Mallory Smart

Nothing like recording a thoughtful literary podcast and then wondering if you sounded weird the the whole night after…

Ready to start a new season of Textual Healing…🎧

My husband just secured Hilary Duff tickets and suddenly my 2003 personality is back online…

My husband just secured Hilary Duff tickets and suddenly my 2003 personality is back online…

I’m done saying “go to hell.” Too easy. From now on it’s, “I hope the Netflix adaptation of your favorite book has an awful cast.”

Way more personal…

She’s staring outside like the plot is about to begin and I’m just background noise…

Valentine’s Day at Tangible Books talking about Winesburg, Ohio.

Bleak Midwestern loneliness, but make it romantic…

I don’t trust writers who build a personality around hating pop culture. I’m just a dork who loves Stephen King, Ryan Murphy, and unhinged emotional chaos.

No apologies…

The Shortlist for February 13, 2026 - Turn & Work An exclusive from James Vella, plus Wim Hylen, Mallory Smart, Alyson Floyd, Effie Seiberg, Eliza Gilbert, and Henrick Karoliszyn.

The Shortlist for February 13:

A new story from James Vella in Turn & Work

Plus links to other great stories from:
Wim Hylen and Henrick Karoliszyn in @mrbullbull.bsky.social
Mallory Smart @mallorysmart.bsky.social in Little Engines

Check them all out here:

My oldest niece turns 26 today, which feels fake because she’s basically my sister with different paperwork.

Evidence: my extremely responsible bottle-rocket supervision…

Just got my Scream tix!

Doctor’s office waiting room. The receptionist softly singing along to Purple Rain.

Everyone pretending not to need saving…

February mornings always feel like the world is deciding whether to keep going…

I do the same thing with time.

Every Maudlin House post goes up at 3:15 AM because I’ve always been weirdly obsessed with The Amityville Horror.

I let certain dates decide things. February 11 is my oldest niece’s birthday.

So that’s when Winesburg, Ohio comes out.

Some days feel marked long before you understand why…

Realizing the artist experience is spending half your life making beautiful things and the other half politely dealing with people...

Described here as “soft-hearted with a Chicagoan’s acerbicness,” which I think might be accurate…

Talking Maudlin Classics and the strange persistence of making books.

open.substack.com/pub/zonamote...

It’s the semiannual search for my copy of Devil in the White City because my bookshelf organization system is just vibes…

The Dawson’s Creek song has been stuck in my head all morning and I’ve never seen a single episode. Feels more like a haunting than nostalgia...

When we h(a)unted We stalked the halls of dead malls, ghosts before our time. We lived by sense, taste and smell and sight, by instinct, lust and desire and rage. We were not quiet. We were not neat. The world is a hun...

I have a new girlhood as werewolf story out in @maudlinhouse.bsky.social today. Give it a read? maudlinhouse.net/when-we-haun...

"It just fills the air so it doesn’t feel like I’m rotting in a questionable jar in the back of the fridge."

Wonderful sense of character and tone of voice in this piece from @mallorysmart.bsky.social in @bulbregion.bsky.social

My cat sleeping under the covers like she pays rent…

Being a woman in the lit scene means every message comes with a second draft in your head titled “Does this sound bitchy or just honest.”

Starbuck kept me up all night because she randomly decided it was playtime.

Coffee is my personality until further notice...

ICYMI: I published a short story yesterday about Bates Motel, talking to someone who isn’t there, and pretending the TV is a kind of love.

It's up at @bulbregion.bsky.social

Reader discretion: Mother has opinions.

bulbregion.com/We-All-Go-a-...

We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes, by Mallory Smart — The Bulb Region We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes — Mallory Smart I’VE BEEN REWATCHING Bates Motel...

I’ve been rewatching Bates Motel for months.

Somewhere along the way my intrusive thoughts started answering to “Mother.”

Apparently this is how some of us cope...

-new prose, @bulbregion.bsky.social

bulbregion.com/We-All-Go-a-...

We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes, by Mallory Smart — The Bulb Region We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes — Mallory Smart I’VE BEEN REWATCHING Bates Motel...

“Somewhere along the way my worst intrusive thoughts, the barnacle ones, started answering to Mother. Not as a joke. Not as a metaphor.”

Mallory Smart (@mallorysmart.bsky.social) stirs the Bates Motel-Psycho pot with her stupendous prose in The Bulb Region today.

bulbregion.com/We-All-Go-a-...

Something new has been unlocked from Hipster Poetry Vault.

2016 was a choice...

malsmart.substack.com/p/existentia...

It’s offensively cold out and I’m expected to participate in society…

Therapy quote of the whatever…