Kevin Maloney

Thanks for the kind words Andrew. So glad you enjoyed it!!!

HORSE GIRL FEVER, by @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social

HORSE GIRL FEVER is: Hannahs that aren’t Hannah; a life-long obsession with your elementary school crush (the titular horse girl); a crooked pergola in front of a doorless house; punching yourself in the face so hard you break your own nose—

"We love without demand
and bitch with a tender eye
like the pull of Hockney’s pool paintings"

Check out @hubbsd.bsky.social's Hockney/pool themed poem THE BLUE TERRACE. We're all HUBBS all week. Come back tomorrow for more 🔥

poolpartymag.com/the-price-of...

Sometimes a poetry submission is so good you just hand them the keys to your lit journal and say, "This week it's all you." ✨

1/2 the time, I don’t think about a reader at all; 1/2 the time, I think about @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social & @dtrobbins.bsky.social & wanting to make them laugh and/or go, “fuck yeah, nailed it.”

YouTube video by Black Sabbath BLACK SABBATH - "War Pigs" (Live Video)

RIP OZZY. This footage of War Pigs live in Paris is my favorite concert footage by any band ever…

youtu.be/K3b6SGoN6dA?...

…to the burning core of your own art

…most books aren’t good. Why fill your brain with a bunch of mediocrity? Why not try to solve those 5-7 great writers like a puzzle? Try to figure out why they speak to you. Learn their work so well you can recite passages at length. I feel like this approach brings you closer…

One of the best things you can do as a writer is read… not necessarily a LOT of books but deeply of a handful of authors who make you feel alive. Read all their books. Read three biographies. Read their correspondence. Read the writers that inspired them. My experience is that…

If you all want to know why such great writing came out of the post WWII era, it’s because magazines put short story writers on salary. They didn’t have day jobs.

In 1948, on the strength of his published short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” The New Yorker offered J.D. Salinger an annual salary of $30,000 for the right of first refusal of whatever he wrote that year. In today’s dollars, that would be a salary of $408,000.

So lucky to get to publish this amazing interview w/ Oregon Book Award winner @scryptkeeper.bsky.social on @poolpartymag.com. Thanks Naya Clark for asking such incredible questions and making this happen!!! 🔥

Yooooooo this was such a good conversation with Naya Clark for @poolpartymag.com — like for real she came to get INTO the thing. 🤙🏾✊🏾🫶🏾

@ohnayapapaya.bsky.social 🔥

So lucky to get to publish this amazing interview w/ Oregon Book Award winner @scryptkeeper.bsky.social on @poolpartymag.com. Thanks Naya Clark for asking such incredible questions and making this happen!!! 🔥

HOUSE OF VLAD PRESS “The damp dishrag hanging over the edge of the indie lit scene.”

“The plan was to get a vasectomy, maybe two just to be safe….”

So stoked to have my story “Wizard Phase” in the new issue of Vlad Mag (@houseofvladpress.bsky.social) alongside “Drooling Puddle of Goo” by my super talented wide @femmeintheory.bsky.social

houseofvladpress.com/summer-bummer

Kevin’s embrace of the wizard arcana like a of-course! retconning of all of his protagonists into slow, young Merlins reverse time traveling through their lives

Vlad Mag #6 (Part One): “Summer Bummer,” edited by Brian Alan Ellis, is OUT NOW on the website🦩

HOUSE OF VLAD PRESS “The damp dishrag hanging over the edge of the indie lit scene.”

“The plan was to get a vasectomy, maybe two just to be safe….”

So stoked to have my story “Wizard Phase” in the new issue of Vlad Mag (@houseofvladpress.bsky.social) alongside “Drooling Puddle of Goo” by my super talented wide @femmeintheory.bsky.social

houseofvladpress.com/summer-bummer

I think that troll behavior is just another aspect of groupthink… saying stupid or offensive shit to appeal to an angry minority for likes

…thinking that avoids moral complexity at all costs, so that people (both left and right) can exist in a state of righteousness rather than try to understand humans at a deeper level, which books compel us to do.

…comfort with moral ambiguity and gray area. The most controversial position on social media isn’t an extreme take, it’s that “life is complex” and “there are no easy answers.” I keep seeing the current political crisis in our country as a direct result of black-and-white…

…Whereas reading books forces you into the brain of another person (the author) and their characters. You experience thinking about the world in unfamiliar ways… ways that make you uncomfortable and that you might not agree with, but which can lead to nuanced thinking and…

Been thinking about how reading books and social media have diametrically opposite effects on the human brain. Social media leads to groupthink… the desire to appeal to the herd, to avoid standing out in any way. The goal is to obtain many likes and avoiding negative comments...

So stoked to get to publish original work by one of my favorite writers and publishers in all of indie lit, @mallorysmart.bsky.social. This one has all the @poolpartymag.com ingredients: Groupchats, family nostalgia, and horror movies 🔥

So stoked to get to publish original work by one of my favorite writers and publishers in all of indie lit, @mallorysmart.bsky.social. This one has all the @poolpartymag.com ingredients: Groupchats, family nostalgia, and horror movies 🔥

... It just seems like the world is trying to compel artists to fit their particular morality system, to be controlled and regulated and made small and polite and decent. I don't think that kind of artist is doing anyone any good. /end rant

...behavior. I keep thinking of my artistic heroes. People who were preoccupied by the idea of an artist as a rebellious spirit, breaking rules and offering a big FUCK YOU to the world as a healthy dose of LIFE. I'm thinking of Patti Smith and Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan...

Hot take: I feel like we're in a historical moment that is frighteningly antithetical to the wild, free spirit of the artist. The ways MAGA/Trump are antithetical are obvious, but I think the left is just as fearful and cautious and eager to control and regulate people's...

Kevin’s book also sold well, being a “social media brand” is not the end all be all for book sales. Don’t tell my wife I said this tho!