Don't think about books as objects or as units, or as products or by-products or results. Start by thinking about creation as performance and reading as experience.

Books read in February:

Union Street - Pat Barker
Dad Had a Bad Day - Ashton Politanoff
May We Feed the King - Rebecca Perry
The Silver Book - Olivia Laing
Seven - Joanna Kavenna
A Complicated Women - Rebecca Lucy Taylor
Cycle of the Werewolf - Stephen King

All good stuff!

#BookSky

This July, we publish @ashtonpolitanoff.bsky.social's DAD HAD A BAD DAY. Recently unemployed Ned spirals into an obsession with tennis, putting everything else in his life at risk. Darkly comic, increasingly unhinged, this is a brilliant exploration of sport and masculinity. Cover by Luke Bird.

Galleys of my book DAD HAD A BAD DAY have arrived! 🎾

Dad is having a good day.

Official US publication date is 5/19/26

astrapublishinghouse.com/product/dad-...

Happy Bad When Teresa first arrived, about a year back, she’d tried to smuggle in cocaine stuffed inside a ball of knitting yarn. No success! Kicks, shrieks. Sobriety. Headaches. Ravenous hunger, aversion to…

“When Teresa first arrived, about a year back, she’d tried to smuggle in cocaine stuffed inside a ball of knitting yarn.” Read from @delaneynolan.bsky.social’s new novel, Happy Bad.

Dad Had a Bad Day arrives 5/19/26 right before Roland Garros!

Here is the cover and a link for more info:

astrapublishinghouse.com/product/dad-...

ROCK$TAR - sortie le 2 septembre

Il s'appelle donc ROCK$TAR, est sensiblement plus court que son prédécesseur, a nécessité quatre ans de travail, et s'accompagnera d'une bande-son originale à sa sortie le 2 septembre prochain, chez Quidam Editeur. Mais on se reparle d'ici là.

Excited to receive the latest issue

Thank you!

Thank you!!

Thrilled to share that my novel DAD HAD A BAD DAY will be published by Astra House! I’m excited to work with Emily Bell & the team at Astra House. Thank you to my wonderful agent Chris Fischbach @fishmpls.bsky.social
for making this happen!

Conference funding request approved: I’ll be at AWP this year

Attention AWP attendees! 🗣️ This offsite reading is coming in HOT!

See you on March 27th. I can't WAIT to hear these readers.

@henryhoke.bsky.social / @josehernandezdz.bsky.social / @joyellemcsweeney.bsky.social / @ctsalazar.bsky.social / @vikshirley.bsky.social / @martinezfjulian.bsky.social

If You’re Watching By Nathan Dragon

Stop. Be present. Focus on the little things.

Let Nathan Dragon show you how 🙏

From our winter issue: Read IF YOU'RE WATCHING southwestreview.com/volume-109-n...

Ashton Politanoff

@ashtonpolitanoff.bsky.social / @dalkeyarchive.bsky.social

Books of the Year 2024 My novel of the year (published in hardback in 2023, in paperback in 2024) was The Wren, The Wren, by Anne Enright. I read it on holiday, and it is just hit all my personal novel-reading buttons as…

I've given you a few days to get over the glut of end-of-year lists, so now you can take a look at my books of the year 2024.

tinycamels.wordpress.com/2025/01/03/b...

I started my own press!! Piżama (Polish for 'pajamas') is dedicated to showcasing the strange & the surreal. The weirder, the better.

Our first book is DISINTEGRATION MADE PLAIN AND EASY, the debut poetry collection by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi.

neonpajamas.com/pizamapress

I've been obsessed with this manuscript for years & I can't wait to have it out in the world

Help spread the word if you can & follow @pizamapress.bsky.social for more updates.

Pub. date is May 27 & you can pre-order it NOW (I mean, just look at that cover!)

neonpajamas.com/pizamapress

DISINTEGRATION MADE PLAIN AND EASY

poems by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

out on May 27, 2025

pre-order now: www.neonpajamas.com/pizamapress

Reading Lori Ostlund’s collection Are You Happy? & hoping to watch Anora!

Three real books and three illustrated copies sit in a grid. The Power Broker (in the Francis Parkman Prize Edition) features a black-and-white photo of Robert Moses standing in front of NYC. Almanac of the Dead features illustrations on its cover: a skull, a snake, a bird, etc. as well as a desert landscape. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is mostly white with some black-and-white images of a bus, a person walking on the beach, grain silos, etc. collaged together in geometric shapes.

In today's newsletter, I write about three big books: Robert A. Caro's THE POWER BROKER, Leslie Marmon Silko's ALMANAC OF THE DEAD, and Marguerite Young's MISS MACINTOSH, MY DARLING. Nothing but the hits!

Read it here & subscribe if you like:
bit.ly/49CoF6f

Thank you!

Thank you to the editors at Post Road for the Pushcart Nomination!

Something Else | Ashton Politanoff From the Magazine

Listen to the guru. Trust the guru. 🧘

Read SOMETHING ELSE by Ashton Politanoff from our latest issue. southwestreview.com/volume-109-n...

Karen Yamashita is moving to Graywolf Press!

Aw thank you! That means a lot.

I hear you on the reading front…I have a stack here, but then randomly remembered a Nathaniel Hawthorne reference this morning in the film The Departed. This led me to the library where I checked out more books (including Hawthorne) that I undoubtedly will not read.

Have you started it? I have a copy but haven’t read it yet.

Thank you @shimmer.bsky.social and @necessaryfiction.bsky.social for the kind words about my book!

Good mail day @babakl.bsky.social