Middle West Press

made a handy little novel title generator for you

Line Of Advance Literary Journal Literary Journal for America's Military Veterans, their Families, and Active Duty Members. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

The 2025 Col. Darron L. Wright Awards for poetry by a mil-fam member!
- 1st: “Shipwreck on Padre Island” by Emma Comery
- 2nd: “Last of Autumn” by @lisasticepoet.bsky.social
- 3rd: “Rolling Hills” by Erick Garske

The annual contest is administered by the @line of advance. www.lineofadvance.org

On the left:

Washington Post report: Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American History Museum
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

On the right:

Background reading, Professor Jason Stanley's vital Sept 2024 book
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Erasin...

I've got an essay in there!

Processing: Why Benjamin Percy Is Writing a Novel as a Newspaper with Stephen King The author on writing across mediums, the appeal of physical objects, and working with the legendary Stephen King

I talked to @benjaminpercy.bsky.social about writing across mediums, working with the legendary @stephenking.bsky.social, and serializing the forthcoming novel-as-newspaper THE END TIMES

countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

Substack has a Nazi problem. If you're starting a newsletter in 2025, you have other options and you absolutely should take them for moral and ethical reasons, imo. I'm on @buttondown.com and it's pretty great!

The New York Times would be more positively rated here were it not for one consistent failing at the massively influential newspaper: those damn headlines. In an apparent and ill-advised attempt at both-sides objectivity, the paper’s headline writers routinely normalize the most extreme elements of Trumpism.

'those damn headlines'

The @nytimes.com get hit in the @freepress.bsky.social media capitulation index for it's lousy, misleading, sometimes factually incorrect headlines.

The entire study is a very helpful reality check. Give it a read:
www.freepress.net/who-owns-med...

a screenshot of three resource hubs: one for spoken word and slam poetry, one for counter-narrative masculinity, and one for activism and organizing

Been working on this behind-the-scenes project for a long time: guante.info/resources

My site has always been a place to share resources that I use in my ed/facilitation work; here are 3 new "resource hubs:" on spoken word, counter-narrative masculinity, and plugging into activism/organizing.

Background is a dark blue view of space with a light blue spiral nebula design. Text reads: Spec Fic for Newbies brings SF subgenres & tropes down to earth! Space Opera, Astronauts, First Contact, Climate Fiction, Pandemic Fiction, Uplifted Animals, Submarine Stories, Mysterious Islands, Biopunk, The Multiverse On the left is a book cover. The cover is medium blue on the top and bottom third with the center third black. In the top blue block are the authors’ names in yellow: Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan. In the middle black block is the main title in white: Spec Fic for Newbies Vol. 2. In the bottom blue block is the subtitle in yellow: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing More Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Below the cover is the text: Shortlisted for multiple awards! At the bottom is a QR code and the Luna Press logo.

Thinking of diving into some science fiction writing? We cover 10 subgenres & major tropes in *Spec Fic for Newbies 2*, the second stand-alone book in the multi-award-finalist writing-guide series from @lunapress.bsky.social
linktr.ee/specficforne...

AHEM! Did you miss the news?

The cover of the August 5, 1950, issue of Collier’s magazine, featuring a painting by Chesley Bonestell of a large orange, red, yellow, and white nuclear fireball exploding over midtown Manhattan, and the beginnings of a mushroom cloud, with the cover line, “Hiroshima, U.S.A. — Can Anything Be Done About It?”

A large painting from inside Collier's magazine of two large nuclear explosions over Manhattan and Queens. A large plume of smoke from a firestorm in northern Manhattan is also visible.

A two-page-spread painting of the aftermath of a nuclear attack on New York City. Multiple areas of the city are on fire and enormous plumes of black smoke billow into the air. The caption reads, “A cloud of black grime masked the lower city. … Where 100,000 people had lived—in an area roughly fifteen blocks long and twenty blocks across—there was now an ugly brown-red sear. … Beyond the rim of the sea, thousands of fires were lighted.”

75 years ago today—nearly five years after the United States used a single atomic bomb to obliterate Hiroshima, Japan—renowned painter and illustrator Chesley Bonestell’s (1888-1986) vivid visions of an atomic attack on New York City were featured on the cover and inside pages of Collier’s magazine.

An open zine, laying atop another copy that shows part of the cover Text: I want to die in a sword fight while standing under a waterfall as someone washes my hair. SUFJAN STEVENS GAVE ME TENNESSEE Limited edition EP by Leigh Chadwick Recorded in the old RV at Malarkey Books Sound Studios, Armpit, Missouri Cover design by Angelo Maneage Leigh Chadwick is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Your Favorite Poet and Sophomore Slump. Her poetry has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Salamander, Passages North, and Identity Theory, among others. Leigh can be found online at www.leighchadwick.com ON BEING Stop giving me emotions, I tell my emotions. Be better at being better. I am always fighting a head cold after walking through December. I was seventeen when I left my virginity in a basement in Cleveland. The Mississippi one. That's a lie. I was eighteen and his dorm room smelled like a box of cinnamon that woke up sweating. I like to drink a glass of orange juice after fucking with the lights on. In all of my dreams, it takes a machete to cut through the fog. I hope his chemo feels like listening to the Talking Heads for the first time. It's useless to hope for a heartbeat after the second round passes through what the boy used to call his chest. What have we stepped on that isn't a burial ground? "Part-Time Celebrity" originally appeared in Bullshit Lit Find more great records at malarkeybooks.com

Want to do more stuff like this, and we are going to try something. Looking for 12 people who will help support a monthly poetry project for next year. More info: malarkeybooks.com/store/poet-o...

"Inspired by the poetry, literature, film, and music that have shaped me as a scientist, The Edge of Space-Time is about the way physics, astronomy, and cosmology offer each of us – not just scientists – a powerful and important perspective on the world around us."

"[T]he Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, and color, but also on the grounds of ability [...]"

"An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer” (1959)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHQb...

Episode 76: E.G. Cunningham (Of Field, the Suburban Exclusion of the Wild, and the Potential of Abstracts) E.G. Cunningham, author of Field Notes (River River Books, 2025) Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere Purchase: Field Notes (River River Books, 2025) E. G. Cunningham was born in South …

Of field and suburb, of trekking across America, of the idea of exile, of abstracts & abstraction, of the ClA & entanglement of language & what we carry with us—join @egcunningham.bsky.social for a discussion of her forthcoming FIELD NOTES:

share.transistor.fm/s/37d5460f

!!!!!!!

Yaaaasss, my poem about fire sauce being equated to love is going to get personalized feedback! I’m so stoked for this.

Image consists of two elements author photo of Pamela Hart on right; her poem "Mothers Over Nangarhar" on left. The poem is superimposed on a satellite photo of Eastern Afghanistan, including the Nangarhar Province region. The poem reads: "Powered by search engines and history mothers navigate Google Earth, view the flashing lights of MRAPs as the cursors flag river or range The mothers leap across time zones check their satellite feed sprint from screen to field where you lie split calling their name The mothers fly from Fallujah Wanat, Khe Sanh to Marathon Hastings, Vicksburg Their hands are epic their bodies large pouring into and out of you"

Along with co-sponsor Collateral Journal, we are pleased to reveal another 2025 War Poetry Postcard Project design! More info: linktr.ee/warpoets

Congratulations to NY poet @pam-hart.bsky.social, for her poem "Mothers Over Nangarhar"!

Abolish ICE Women’s V-neck T-Shirt | TheBlackest Co. Abolish ICE Women’s V-neck Tee is soft, bold, and made to speak truth. Relaxed fit with purpose. Designed, printed and shipped in the USA. Proudly Black owned.

I picked up one of these Abolish Ice shirts and it's already gotten some rave reviews and dirty looks! theblackestco.com/products/abo...

MORE 👏 OF 👏 THIS 👏

Keep up the good work and great writing!!!

Thank you Collateral Journal, @middlewestpress.bsky.social , @aimingcircle.bsky.social , @fobhaiku.bsky.social for the important work of giving veterans and family an important outlet. Honored to be in great company.

Nos Books is located in an historic fire station in the Drake University business district, 1163 24th St, Des Moines, IA 50311

The book cover of poet Vince Gotera's "Dragons & Rayguns" is designed in the form of a comic book cover, complete with a purple dragon holding a laser pistol in its tail!

Iowa Poet Laureate Vince Gotera wears a red-dragon shirt. Behind him, the "nos books" logo is a white flower superimposed on a slate-blue circle.

Got to hear Iowa Poet Laureate, Sci-Fi poet & U.S. Army veteran Vince Gotera read from his latest, “Dragons & Rayguns,” at a new indie bookstore: Nos Books 1163 24th St, Des Moines, IA 50311! Open Wed-Sun 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., they build community around authors of color & other marginalized voices!

In the darkest times, it is not the powerful who shape history, but the good people who rise—quietly, defiantly—above fear, above hatred, above fascism. They are the light that tyrants cannot extinguish.

There are still good people 🌺🦢🫂

Left image: Central Texas poet and U.S. Army veteran D.A. Gray wears a "Good Trouble / Better South" T-shirt and American flag button. Right image: D.A. Gray's WPPP-finalist poem "A.M. radio" is superimposed on a cloudy sky over the yellow-dashed centerline of a Texas highway. The poem reads: "You drive together in an unremarkable sedan, the a.m. radio station comes in and out of tune. You’d forgotten in the desert how hills could churn the contents of your last lunch, pin them to your ribs, or make you eat it again. Still flying upward a split second after the road’s fallen from your wheels. Atop the next hill the signal comes through. A man’s voice speaks of those people, then the signal cuts out. Between the static you piece it together. The caller wants those people to go back. You begin to picture faces: the translator who risked everything feeding you dolma and tea so sweet sugar settled in the glass; your soldier, who volunteers every job by day, studies for his citizenship test by night. You look over; he’s staring off to the side. You’re more American than some who never left their hometown. you say, and both laugh uneasily, and turn the radio off — when you turn back to the road, cresting a blind hill, you nearly meet a pickup truck coming the other way. Both vehicles swerve from the center."

Along with co-sponsor Collateral Journal, we are pleased to reveal another 2025 War Poetry Postcard Project design! More info: linktr.ee/warpoets

Congratulations to poet and U.S. Army veteran @dagray.bsky.social , for "A.M. radio"!

More info: www.middlewestpress.com/2025/07/texa...

Get more from The Deadlands on Patreon a zine containing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about Death

we at the deadlands could really use your help

so we're setting an impossible goal

one that YOU could help make possible!

it's 116 days until halloween

can we get just one new patreon supporter a day??

LET'S SEE

help us out for as little as $2 a month! 🖤

www.patreon.com/the_deadlands

He was born to a US citizen soldier on an army base in Germany. Now he’s been deported to Jamaica, a country he’d never been to | CNN Born on a US military base, the son of a US citizen father serving in the army, Jermaine Thomas never considered he might not be American.

www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/u...

Do we want our children to live with hope? Or do we want Elon Musk to have another six hundred billion dollars?

Them’s the choices.

I think there are things Suzuki says in this interview that are correct, but I have some serious issues with the conclusions.

First, the comments about it being “too late.” To be clear, that is a political rather than a scientific calculus on Suzuki’s part. I also think it is incorrect.