Bess Winter

OK Blue Jays My dad wrote the song that defined Canadian baseball. It's an anthem for underdogs, and a throwback to a simpler, gentler Toronto.

Though I am not a professional "substacker," I did write a post about how my dad wrote the theme song for the Toronto Blue Jays, a true 90s Canadian anthem. substack.com/home/post/p-...

The Last Ten Percent: Revision and Submission Intensive with Bess Winter - StoryStudio Chicago This four-week online course, intended for intermediate to advanced fiction writers who are seeking their first publications, focuses on that last ten percent of short story writing: revision and subm...

If your book’s almost done, learn how to revise and where to submit in @bess-winter.bsky.social's @storystudiochicago.bsky.social class… Four classes, Zoom, starts October 30!
www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/clas...

We’re excited to announce APOSTASIES by Holli Carrell: Release date September 15. Available NOW for preorder at a sale price till 9/15 at perugiapress.org/product/apos... and also available at asterismbooks. Check it out in our Linktree! @hollicarrell.bsky.social @asterismbooks.bsky.social

The Last Ten Percent: Revision and Submission Intensive with Bess Winter - StoryStudio Chicago This four-week online course, intended for intermediate to advanced fiction writers who are seeking their first publications, focuses on that last ten percent of short story writing: revision and subm...

Have a story you want to get across the finish line? I’m teaching at @storystudiochicago.bsky.social again: THE LAST TEN PERCENT, a 4-step revision intensive meant for the writer who wants to publish. Register while you can, and pass it on! www.storystudiochicago.org/classes/clas...

Pssst…we really need nonfiction submissions!!!

Graphic reflecting Bess's title change from Assistant Managing Editor to Web and Media Editor. Features a photo of Bess, a white woman with curly brown hair wearing a gray sweater and white blouse, posed against a blue backdrop.

New title, same great editor! To better reflect all she does for CR, Assistant Managing Editor @bess-winter.bsky.social is now our Web and Media Editor!

Every day a good thing or memory. No one can control your mind palace or steal your joy. Here’s day 1:

You know what’s great? Turner Classic Movies, just the channel, with some old guy curating for you. I miss curation. I miss not knowing I what I really wanted was to see Mickey Rooney today

My ode to the stacks, today at @cincinnatireview.bsky.social

happy to announce that i have no AWP events on the docket as usual and will be spending my time in KC working at the bookfair and visiting the international federation of doll clubs museum, a lifelong aspiration. i will also not sell even one copy of my old book or sign shit

Congratulations!

Jen said “2000 years ago,” though. I have a PhD in English and studied print culture as part of that, so I do know a fair bit about the history of publishing.

Maybe put another way it makes more sense: the marketplace changes. Books stay the same, and often take on new lives in relation to it. But a new book is a product, unless you’re writing it for your own eyes only. That’s just, like, my opinion, man. And truly I’m not trying to be argumentative.

I get it!

They weren’t publishing “books,” as such, 2000 years ago, though. Those stories came into the world in a very different way, often orally.

P.S. part of this may be personal at this point—all I want is to sell a book as a product, with no magic ascribed to the process. I can only hope my book is as useful as a vacuum cleaner, but in reality it may not suck enough or in the right way…

Not sure I believe this. Books are products just like cherry tomatoes. They’re marketed and sold, and have a lifespan in the marketplace (think about all the books by “influencers” and podcasters). Stories and ideas, however, are more complicated.

FLW also hated the look of pianos so much that he literally sunk one into a wall with only the keys sticking out. He had such a strange relationship with objects.

A few months ago I picked some clothes up from the tailor after minor alterations and was prompted by their machine to tip. My grandparents were tailors who owned their own shop, like these people. They never asked for tips. Do people tip tailors now? I selected "no tip" -- can I go back?

Special Feature: Jim Palmarini's "WELCOME TO THE READING" A video ode to the places where poetry lives and has lived in Cincinnati, from contributor Jim Palmarini.

Urban decay and old brick buildings abound in this audio-photo essay in which contributor Jim Palmarini reads his mesmerizing piece from issue 20.2, WELCOME TO THE READING. Direction and editing by Assistant Editor Holli Carrell.

when you move back to Cincinnati but this time video doorbell technology exists. the things my neighbors share are like Twin Peaks episodes without the cost of a ShowTime subscription

Wes Anderson Film Idea: Walter Benjamin unpacking his library

Forget doll stories! The only public writing I'm doing these days is musing on crusty signs.