news
last news of the year! i’ve got some things rumbling in the background for 2026, but this is officially how i am closing out 2025.
zine club reminder: it’s zine month! this is a reminder that you can still join the i zine club i started to pull in a bit of extra income. $2 per month ($6 quarterly) gets you 3-5 zines every quarter.
published collages: “middle of june” and “free city of novigrad” in Sage Cigarettes
published poem: “dad says the universe smells like raspberry ketones” in Some Words
published poem: “pov: sweater season” in Full House Literary’s The Games Room 5: below 0º
new byline: i contributed blurbs to the News, Food & Drink, and Arts & Culture lists in the Baltimore Beat Best of 2025 issue. i’ll mail you a book if you can guess which ones are mine ;)
new microchapbooks: my poetry micro april, buttersoft is now available for free download from Whittle Micro-Press, and my brand-new micro, totaled, is now available for free download from Artists from Maryland
poetry book spreadsheet: i have brought back the spreadsheet i made in 2024 of upcoming poetry releases—please add your own if you’ve got them! this sheet is based on one i came across in 2023, and it was excellent for finding new reads.
notes
as the year churns to a close, i can’t help but be incredibly grateful that there is something tangible like a calendar year’s end to mark the symbolic closure of one of the worst periods of my life to date. i guess, now that i think about it, that gratitude should really be reserved for the people that helped me get through it—family and old friends and new friends alike—and the ways my creativity was also able to sustain me through some of the most difficult experiences i’ve ever had. i don’t want to throw myself a pity party, so i won’t. but i am cautiously hopeful that 2026 will have something better in store.
sneak peek
let’s have a short poem or two, eh? the first is from my chap dry stoner, which drops with Troublemaker Firestarter in February.
my coworker and i are zooted in the cannabis processing facility and she says oh to be an edible bag on a conveyor belt and yes, i have to agree because that relative ease and gentle motion would be oh-so-desirable and i microdose this later digesting tiramisu and riding shotgun in a sprinter van after carbonara and i only have the one experience to go on and nothing more but olive garden is sacred and so is company. and so is coasting. and in conclusion, yes, i’d love to be a bag of ginger and pineapple gummies as it rides the belt and tumbles gently into a crate full of all its friends and i wonder who on earth wouldn’t.
and then here’s another shortie from you stupid slut, which will rerelease with Bullshit Lit this July. this piece previously appeared with CLOVES Literary before they went defunct.
in the interest of transparency
i’m not a good person. before i knew my body kept a calendar of its own, i made a habit of smoking a cigarette or two inside my apartment if i was really drunk, usually only if the february midnight wept ice outside my open window and i was feeling lonely because the guy i was sexting every night brought his girlfriend to my after-party. in the photos, i look just like my reflection in a vacant storefront, our shared emptiness far from all that a dusty pane of glass and i have in common.
am i opaque as plate glass when i affix my eyes to the flowered curlicues across the rug and count back one year in my memory to stealing away in someone else’s car to catonsville, two years to blacking out, and three to the same as the second but much more reckless and much less lazy? is now my chance to purge before my contact list is full of ghosts i mistake for gods and my body is full of tequila or cheap beer or pink moscato and infectious diseases? i don’t believe in prayer, but is it all right to wonder if i need it anyway?finally, since it’s the season of giving, how about i also share one of my color study collages?
friends
call: tomorrow (12/21) is the last day to send manuscripts to fifth wheel press for our 2027 publishing season
release: one of my most anticipated releases of 2026, THE HUNGERING YEARS by Summer Farah, is available to preorder from Host Publicatioms
current events
here’s what i’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and playing.
books: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
tv: Southern Charm
games: Tiny Bookshop, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Pokémon Legends: Z-A
reading recap
i’m not going to do a big recap of 2025, but wanted to at least share my favorite reads of the year :)
threesome in the last Toyota Celica & other circus tricks by m. mick powell
The Fat Sonnets by Samantha Zighelboim
The Opposite of Cruelty by Steven Leyva
What Good Is Heaven by Raye Hendrix
Fat & Fire by Roseanna Alice Boswell
Hinting at Decolonization by Nicola Andrews
Toska by Alina Pleskova
Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
the part where i ask for money
i have reopened paid subscriptions. while the pool will always be 100% free, i am still out of work and appreciate any support i’m able to get right now. if you’d prefer not to ferry your money through substack (i get it), you can also set up a recurring donation on ko-fi or send me a tip (scroll to the bottom of the page for payment links).