Eric A. Newman

I love the cover of my upcoming collection. I feel very very lucky. My dream for 2025 would be that my cover gets to compete in the @electriclit.bsky.social best book covers of the year bracket!

A graphic that reads, Want to join the OKD team? Call for poetry readers! There is art of megaphones, sparkles, and the Okay Donkey donkey surrounding the text. At the bottom it says, No donkeys were harmed during the creation of this announcement, okaydonkeymag.com.

🔖 The rumors (that we started) are true: We're looking for Poetry Readers to join our team!

As an OKD Poetry Reader, you'll read and vote "yes," "no," or "maybe" on 10 poetry submissions every two weeks.

• Check out what we publish: okaydonkeymag.com/poetry/
• Apply here: forms.gle/wHuhQ1oCxShe...

A graphic that says, Meet OKD's Staff Readers, at the top. On a pink background with binder paper lines are seven photos with names and titles underneath: Eleanor Ball, Paul Ruta, Jeanette Smith, and Gina Thayer are fiction readers. Jessica Heron, Jingyu Li, and Jessica Nirvana Ram are poetry readers. Fiction readers are outlined in blue, while poetry readers are outlined in green.

OKD Staff Spotlight, Day 4:

Meet our readers! Seven of them were generous enough to share a little more about themselves…

A graphic that says, Meet OKD's Social Media Team, at the top. On a purple background are two photos with names and titles underneath: Christine Salek, social media manager, a biracial person with curly hair smiling at the camera in front of a library, and Ashley McCurry, social media associate, a white woman with long brown hair smiling at the camera in a professional headshot.

OKD Staff Spotlight, Day 3:

Meet our social media team, Christine Salek and Ashley McCurry! (Fun fact: They're both also longtime OKD Fiction Readers.)

Variant Lit is hosting a GIVEAWAY! One of tonight's attendees will be randomly selected to win a copy of IWNSTB & Ragnarok. See you at 9pm EST! Register here: tiny.cc/zehvzz

@toddedillard.bsky.social @benkline.bsky.social @variantlit.bsky.social

Next Thursday! Join us for an hour of fantastic readings!

Registration link:
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

#flashfiction @avitusbcarle.bsky.social @coocoo4afropuffs.bsky.social @tarazambrano.bsky.social @taracampbell.bsky.social @demisty.bsky.social

A graphic that says, Meet OKD's Poetry Editors, at the top. On a green background are two photos with descriptions underneath: Carolene Kurien, poetry editor, a brown-skinned woman with dark hair smiling at the camera. Eric Lochridge, associate poetry editor, a white man with a beard smiling down at the camera. At the bottom is the text, and Jonah Meyer, associate poetry editor.

OKD Staff Spotlight, Day 2:

Meet our poetry editors: Carolene Kurien, Eric Lochridge, and Jonah Meyer!

Hi, all. This is a note from your friendly and long-serving Okay Donkey Magazine Founders and Editors, Eric and Genevieve. While Genevieve stepped down from her day-to-day OKD editorial duties about a year or so ago, Eric has recently stepped down from his day-to-day OKD editorial duties just a few months ago in September. After almost 7 years of running OKD Magazine, we’re pretty tired, yet grateful and fulfilled, and ready to move on to new projects and adventures. We want to send our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the many wonderful readers, contributors, and fans who have read and written all the terrific OKD stories and poems over the years, as well as all of those who have worked with dedication as OKD’s Volunteer Readers and Associate Editors on our small, but mighty staff. You might be thinking to yourselves, but wait, OKD has continued to publish a lot of great stories and poems over the past few months, and the artwork and social media presence have only gotten better. Instead of closing our doors, G and I have decided to hand over our once small, but now growing literary child to the set of incredible hands who have worked tirelessly side-by-side with us over the last few years, and we have every faith they’ll continue the amazing work they’ve already been doing.

We’re so excited to have Steve Chang, previous OKD Contributor and long-serving Fiction Associate Editor and Co-Editor finally take over the editorial reins as Fiction Editor of OKD Mag. We’re also equally thrilled to welcome aboard the wonderful and talented Carolene Kurien as OKD’s new Poetry Editor. In addition, we want to give a big thanks and shout out to our Volunteer Fiction and Poetry Readers and to those who have served on our terrific team of Associate Editors, both new and old, Téa Franco, Veronica Klash, Eric Lochridge, Heidi Marjamaki, Jonah Meyer, and Elizabeth Upshur. Finally, we want to welcome two of the newest members to our steadfast staff, Christine Salek as our Social Media Manager and Ashley McCurry as our Social Media Associate. They’ve already been up to many great and wonderful things to make OKD look even better. G and I know that this excellent new crew of literary rock stars will continue to carry Okay Donkey Magazine far into a fantastic future. All Best, Eric and Genevieve

A note from OKD’s founders, Eric and Genevieve, on some changes you may have noticed around here lately…

Each newsletter will center one big feature, like an author interview (with an OKD twist), as well as highlight pieces we published the previous month and promote books and other projects from our past contributors. We’re excited to grow into this and even more excited for you to read it!

Poster with a magnifying glass showing a clear city skyline. Text reads, Okay Donkey Fiction Editor, Steve Chang, Online Workshop. Hosted by Kerouac Project. Does your work feel limp? Is it aimless? Do your plots ramble? Are they just a series of scattershot events? Join us! This workshop is for fiction writers of all levels. We will work on writing exercises to create new material. Online, 3pm EST, Sunday, December 8.

This Sunday, OKD fiction editor @stevexisxok.bsky.social is leading an online writing workshop with the Kerouac Project, in particular "how thinking of characters as Crooks or Detectives can cinch a 'loose' narrative into shape."

✍️ Open to all fiction writers
🕒 Dec. 8 @ 3pm EST
💸 $10

I mean I am a little biased, but I obviously think that you all should fill out this form to nominate Okay Donkey Magazine - @okaydonkey.bsky.social!

Graphic with a notebook page on the left and a larger notebook page on the right. On the notebook page is a typewriter with a page coming out that says, Pushcart Nominees 2025. The nominees are written on the larger notebook page. Text reads, Fiction, Duck Girls by Nicole Hart, Sorry, but you’re mistaking me for her by Anita Harag (translated by Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry), Darryl by Rebekah Morgan. Poetry, Cancellations by Grace Marie Liu, How to Wash a Rabbit by Sara Eddy, A Poem Buried Under the Floorboards by Amanda Roth.

Meet OKD's Pushcart Prize nominees! Read the nominated pieces in the thread below.

El*n doesn't even want to call them tweets anymore, so I think Jack should be able to take that branding back...

Two Micros by Jeffrey Hermann The Voice of God Gives Up the Act This was years ago. God stopped speaking from the sky and admitted that there are actually many gods and they all shared the job of the voice of god. It got compli…

ICYMI: Two stunning micros by @jeffreyhermann.bsky.social. 📝

Okay Donkey Newsletter Okay Donkey, but in your inbox!

But also... we’re launching a newsletter! Subscribe this month and you’ll get our first issue in January.

Picture of Rachel McAdams as Regina George in a convertible from the movie Mean Girls.

"Get in loser, we're throwing out our poems and getting a life."

A good, thick balsamic dressing even kind of looks like gravy...

I was going to say this too, just with a slight numbers adjustment. When my wife and I in Chicago we were totally fine at 15 or 20 degrees in the winter. But now that we've lived in L.A. for almost 10 years, we need a serious coat at like 55 or 60 degrees, lol.

I think if you have chopped turkey on it, I say yes but it would really be for the turkey.

I’m so excited to finally be able to check out the second volume of the great My Favorite Thing is Monsters series after a very weird and seemingly years long publishing saga, including the author’s apartment burning down and printed copies being blocked at the Panama Canal? #readingcommunity

2 Micros by Jeffrey Hermann The Voice of God Gives Up the Act This was years ago. God stopped speaking from the sky and admitted that there are actually many gods and they all shared the job of the voice of god. It got compli…

"If there's a heaven I hope it's me walking in our front door like normal. I hope it's my kids barely looking up from their phones to say hello."

Two new pieces of microfiction today by @jeffreyhermann.bsky.social! 📝

Really one of my favorite all time openings to a novel. From IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELER. Also a really great book to read while cozying up to a fire on a winter’s night.

Hey, Christine! Did you know that I’m also a library school grad? That’s my day job. Librarian buddies!

Litter by Ewen Glass Safety-pin ribs, and black-rice eyes. Ungenerous fur; mottled red is the blanket box where placenta lay, a feast of preservation. Failed. An eight year-old snaps safety-pins closed. Eyes flower, an…

Congratulations to OKD contributor @ewenglass.bsky.social, whose debut chapbook "The Art of Washing What You Can't Touch" is out now from Alien Buddha Press! www.amazon.com/Art-Washing-...

The chap includes the poem "Litter," which OKD originally published in June:

Dragonfly by Christian Ward I started to turn into a dragonfly while walking through Green Park. This wasn’t some sort of Kafkaesque escapade, or a bildungsroman drenched in hay-bright nostalgia, but a matter-of-fact, o…

"This wasn't some sort of Kafkaesque escapade, or a bildungsroman drenched in hay-bright nostalgia, but a matter-of-fact, oh god hit the panic button scenario."

"Dragonfly" by Christian Ward, new poetry up today. 📝

If Harris was always losing in that internal polls, it makes no sense to me that she didn’t come out fully in favor of an arms embargo to Israel, fully in support of trans rights, and she didn’t keep hammering big corporations on all their greed-flation.

Honestly, nothing has convinced me that there wasn’t any cheating or fraud in the election, that we just live in a really shitty country, more than this…

Jooossshhh!! I'm psyched to see on Bluesky and love this cover! Can't wait to get it when it comes out! Man, I bet you're so happy you live in Spain right now, lol.

I just turned to G and said that someone we know from the lit community "has a new baby coming out," as if it were a book launch or something. So that's where my brain is at this morning...