her face leads her to sabotage her relationships because her insecurity is so destructive.

Aileen Weintraub is one of those incredibly funny writers who also has that superpower to make you cry against your will. You may have read her pieces about pregnancy, motherhood, aging, and more –

I think Westerners, and Americans especially, struggle with “autofiction” since their conceptions of self are so fixed.

DeMisty Bellinger is the rarest of writers: the poet-novelist. She edits poetry at Malarkey Books and Porcupine Literary, but she’s also known for her incredible prose. (Despite what you read later in

Is it weird to call Dave Housley the “Uncle” of lit mags? He’s that guy, the writer/editor/generally amazing human that everyone in the literary world seems to know. Dave is one of the original

When we talk about a writer’s work, we are talking about the things she makes: poems, essays, books. It’s a mercantile word to apply to the artistic process, and yet it’s an inescapable one. Short

Years after reading the story (Junot Diaz' "Drown"), after teaching it to high schoolers (many of them POC), I set out to rewrite this queer of color narrative in my story, "The Monks." I wanted to show how a straight, masculine guy of color could brush up against queerness and feel empowered by it, not scared, even if in the slightest of ways, the slightest of spiritual progressions. 

Really I think all art should be freely available

To try to allay his doubt, or figure out of it’s real, [Li] mentally consults his in-progress novel, as if it were a friend. He intuits, in an intuition described by the line you quoted, that his doubt is wrong, is habitual and self-sabotalogical.

AR: This is a boundary and you are going to push against it

I wrote this book manic, in psychosis, in withdrawal, while feeling like I was overdosing,

I think I give non-important people dignity. I still believe there is magic in this world.

Bill Peace  12:49

If I gotta start explaining ableism...

Jillian Weise  12:51

I know, in the fricking hospital.

I suppose a meaningful conclusion I came to was that it's often fruitful to follow diversions and accidents, but that you have to create the conditions to experience them.