Sean Carlson

The Undertones CD on the mantle

Here comes the summer! My essay, "Teenage Kicks," on music, discovery, and memory, anchored around The Undertones, is out now in the latest Missouri Review!

Opening excerpt here: missourireview.com/article/teen...

Full article in print and via Project MUSE here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/48/artic...

New writing in the Missouri Review, the Common, and RTÉ Radio 1 An essay on The Undertones, a review of Oona Frawley’s This Interim Time, and a debut short story, "Cricklewood"

New writing in the Missouri Review, @commonmag.bsky.social, and @rteradio1.bsky.social: An essay on The Undertones, a review of Oona Frawley’s This Interim Time, and a debut short story, "Cricklewood" - my latest newsletter: seancarlson.substack.com/p/new-writin...

What We’re Reading: July 2025 SEÁN CARLSON <br> Frawley revisits memory to anchor her love and affection for each of her parents as she knew them. With precision and tenderness, she flits between their real and imagined pasts, her...

What a treat to read and recommend Oona Frawley's achingly gorgeous new essay collection This Interim Time for @commonmag.bsky.social's "What We're Reading" series: www.thecommononline.org/what-were-re...

I've a feeling you'll appreciate this one!

The Missouri Review's Summer 2025 issue - "Location, Location, Location" - image featuring the upper half of the cover art

I'll share a link once my essay, "Teenage Kicks," is live online, but if you'd appreciate the print edition, you can now order the summer issue of the Missouri Review here! secure.touchnet.net/C20067_ustor...

how wonderful!

✏️ 💕

Just caught with this gorgeous ep of The Prompt ‘Shoes’ three wonderful pieces. @seancarlsen.bsky.social @zoecomyns.bsky.social loved Cricklewood Seán, lived there in the early 90s.

oh, thank you so much, @mairelogue.bsky.social!

Shoes Guest Writer: Belinda McKeon New writing by: Sara Keating, Róisín Leggett Bohan, Seán Carlson

Listen to my short story "Cricklewood" now via the RTÉ Player. Honored to be featured alongside such resonant contributions from Sara Keating and Róisín Leggett Bohan. www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Today! Listen in from 7:30-8:00 p.m. on RTÉ Radio 1:

The Prompt: Trying on 'shoes' with author Belinda McKeon This week on The Prompt on RTÉ Radio 1, guest writer Belinda McKeon's writing prompt is 'shoes'.

Tomorrow! Tune in to @wearetheprompt.bsky.social on @rteradio1.bsky.social: www.rte.ie/culture/2025...

"And in every case, the answer was not less journalism — but more."

This week is the week:

My debut work of fiction, a short story titled "Cricklewood," will air on RTÉ Radio 1's @wearetheprompt.bsky.social at 7:30 p.m. this coming Sunday, July 6th.

Hope you can listen in! Or come join us here in Listowel!

Congrats are in order! Both contributor @sean-carlson.bsky.social and contributor Lauren Hunt received the 2025 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award for Literature 👏

!!!

Best wishes to everybody in, or heading to, Listowel for Writers' Week. So sorry to be missing this year's festivities! #LWW25

Ep 01: The Patron Saint of... Eight of Ireland's best writers set writing prompts and the public were invited to submit up to 750 words of poetry or prose. In the first episode, '...the patron saint of…’ was chosen as the prompt a...

not sure their broader plans, but the first episode is available for replay here: www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

The Prompt - RTÉ Radio 1's new showcase for fresh Irish writing The first episode of The Prompt presented by Zoë Comyns airs on Sunday 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1.

Will be listening in to the initial episode tomorrow, featuring guest writer Mike McCormack discussing contributions from Colm McAuliffe, John Paul Davies, and Brendan Kileen. www.rte.ie/culture/2025...

"Celebrating the power of story and the thrill of new writing, The Prompt (on RTE Radio 1, presented by Zoe Comyns), will give another generation of storytellers a platform with fresh, original voices responding to the challenge in striking ways."

I'm in awe to be included in this lineup: My first work of fiction, a short story titled "Cricklewood," will air on Irish national radio @rteradio1.bsky.social this summer — on Sunday, July 6th — as part of a new series, @wearetheprompt.bsky.social, presented by @zoecomyns.bsky.social!

The Changing Light of Mirah: Singer-songwriter reinforces hope at a house show in Providence - Motif Mirah’s second full-length, Advisory Committee (K Records, 2002), came out during the spring of my freshman year at Boston University. While the album’s title perhaps suggested some homage to academia...

Sometimes we could all use a living-room show with a toy dinosaur bubble machine. My little essay / review on Mirah's recent @undertowmusic.bsky.social stop in Providence: motifri.com/the-changing...

Congratulations to @gphibbett.bsky.social on receiving the 2025 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize!

We're enjoying poetry on ACCOMPLISHMENT SUNDAY ✨ Contributor @sean-carlson.bsky.social has a detailed poem on anger featured in @versedaily.bsky.social ✨ Find ANGER IS A FISHING TRAWLER here: buff.ly/scNAjzD

Today's poem is "Anger is a fishing trawler"
by Seán Carlson
from Elsewhere: A Journal of Place
Subscribe to our substack and find out what you're missing.
www.versedaily.org/2025/angeris...

Written after a conversation at John B's in Listowel and first published in @elsewherejournal.bsky.social, "Anger is a fishing trawler" is today's poem-a-day pick over at @versedaily.bsky.social! www.versedaily.org/2025/angeris...

The cited quote written in light blue at the bottom in bold. At the top left is the book cover for I Love You So Much it's Killing Us Both. To the right is the title of the article and the author's name written in charcoal and the full white Rumpus logo. Black lines bisect the design, creating boxes of red and gray.

“Against the insurmountable, music, like any art, need not deliver salvation to provide a salve.”

@sean-carlson.bsky.social reviews Mariah Stovall’s I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both (Soft Skull Press).

➡️ buff.ly/815qRNy

mutual hype machines!

Unfun: Mariah Stovall’s I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both - The Rumpus There’s a temptation to look for narrative redemption, a sense of completeness, some reassurance that the trouble was worthwhile, that all will be okay.

"For a moment in time... emotional masculinity was all the rage." Thanks so much to @therumpus.net for the opportunity to revisit the onset of emo, browse the Punk Planet archives, and mull on the enduring power of Jawbreaker in light of Mariah Stovall's debut novel: therumpus.net/2025/04/22/u...

Breaking down the Mood Machine: Liz Pelly riffs on music in the age of Spotify at Providence's Lost Bag - Motif In “Big Mood Machine,” her 2018 essay for The Baffler, journalist Liz Pelly honed in on the role of digital music as part of “a burgeoning industry surrounding technology that alleges to mine our…

NBCC member @sean-carlson.bsky.social reviewed "Mood Machine" by Liz Pelly for Rhode Island's alt-monthly Motif Magazine:

Breaking down the Mood Machine: Liz Pelly riffs on music in the age of Spotify at Providence's Lost Bag - Motif In “Big Mood Machine,” her 2018 essay for The Baffler, journalist Liz Pelly honed in on the role of digital music as part of “a burgeoning industry surrounding technology that […]

I stopped by @lizpelly.bsky.social's book talk in Providence and ended up with a few words of my own on her debut Mood Machine and the intersection of music and technology — plus, context from @sugzone.bsky.social on establishing a localized streaming server at the venue. motifri.com/breaking-dow...