John Cotter

I’m so honored! Thank you, friends

Did she do many Apollinaire translations? This one is wonderful.

I really liked this book. I read it in a few days and have thought about it a lot since.

A week from tonight—Monday, 5/5, 7 pm
SPACE @spacegallery.bsky.social
538 Congress
Portland ME

@johncotter.bsky.social & Shanna Compton, The Color of Sound

We’ll be reading/talking about hearing & visualizing sound. John’s got a new story & I’ve got a fresh slideshow. Copies of our books too too.

Corporations are people. AIs are people. The only thing that isn’t people is people.

I wanted a chance to re-read it! which I will do ..............starting ....................

now!

My autistic kid is a better, kinder, braver person than that entitled asshole could dream of being and I hope she gets to tell him that in person some day.

Bright news for New England, & for me: @shannacompton.bsky.social will be sharing & going over her fascinating & timely new collages, & her strange encounters with the sounds of the world, on May 5th at SPACE. I'll be there too, with a new story about sounds and shadow: space538.org/category/eve...

An ad for John Cotter's writing class at the Indiana University Writing Conference in June 2025. There's a photo of John looking intense in a plaid shirt (the picture is 5 years old and he's lost a good deal of hair since then). His name appears in lower case script for some reason. He's a good teacher, you'd like him.

Indiana!

iuwc.indiana.edu/conference/r...

Philip Larkin

COMING

On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon –
And I, whose childhood
1/

This is what war is. And it's one of the many reasons why I have no patience for the warlike, the war-makers, the war-profiteers. Never believe kings and presidents when they say they're planning a swift, calculated incursion. Humanity does not have the power to do war well.

the anti-abortion movement is a very complex web of lies invented by right-wing Christians who felt bad about taking the wrong side in the Civil Rights movement and needed to invent a class of imaginary oppressed people they could side with in a way that would reify their frothing misogyny

Book cover with title It All Felt Impossible in black text over a blue sky, bottom third of the cover is a line of Philly rowhomes (artist Corey Neale). Subtitle: 42 years in 42 essays.

My book IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE is now available for pre-order. I wrote a short essay for every year of my life so far.

Elisa Gabbert says: "This book is so funny and honest"
Hanif Abdurraqib calls it "A beautiful portrait of a slow and tender passage of time."

rosemetalpress.com/books/it-all...

This begins tomorrow night, friends. There are still spots available!

It’s paperback day for THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE! On insta I’m giving away a signed copy, a bonus signed Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024, and a beautifully deranged doodle by my favorite ig book buddy www.instagram.com/p/DHD56rBgGK...

Sadly, this is not a free link

Thanks Jeff!

An upcoming zoom course with contributor @johncotter.bsky.social

💙

if you're looking for a writing class to connect to, this one is gonna be great

8-Week: Backstory—What’s Next In this eight-week class we’ll put the story back in backstory: creating events in the past that feel as relevant and suspenseful as real-time action, and which fit seamlessly into the worlds we’re bu...

Come write with me: we'll talk flashbacks, flashes-forward, foreshadowing, building tension while time-jumping, what happens and the order in which events are told! It all starts March 18th: lighthousewriters.org/workshop/8-w...

lighthousewriters.org/workshop/8-w...

Kind of an interesting example from this 2001 profile of Peter Thiel

A narratively satisfying set of tunes to play at your next session:

Whiskey in the Basement / Whiskey in the Jar / Whiskey In A Pint Glass / The Charms Of Whisky / The Humours of Whiskey / Whiskey Makes You A Lunatic / Whiskey, You're the Devil / Farewell to Whiskey / Whiskey Before Breakfast

Omar El Akkad! Ada Calhoun! Joni Mitchell! 26 new books out today. What a February it has been, a February that has felt more like a year (or three) than a month, a February in which it seems as though every day has yielded new political emergencies and embarrassm…

Happy to see SONG SO WILD AND BLUE walk with these 25 other books out today!

lithub.com/omar-el-akka...

FRANK LIMA Alligator of Happiness I ride the subway with all these bare-breasted faces. To my eternal discredit, They remind me of my five-minute life, Pounding against my heart. My fantasy is I am a loitering hunter Of nudes who ride the subways, With eyes that crack the light of men who stare. The nudes are beautiful white ants in the darkness, Blowing coins and leaves at me. My technique is familiar and simple conversation, Rhyming bad words that have little meaning. They accumulate like cities in Iceland. The words are flames and I am their lycanthropy. The riders pretend I do not exist. But I eventuate like the law of someone's Humanity I will never cheat. These are hungry old habits, The voyeurs of childhood. We allow to run our lives as adults. Still, I wait for them, Like the alligator of happiness, With a bouquet of senile flowers. They finally appear like birds from the Nile. I have kept this appointment all my life. 4.15.99

Frank Lima

don’t wanna be a raccoon in a raccoon graveyard

You have more power and wealth than anyone has ever dreamed. You can do literally anything in the world that you want. How do you spend your holidays?

I want to throw winter across the landscape