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Seph Murtagh

@sephmurtagh.bsky.social

Writer. Fiction and essays in 3:AM Magazine, Minor Literature[s], & Socrates on the Beach.

1,107 Followers  |  577 Following  |  246 Posts  |  Joined: 27.07.2023
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Posts by Seph Murtagh (@sephmurtagh.bsky.social)

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Renata Adler, bringing the goods in PITCH DARK. Extraordinary passage, extraordinary novel.

21.08.2025 17:12 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates melancholy from happiness.
-- Woolf, Orlando

21.08.2025 11:20 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Canon of Asian American Literature – Post45 Data Collective This dataset traces the Asian American literary canon through nearly 1,900 scholarly citations from 1971 to 2023, capturing which authors and texts have shaped the field over time.

"Representing the canon that scholars of Asian American literature have built, it is the most expansive dataset to date on Asian American literature."

Data and essay: doi.org/10.18737/092...

15.08.2025 16:27 β€” πŸ‘ 22    πŸ” 12    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

The thing people who are terrified don’t understand about cities is that all you need to know is what is your business and what is not your business

15.08.2025 13:09 β€” πŸ‘ 100    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 3

Ah, the sour smell of fallen, trampled fruit fermenting on city sidewalks. It's one of my favorite smells of the year. Fills me with a great inner peace. We are nearing the end of the torrid heat.

15.08.2025 12:31 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Yeah incredible right?!

12.08.2025 20:09 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I had to google β€œsun butter” lol

12.08.2025 19:55 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Sitting in my office, starving, receiving updates from daycare that my daughter is being fed "sun butter and jelly sandwich, green beans and fruit cocktail"

12.08.2025 19:39 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you!

06.08.2025 21:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Gus O'Connor on Jen Craig β€” Socrates on the Beach

Great new review of Jen Craig's Wall up over @greggerkesocrates.bsky.social's Socrates: "Her novels are at once obsessive attempts to give a full account of grief-laden lives, & a demonstration of the impossibility, the ridiculousness, even, of such a pursuit" socratesonthebeach.com/gus-oconnor-...

06.08.2025 13:57 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Our home bar from those days (which is sadly gone now that we’ve entered our sober toddler parenting era. I’m an IPA guy now 😒)

06.08.2025 16:09 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Found the hand-drawn cocktail book that my wife and I made during our drunken shut-in covid days.

06.08.2025 16:05 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

Got a lil bagatelle at beloved @hexliterary.bsky.social

05.08.2025 14:09 β€” πŸ‘ 35    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 0

Sunday morning writing mantra, via DeLillo, from inside my cocoon of dimmed lights, closed doors, and noise-cancelling headphones: "A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."

03.08.2025 17:15 β€” πŸ‘ 55    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

say it again:

4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities

demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

04.08.2025 12:30 β€” πŸ‘ 2346    πŸ” 954    πŸ’¬ 40    πŸ“Œ 40
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I believe these are the first four academic books to cite an episode of American Vandal, which, like, there will be prizes.

29.07.2025 23:47 β€” πŸ‘ 74    πŸ” 9    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 3
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On Gabriel Blackwell's Doom Town I’m generally not a superstitious person, but there have been times in my life when catastrophes have piled up with such alarming speed and synchronicity, that I've been inclined to believe that the u...

Wrote 1000 words on Gabriel Blackwell's DOOM TOWN, a strange and deeply affecting novel that I won't soon forget.

26.07.2025 17:30 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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We're excited to start off our featured author posts with Elvis Bego's work "A Part"! Check out the rest of his work on our website (link in bio) in our Summer 2025 Issue out now!

16.07.2025 16:08 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Dasa Drndic, Trieste

Dasa Drndic, Trieste

I've been reading Trieste by Dasa Drndic for the last few days and it has absolutely wiped me out. Reading it next to Celan, Pound, etc., and my head is spinning. What a work of fiction - as well as a historical and documentary indictment of the world that reads it.

08.07.2025 18:25 β€” πŸ‘ 20    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

Such an exceptional novel. Read it a few years ago and it blew my mind. Don't think I've ever read a work of fiction that so urgently challenges the willing suspension of disbelief. Nothing quite like it.

08.07.2025 20:03 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Happy Bloomsday to all who celebrate

16.06.2025 09:30 β€” πŸ‘ 388    πŸ” 131    πŸ’¬ 11    πŸ“Œ 17

New work in @havehashad.com today! Another cheesy little dad piece that might be the cheesiest little dad piece I’ve written yet (while also maybe the one I had the most fun with?)

13.06.2025 15:04 β€” πŸ‘ 19    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 7    πŸ“Œ 0

β€œShe has an allergy to mosquitos"
Me: β€œYes, but what is it CALLED"

13.06.2025 15:47 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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My 17 month old daughter has developed an allergy to mosquitos and I'm frankly annoyed that no one, from my wife to our pediatrician to her daycare providers, seems to want to use the official name for it.

13.06.2025 15:45 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

No

31.05.2025 01:28 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

great interview

29.05.2025 13:19 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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β€œI don’t want to overstate the case, but what’s at stake is life and death”: An Interview with Ben Libman β€” Cristina Politano Ben Libman is a Paris-based Canadian writer who has mined the geographical specifics of his family’s history, from Nazi-occupied Austria to post-war Canada, in order to challenge the creation…

β€œI don’t want to overstate the case, but what’s at stake is life and death”: An Interview with Ben Libman (@benlibman.bsky.social) β€”Cristina Politano (@monalisavitti.bsky.social)

minorliteratures.com/2025/05/29/i...

29.05.2025 08:00 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 2

This is my ego as a novice lit mag editor talking, but I imagine someone, somewhere will benefit from reading this entire issue whole, preferably in order of presentation.

yourimpossiblevoice.com/issue32/

24.05.2025 17:32 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Everything about this is a tragedy, every level, from cheated freelancers to authors obscured to readers who don’t get served either.

20.05.2025 13:43 β€” πŸ‘ 1413    πŸ” 336    πŸ’¬ 32    πŸ“Œ 12