Parker Young

The TENTH Neon Night Mic is happening on September 3 & I couldn't be more excited for this lineup!

🎤 Chris Erickson
🎤 Laura Adamczyk
🎤 @cunningpscott.bsky.social
🎤 @parkeryoung.bsky.social
🎤 @mallorysmart.bsky.social
🎤 Logan Berry

⛪️ @whistlerchicago.bsky.social

Film review by Jorge Luis Borges of KING KONG (1933): King Kong: A monkey fourteen meters high (some of his fans say fifteen) is obviously charming, but perhaps that is not enough. This monkey is not full of juice; he is a dried out and dusty contraption with angular, clumsy movements. His only virtue-his height-seems not to have greatly impressed the photographer, who persists in not shooting him from below but from above, a plainly mistaken angle that invalidates and annuls his tallness. It should be added that he is hunchbacked and bowlegged, features that also shorten him. To ensure that there is nothing extraordinary about him, they make him fight monsters far stranger than he and find him lodgings in fake caverns the size of a cathedral, where his hard-won stature is lost. A carnal or romantic love for Miss Fay Wray brings to perfection the ruin of this gorilla and of the film as well.

Borges’ capsule review of KING KONG in which he mostly complains that Kong should be bigger

Pssst. If you type the word Warehouse in the discount code, you'll get 35% off of everything (until the end of June). Including the newest by Evan Nicholls. And other classics from @parkeryoung.bsky.social @dieddisappointed.bsky.social @gkhudson.bsky.social @tatianaryckman.bsky.social & more. 🔥

Here's a list of 8 recent (all from just the last year or two, all from indie/smaller presses) collections which I love and think deserve more readers. A very biased list! I think all of them are books I've blurbed, or the author is a friend, or someone I've published... and sometimes all three. I'm probably forgetting something incredibly obvious, but these were the first 7 that jumped out, when thinking about this and scanning my bookshelf. Cheap Therapist Says You're Insane by Parker Young (Future Tense Books) This book feels like a classic example of a story collection exemplifying "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts." I'd read some of these stories here and there, but reading them all together felt like a revelation. They sucked me in and made me see the world through Parker's eyes, and story-by-story, I fell more in love with that vision and these stories and this book. Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber (Stillhouse Press) I honestly and earnestly believe one of the best story collections of the century (so far). Up there, in my estimation, with Danielle Evans and Andrew Porter and Lori Ostlund. (Which, if you don't know those writers or my affinity for them, is among my highest of compliments. And also: go read them too!) Horse Girl Fever by Kevin Maloney (Clash Books) Kevin is one of my favorite writers. Favorite people. His writing is full of drugs and chaos, all condensed into razor sharp sentences where anything can happen, in ways that often (always) reminds me, and I hope reminds every writer who reads him, that you can do whatever you want in a story. Hey You Assholes by Kyle Seibel (Clash Books) I'm jealous at how good Kyle is and how strong this collection is. He has this storytelling voice in ways that often feels almost like a monologue, told by the funniest, best storyteller character you've ever met.

Girl on Girl by Emily Costa (Rejection Letters) Emily is probably my favorite writer of adolescent awkwardness and struggles, and this collection is exhibit A... and B and... however many letters for how many stories there are in it. Each feels familiar and true in ways that are embarrassing and cringey, and also filled with humor and making you want to read more. Magic Can't Save Us by Josh Denslow (University of New Orleans Press) It isn't really represented in this list, but I've been a real fan lately of collections that find some interesting/creative but more roundabout way to be "linked." These stories don't have any recurring characters or places or anything, but all are relationship/breakup stories and in some way feature a magical creature (centaur, unicorn, mermaid, etc.). They are fun, and funny, and full of heart, and feel honest and true in ways that sometimes you can only access through the supernatural. The Nothing by Lauren Davis (Yes Yes Books) This book snuck up on me. I wrote in my blurb, "There are ghosts in these stories. Sometimes literal, other times only in metaphor or feeling," and, indeed, these stories pulse with ache and feeling. They get inside you and haunt you, in the best way. My Prisoner and Other Stories by Tyler McAndrew (The Ohio State University Press) This book is forthcoming in a few months, out in September 2025, and I hope it finds the readers it deserves. I've read it a couple times already, and will likely soon be revisiting it for a third time for an interview with Tyler, and what a treat to have a book you want to, and get excited to, revisit. Here's what I said in my blurb: “These stories orbit misunderstandings, mishaps, miscommunications, each shining a spotlight on a character seeking and aching for some kind of connection, the very thing I desire from a short story, from art—to be pulled into its orbit, to be made to feel a connection. If you’re reading this now, I’m excited for and jealous of you spending time with…

was asked for "a list of 5-10 or so recent collections you want to vouch for" and so threw this together, and am counting it as my "writing" for the day

Great company to be in! Thanks, Aaron

Thanks, Hope! Today is the 2-year birthday of this amazing book by @parkeryoung.bsky.social, btw. 💫💛💛💫

Last night's Neon Night Mic at The Whistler was a hit!

📚📚📚

Thanks to the six readers: @danikastegeman.bsky.social, Scott Daughtridge DeMer, @simonemuenchie.bsky.social, @parkeryoung.bsky.social, Hedgie Choi, & Donato Loia

📷 @saramatson.bsky.social

The next Neon Night Mic is in two weeks! So excited for this stacked lineup

🎤 @danikastegeman.bsky.social
🎤 @parkeryoung.bsky.social
🎤 @simonemuenchie.bsky.social
🎤 Scott Daughtridge DeMer
🎤 Hedgie Choi (@uwiscpress.bsky.social)
🎤 Donato Loia (@bside-editions.bsky.social)

Cheap therapist says you’re insane What a page 😆

Have A Martini by Joshua Hebburn Bob walked into a bar and said to the bartender, “I’ll have a martini. Hold the vermouth. Hold the olive. Hold the gin. Hold the glass.” Bob walked into a bar with his junior and said to the barten...

Have a story @havehashad.com

www.havehashad.com/hadposts/hav...

Last Four Reads

Cheap Therapist Says You’re Insane by Parker Young @futuretensebooks.bsky.social

No Ship Sets Out To Be A ShipWreck by Joan Wickersham

A Horse At Night: On Writing by Amina Cain @dorothyproject.bsky.social

Three Muses by @marthaannetoll.bsky.social
@regalhouse.bsky.social

imagine spotify trying to invent an AI Dan Bejar from scratch... ok it's like indie yacht rock... and he sings like a wasted shakespearean actor trapped in a musical... and his lyrics don't really make sense... and it's all so beautiful that people weep... have it on my desk by 5

movie theaters refuse to start movies at 8:30 pm, the perfect time to start a movie

I started posting book recommendations over on the Piżama Press IG 📚

@sophieklahr.bsky.social @coreyzeller.bsky.social @fictioncollective2.bsky.social @markleidner.bsky.social @fonografeditions.bsky.social @parkeryoung.bsky.social @futuretensebooks.bsky.social @pizamapress.bsky.social

The Polymath of Pittsburgh Garielle Lutz is one of America’s great writers. Why has her literary genius gone unnoticed?

Exciting to see @garielle.bsky.social being celebrated. Long overdue for one of our most innovative and moving writers. Cheers to @thenation.com and Daniel Kolitz. 🖤

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Friend at a bar asked what I'm reading. A Fan's Notes by Exley, I told her. She punched me harder than I've probably ever been punched in the shoulder. She said she used to live in Watertown. She said everyone there hates Exley. Incredible book.

hell yeah thanks for reading

Daisuke Shen Life doesn’t make sense to us, disastrous and uncomfortable events happen suddenly, and without warning. It only makes sense, then, that stories should do the same.

spoke w @daijoubu.bsky.social about machines, the future, and their great new collection of stories from @clashbooks.bsky.social www.full-stop.net/2024/12/03/i...

11: Sometimes I feel kinda bad that Words & Sports is on indefinite hiatus, because it was so fun... but also I think Crow and I both overextended ourselves a bit early in the pandemic. There's 10 issues of really really great stuff though, including this fun one from @parkeryoung.bsky.social

loved these

ADDISON ZELLER / 3 PALEOLITHIC STORIES — always crashing THE CAVE OF THE EXCELLENT HORSES I dreamed the cave was full of Upper Paleolithic paintings. There was nothing important about the dream and I don’t remember what the paintings looked like—only that ...

Fresh work up at the excellent @alwayscrashing.bsky.social — hope you’ll check it out, very happy with these

www.alwayscrashing.com/current/2024...