Hello, welcome to a newsletter that’s only a few days late! Listen, you get what you get out here.

Spring is actually here for real, after several extra “fuck you” snowfalls from the sky! Flowers are blooming, grass is…here, and I have a bunch of mice living in my garage! Yay. Luckily for them I have a “don’t ask don’t tell” mouse policy where as long as they don’t touch me, or come in my house, I pretend I can’t see them. It’s a fun game.

This month I have some fun writing news for you (new poem out!), a couple excellent story recs, and then just some silly things I’ve been consuming at the end of it all.

I feel like I’ve been sick on and off for months at this point, courtesy of my toddler, and today is no exception. So wishing anyone reading this better health than me, or maybe just better luck with daycare trends.

This is still absolutely surreal—as an avid reader of Nightmare Magazine (one of the top horror short story magazines and a personal favourite to read), I got an acceptance from them on a poem last year and it is NOW OUT!!! It’ll be free to read on their website May 27, but for now if you’d like to read “consumed” the issue is available for purchase!

I’ll have more info and a bit of background on this poem in my next newsletter once it’s free to read 😀

Between editing OTHERSIDE and working on my book, I’ve barely had time to submit any poetry or short fiction. In fact, I’ve sent a grand total of 2 submissions out this year haha. So much to my great surprise, one of them just got an acceptance at another pro rate magazine! No contract signed yet so I won’t spoil anything, but it was a lovely email to find in my inbox and I can’t wait to say more about it!

THE BOOK DRAFT IS DONE. IT IS DOOOOOOOOOOONE. Is it garbage? Probably! But for the first time ever, I exported a book I wrote (!!!) to epub format and have it loaded on my Kobo for when I’m ready to start ripping it apart in revisions. I’m giving myself a bit of a break from it because pushing through the end was rough, but then I have a pretty good plan for how to stage the revisions and I’m excited to get to that point. And whenever this next draft finally sees the light of day, I can have people beta read it for me! There’s light at the end of the tunnel maybe!

My first rec for you this month(s?) is an eerie piece by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez in Typebar Magazine. “Blanquitos” takes us into the life of a young boy in Puerto Rico, whose friend Arturo convinces him that they should investigate an abandoned nearby town that the jungle has taken over. They see something that day that they choose never to speak of. This piece has a clear, building tension, brought to life through simple observations of both family life and what’s going on around our narrator. You’re eager to follow along with the boys until suddenly, as a reader, you realise something has crept up behind you.

Next this month, I have a piece of flash fiction for you— “A Noose is a Knot” by M. R. Edgeworth in Small Wonders. I’m such a sucker for a weird body horror gender moment, and this one delivers on that promise heartily. It’s a very introspective piece examining the particular trappings of social femininity, and a bargain struck with a faceless fox.

We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad

Okay I don’t even really know how to explain this. It’s Griffin McElroy playing Majora’s Mask, but it’s a randomizer playthrough and also if he gets hit at all he dies. It’s kind of fascinating and terrible all at once?

slaps side This bad boy can fit so much angst