Abigail Oswald

TRULY like how do they keep DOING it

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Subscription To subscribe and get our newest decorative gourd mug for just $5 more, click here. Get an additional 10% off when you buy a combo subscription alongside a catch-up bundle or Advent calendar. “A key b...

they're running a 25% off sale on subscriptions through Monday!! you too could support independent publishing AND find this glorious artifact in your mailbox very soon!!

store.mcsweeneys.net/products/qua...

the contents of McSweeney's 80, including a catalog, a sketchbook, and other assorted ephemera, which are all attached to the trapper keeper via binder rings—the "new school year" nostalgia is PALPABLE

I wrote about my undying love for McSweeney's experiments with form earlier this year for @aaronburch.bsky.social's Short Story, Long, but this one really takes the cake—stories that are also scantrons?? crosswords?? there's a sketchbook??? yes please!

ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/25-for-25-...

an absolutely GORGEOUS PERFECT trapper keeper featuring shimmery dolphins and cute lil fish swimming through some sort of undersea ruin, labeled "McSweeney's 80"

the new issue of @mcsweeneys.net is a TRAPPER KEEPER I am crying

What about this, a page of all the books by Short Story, Long contributors??

bookshop.org/wishlists/37...

LET'S LAUNCH THIS BOOK! The GRAPHIC RAGE VIRTUAL BOOK LAUNCH: Tuesday, October 7, 8:00pm ET, registration link in bio

Happy Publication Day to @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social and her incredible comic collection GRAPHIC RAGE: COMICS ON GENDER, JUSTICE, AND LIFE AS A WOMAN IN AMERICA!!!

Time to celebrate! Aubrey will be in conversation with @robhollywood.bsky.social TONIGHT at 8pm ET--registration info in our bio. 🎉🎉🎉

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day?

Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

This Friday, a free @sarabandebooks.bsky.social zine workshop for yr lunch hour. My heart in that postscript. 🖤 We will wander through John Berger, little birds, and Rosa Luxembourg to write a p.s. zine. Register below. Come do words with me.

us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

I love this haunted and haunting post SLM intern Ella Schweizer curated with work by @abigailoswald.bsky.social, Thirii Myint, Coyote Shook, Mark Galarrita, Roppotucha Greenberg, Alejandro Pasquale, Ahsan Butt, Sophie Hoss, and more!

ahhh what a great group to be part of! I remember I had such a blast writing this story, so thrilled to see it included in a spooky season roundup 👻

Cleveland Review of Books looks for "Forms authored by two or more writers which forefront collaborative methods as essential techniques for thinking with, at, and through text/s with more than one mind, voice, body," maybe this would fit? clereviewofbooks.com/pitch/

Introducing Brewed for You! For a donation of just $1 (or more!), take the quiz and get a personalized list of books recommended to you by your favorite authors and indie booksellers! (for example...)
form.typeform.com/to/FOqqV2LJ?...

amazing, thank you!! will stay tuned for more—I'm based in the northeast + attend zine meetups/fests + host the occasional zine workshop myself, would love to help spread the word in my corner of the world ☺️

P.S. any chance there's a submissions call graphic I can print out and pass along to fellow zinesters at upcoming events?

I am so happy this exists! 🥲

Read — Zine Machine Our launch issue is LIVE!! Read zines made by real (paid!) human artists in Zine Machine's Summer '25 Edit, out now.

All I know to do when things are Very Bad is make art with more artists. I hope my little lit mag @zinemachine.bsky.social (launched today!), brings you what it’s brought me—an insistence that there’s so much brilliance, cleverness, humor, & beauty. That it’s never far away.🩷
zinemachine.com/the-mag

OPEN CALL: CREATIVE NONFICTION BOOKS Reading period October 1 - December 1 Submit at splitlippress.submittable.com 125 page minimum

Good morning to everyone, but especially NONFICTION WRITERS because we're open for your book submissions!

@athenadixon.bsky.social and her 25NF reading team are reading essay collections, memoirs, + nf/hybrid full-length book manuscripts over 125pg at splitlippress.submittable.com now through 12/1!

"I am so glad you've gotten even."

went on a hunt for marginalia at a secondhand bookstore for this month's Microfascination!

abigailoswald.substack.com/p/marginalia...

Now available for pre-order: Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music: The March Xness Anthology, edited by Ander Monson and Megan Campbell, coming with Split/Lip Press on March 31. Image shows a yellow book cover with a dubbed cassette tape, upon which the title of the book has been written.

Hey @marchxness.bsky.social fans! It's cover reveal + preorders day for HIT REPEAT UNTIL I HATE MUSIC: THE MARCH XNESS ANTHOLOGY, edited by @angermonsoon.bsky.social and @meganc.bsky.social!

Available for preorders (+ ARC requests) NOW, link in our bio or www.splitlippress.com/march-xness-anthology

Dial-A-Poem, the phone addiction that’s actually good for the soul The Sixties experiment that spread the joy of poetry has been resurrected for the smartphone age

Dial-A-Poem, the phone addiction that’s actually good for the soul

The Sixties experiment that spread the joy of poetry has been resurrected for the smartphone age

Short Story, Long is open for another three days!

A Free Printable Bookmark About Book Censorship Print these free bookmarks to help engage your friends, family, and community in the fight against book bans.

I made a free printable bookmark you can use for any banned books week (or before or after!) displays, books, etc., that gives people *action items* for defending the right to read.

buttondown.com/wellsourced/...

The Speculative Detective Agency A Curious Collection of Mysterious Cases

Fans (and writers!) of SFF and noir, check out this new anthology. They're also taking submissions. 🕵️‍♀️👻🤖📖

www.kickstarter.com/projects/for... @richienarvaez.bsky.social @latinxfiles.bsky.social

4 Screenshots from the movie "Pump Up the Volume" (1990): First, a suburban street at night with a jeep driving past houses and a van parked in a driveway, the subtitle reading, “Maybe Mr. Watts can shed some light...” Second, the jeep continues down the quiet street, the subtitle reading, “on the mysterious disappearances of some of our students.” Third, a young man wearing glasses speaks into a microphone while reading from notes, the subtitle reading, “Luis Chavez, age fifteen...” Fourth, the same young man continues speaking into the microphone with the subtitle, “illegally kicked out on September 26.”

Sep 26th - Luis Chavez, a below-average student, was expelled to boost the school's average test scores. However, his name was kept on school records in order to receive government funding.

📽️📅 Pump Up the Volume (1990)

How to Be a Good Literary Citizen (in Seven Easy Steps) Last Sunday I spent hours at the Brooklyn Book Festival, a too rare occasion for me to pull myself away from the internet for an entire afternoon. As I looked around at the crowd on their way to pa…

My way of coping with all of the madness is focusing on what I can do to make my community a little bit stronger. So excuse me for all of the earnestness, but I wrote about ways we can all pitch in to support a thriving literary culture. lithub.com/how-to-be-a-...

Finding Yourself in Art, A Creative Writing Workshop - Tara Campbell Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, fiction editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University’s MFA. Her 2024 novel City of Dancing Gargoyles was a finalist for the 2025 Philip...

Oooh, new programs dropping at Humanities Washington, and lookit:

"Engaging with different artworks and curated items around the state, author Tara Campbell invites people to form a new relationship with a gallery or museum through creative writing."

www.humanities.org/speaker/tara...

Silk, Jer, and the rest of the nonfiction team will be ready and waiting for your essay collections, memoirs, and other nonfiction/hybrid-coded manuscripts when submissions open in ONE WEEK on October 1st!

Dead Poets Society (1989): The Powerful Play Goes On So much of what Keating does in Dead Poets Society has to do with shifting one’s perspective. Stand on the desk and say what you can see.

feeling very grateful to have the chance to explore what Dead Poets Society means to me in the first entry of Viewfinder, my new column over at @bwdr.bsky.social!

www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2025/09/23/d...

Dead Poets Society (1989): The Powerful Play Goes On So much of what Keating does in Dead Poets Society has to do with shifting one’s perspective. Stand on the desk and say what you can see.

New today on the site!

@abigailoswald.bsky.social on DEAD POETS SOCIETY:

"Believing we hold all of life’s answers heralds the death of curiosity, which feels like the antithesis of joy. Better, then, to keep searching. Stand on the desk and say what you can see."

(🎨 by @studioralston.bsky.social)

my writing journey has taken so many twists + turns since I was a student in the classroom I write about here, but I'm so happy to find myself on this particular path—big thanks to @chadperman.bsky.social for the opportunity