Kevin Maloney

💯

I will never knowingly publish with a lit mag or press that uses AI art. While AI has some beautiful uses in medicine and accessibility, it has no place in art/writing. At least not in its current form. It is a plagiarism tool. Fuck AI.

Had pretty much the same ideals since I was 18 or so:

1) your job is something you do to live, not the other way around,
2) TV/internet is a time suck, read the classics, especially the Russians
3) listen to jazz
4) make art without worrying about whether anyone likes it or not

December vibes

photo of Kevin Maloney and Aaron Burch standing next to each other along the Tacoma waterfront

KEVIN COMES TO VISIT My buddy Kevin came to visit. Said it’d do him good to get out of Portland for a couple days—new scenery, change of pace, leave the normal life problems and complications and stresses behind. We’d also been wanting to hang out while I was in Tacoma for the summer. The new scenery and change of pace and leaving behind of life’s problems and complications and stresses were all bonuses. The last week had been nothing but rain and gray and cold, but now it was sunny and blue skies and warm. It was beautiful. The kind of day that makes the rainy, gray, cold, hard, ugly, depressing ones worth it. Amber and I made us all pizzas in the pizza oven we’d splurged on and bought for our temporary summer life. We walked downtown and got a couple beers. The next day was even sunnier, bluer skies, warmer. Even impossibly, magically more beautiful. The kind of day that can make you forget life’s problems and complications and stresses even exist. We went out for happy hour at a restaurant on the waterfront, eating oysters and tuna tartar and beef skewers and pineapple shrimp, and drinking beers and cocktails and

Scrolling through photos from my summer in Tacoma, looking for a possible author pic for TACOMA, and found this photo of me & @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social & Mt. Rainier in the background, reminding me of this page from TACOMA more or less about that day...

The Hideaway by Sarp Sozdinler When my parents got divorced, my dad moved into a house three blocks away and left the shed in our backyard to rot. The kind of shed with cheap plywood walls, a warped door, and windows smudged with s...

love this @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social short on @poolpartymag.com!

poolpartymag.com/the-hideaway/

Hey Portland!!! This is tonight!!! Pool Party EOY BASH. Cash bar! Flash open mic! Goofy raffle! Refugee gift drive!!! Hope to see you! 7pm @ Coffee Beer

4142 SE 42nd Ave. Portland, OR 97214

Hey Portland!!! This is tonight!!! Pool Party EOY BASH. Cash bar! Flash open mic! Goofy raffle! Refugee gift drive!!! Hope to see you! 7pm @ Coffee Beer

4142 SE 42nd Ave. Portland, OR 97214

Dmitry Samarov revived the original Midwest rot.

Winesburg, Ohio is back with an intro by Kevin Maloney. Preorder now. 🖤

shop.maudlinhouse.net#winesburg-ohio

Blood oaths, divorce, and not-so-secret drug deals. These childhood milestones and so much more to feel nostalgic over in Sozdinler’s new story 🩸

Blood oaths, divorce, and not-so-secret drug deals. These childhood milestones and so much more to feel nostalgic over in Sozdinler’s new story 🩸

Ooooh I’ll check it out

The only writing advice I've ever found particularly useful is this passage from the Bhagavad Gita

hey how neat

ourculturemag.com/2025/12/02/t...

Fav non-interview literary podcast? Love interviews but looking for something a little different while I’m driving around running errands

I love Patrick and I love this book and you should all buy it right now, and if nothing else, read our discussion for my incredible interview technique, i.e.: "As a Gen Xer, I feel like I need to ask the grunge question…"

THE THIRD BEAT - Lauren Lavín (pre-order) — Autofocus Books ABOUT THE BOOK Lauren Lavín is trying to embrace the boundaries imposed upon life by love and death. But there are distractions: the younger brother she lost to suicide, the friends and ex-lovers wh...

May have just read this book and... um... HOLY SHIT IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD 💀⚰️🔥

autofocusbooks.com/store/p/the-...

Yeah like in old school Twitter days, you could post a link to a story there and it would get a lot of traction, but now you're supposed to post on X and BlueSky and IG and threads and send out newsletters and try to cobble together a readership.

Honest question... where do you all stay in touch w/ lit journals / discussions these days? Like... what are the main platforms you use? BlueSky? IG? X? Substack? Email newsletter subscriptions? Something else? Ever since Twitter died (RIP), I feel like I don't understand the new media landscape

I love Patrick and I love this book and you should all buy it right now, and if nothing else, read our discussion for my incredible interview technique, i.e.: "As a Gen Xer, I feel like I need to ask the grunge question…"

Nothing makes me more excited to reread Winesburg, OH for the first time in decades than knowing that Kevin will be framing it up in one of his lovely little Pergolas of Context

We're thrilled to announce that @brianstephenellis.bsky.social has joined Pool Party as our poetry editor! We know Brian is going to bring their sharp eye & community spirit to Pool Party 🔥🔥🔥 Submit to them at poetry@poolpartymag.com (after reading our subs page!)

"At twenty-four, I fucked wherever I could while my boyfriend did the same, an impossible competition." Love this new essay by Alicia Gee, "I MAY LEAVE," up today at Pool Party. 🔥

ABOUT THE BOOK Inspired to “take a break from life” by the idyllic housesitting situation they were offered for the summer, Aaron and Amber find themselves in Aaron’s hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Amber works her remote job, Aaron tries to write and goes for runs along the waterfront, and they explore their temporary summer city on daily walks and regular excursions. Soon, noticing that the landscape seems to keep shifting around them, Aaron starts drawing a map of it all, attempting to document and make sense of the changes. When Tacoma starts to open up bigger and bigger with possibility and wonder, Tacoma starts to fold in on itself, becoming both more self-referential and more like the spontaneous, fantastical stories Aaron has been writing. A friend rides an orca to come visit. Pirates guard a wormhole in the forest. A secret doorway in the Tacoma Mall tunnels back to Aaron’s childhood bedroom. Blending autofiction with fantasy, meta with magic, and earnestness with absurdity, Tacoma presents a recognizable but also magical world where we ask, if nothing is real, then why not have as much fun as possible? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aaron Burch grew up in Tacoma, Washington.

cover! synopsis! preorder! out in feb!!

"Blending autofiction with fantasy, meta with magic, and earnestness with absurdity, 𝘛𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘢 presents a recognizable but also magical world where we ask, if nothing is real, then why not have as much fun as possible?"

autofocusbooks.com/store/p/tacoma

"At twenty-four, I fucked wherever I could while my boyfriend did the same, an impossible competition." Love this new essay by Alicia Gee, "I MAY LEAVE," up today at Pool Party. 🔥

Was really stoked to write the introduction for this new @maudlinhouse.bsky.social edition of WINESBURG, OHIO w/ AMAZING illustrations by Dmitry Samarov 🔥🔥🔥

Hey Portland!!! If you’re going to the @literary-arts.org Portland Book Festival this weekend, I’ll be doing a pop-up reading at the Portland Art Museum Sat 11/8 @ 2pm in front of The Little Harpist. Hope to see you there!!! #PDFBookFest #portlandbookfestival

Metal albums? Childhood nostalgia? Christian/Satanic cult vibes? Guy Cramer's "The Pool Pit" checks ALL the boxes 🔥

Metal albums? Childhood nostalgia? Christian/Satanic cult vibes? Guy Cramer's "The Pool Pit" checks ALL the boxes 🔥

This @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social story is 11 (!!) years old now, and I still remember immediately loving it, accepting it, and hyping it probably almost every Halloween since...

www.hobartpulp.com/web_features...