Jacqueline Doyle

Choke *I’ve been under the weather the last few days and in the few minutes I’ve been able to write I’ve been working on fiction.

Wowed by Paul Crenshaw's essay "Choke" (from his first book THIS ONE WILL HURT YOU) on his Substack today. Really brilliant. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

This will make you laugh whether you're over 65 or not. R.L. Maizes is great.

Numbing by Button | Who would choose pain?

"'Do you sense anything?' the dentist asks, pricking at my gums with her tiny metal sickle. I shake my head no, but honestly, I’m never sure what I feel." Love this essay by Linda Button via @short-reads.org. www.short-reads.org/numbing/

The Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

This poem does me in every single time.
#poetry

Another amazing graphic story by @jesselkercheval.bsky.social. Love it!

‘We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read’

We're delighted to announce Flesh by David Szalay as the winner of the #BookerPrize2025.

Lovely "Beautiful Things" post from Karen Skalitzky in @riverteeth.bsky.social today. ❤️

Snap cuts are leaving one in eight Americans hungry. Here’s how you can help The government shutdown has led to food stamps expiring. People are jumping into action to support their neighbors

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Split Tooth | The Walrus We pile our hair as high as it will go, even though the wind destroys our hairdos to the point that every time we come in from outside, the girls’ bathroom is a haze of Final Net

ICYMI Inuk Canadian throat singer @tanyatagaq.bsky.social's book SPLIT TOOTH sounds like a fascinating blend of memoir, fiction, and folklore. Definitely on my TBR list. Read this excerpt published in @thewalrus.ca
thewalrus.ca/split-tooth/

TELEKINESIS by Hope Smith LeGro and Andy Fogle is out today as part of the 2025 Summer Series! Download your free copy here: ghostcitypress.com/2025-summer-...

Love this new essay by @budsmith.bsky.social

Kissings by Kristina Patterson | XOXO.

You'll definitely start an inventory of your past kisses after you read this flash essay by Kristina Patterson via @short-reads.org. www.short-reads.org/kissings/

Happy Best American Essays Day to everyone but especially to ME because I have a Notable this year!!!

And thank you for posting the Notable lists. (I don't have my copy of BAE yet; I was just about to pick it up at my indie bookstore.) Thrilled to see two essays we published at CRAFT on the Notables list. Yay!

Congratulations!

It was a pleasure! Love this essay!

Commentary: Bodies are stacking up in Trump's deportation deluge. It's going to get worse One shudders to think what Bovino thinks is excessive for la migra. With his powers now radically expanded, we're about to find out.

Must-read column by @gustavoarellano.bsky.social about the deaths caused by Trump's ICE and CBP agents. Things are going to get much worse.

Commentary: Bodies are stacking up in Trump's deportation deluge. It's going to get worse

www.latimes.com/california/s...

I Am in a Room Alone — The Headlight Review with the only music of the morning traffic, those who must rise to drive to labor, and a window often curtained and closed, and in winter, the radiator hissing, the kind from another century, the kind...

www.theheadlightreview.com/pieces/volum...

Still. Life. by Nicole Walker - CRAFT Max was two. Zoe, seven. I was forty, when the nurse called and told me I needed to come in for a follow-up mammogram and ultrasound. My manners couldn’t catch up with my physical reaction. I started ...

Celebrate the election today, and this great braided flash by @nikwalk.bsky.social in CRAFT.
www.craftliterary.com/2025/11/05/s...

Thanks @assayjournal.bsky.social for posting my article on Judith Ortiz Cofer today. (And thanks to CRAFT editorial assistant extraordinaire Amy Cook for letting me know!)

Writing into the Truth about Black Mental Health DW Mickinney on finding the courage to write her memoir about her OCD, and finding inspiration in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

" I finally crafted language describing my beginnings—'The compulsions, as automatic as breathing, began in childhood.'" Read DW McKinney's rich consideration of the influence of Maya Angelou on her memoir about OCD. memoirland.substack.com/p/writing-in...

Love the music and rhythm and attitude in @mynachang.bsky.social's fantastic new flash in SoFloPoJo. "we’re one more time and don’t stop now, we’re how did we ever forget this? riding high all the way to dawn…" Goosebumps.

‘Under the stuff I can’t throw out is the stuff my parents couldn’t throw out’: novelist Anne Enright on the agony of clearing her family home Would saying goodbye to every last newspaper clipping, button and book her parents had saved over decades help her mourn?

"Everything must be seen and experienced before it can be recycled, shredded or, as a last resort, binned. We must honour and mourn. …This alchemy is deeply exhausting." @thewrengirl.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

a sign that says your vote matters in red white and blue ALT: a sign that says your vote matters in red white and blue

Quick note. Just because 57% support Prop 50, doesn't mean it passed. Don't get complacent. Get your vote in.

I voted today. If you're a Californian, I hope you'll vote yes on Prop 50 too!

A rainbow watercolor background features the Nerve to Write logo and black neurons with raspberry and purple text reading, “Call for Submissions in Nonfiction Open Until November 1st nervetowrite.com”

Nerve to Write is open for nonfiction submissions until November 1st! Send us your flash nonfiction, lyric essays, memoir, and more!

A white background features a neon watercolor splash in the center, along with the Nerve to Write logo, orange text reading “Call for fiction submissions,” and raspberry text reading “Open until November 1st” and “nervetowrite.com.”

Nerve to Write is open for fiction submissions until November 1st! Send us your flash fiction, full-length stories, and more!

Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math

A black background features half of a gold glowing body of nerves on the left along with a gold and white Nerve to Write logo on the right and centered white and gold text reading “Call for hybrid submissions. Open until November 1st. nervetowrite.com”

Nerve to Write is open for hybrid submissions until November 1st! Send us your graphic poetry and narrative, comics, erasures, speculative work, and more!

" I am a girl who will grow fat with words. Who will open her mouth so wide one day she will swallow her mother." Read these wonderful micros by @claudiamonpere.bsky.social in the Ilanot Review.