An Attempt at Optimism

Yesterday I opened this here newsletter website and started in on a rant. I was—I am—feeling annoyed and jaded about the thing I’m most passionate about—writing. I wrote about how frustrated I am by the trend of memetic takedown essays in online writing spaces, particularly on Substack (which I highlight only because it’s oft cited as the new platform for writers). And then I closed the window. Because writing it was pointless and miserable (coincidentally, this is how the Substack essays make me feel!). So instead of doing that, I’m going to do the opposite, and talk about writing things that are making me happy.

We are now a few weeks beyond AWP Baltimore, which was way too fast and mostly incredible. We held our third official hex offsite reading, and it was absolutely beautiful. The venue, Current Space, is a cozy, artist-run gallery in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. My co-editor Kate, and dear friend Wendy Oleson arrived early, hoping to scope out the venue and get some food before the reading. As soon as we pulled up, we ran into Julián Martinez, who was slated to read for us and who guided us to a nearby Ethiopian spot. We sat down and had decided on what to order but the small restaurant was busy and so we had to run instead to a cafeteria style food court, where we got teriyaki chicken and shrimp fried rice.

Back at the venue, the doors were now unlocked and early attendees and readers began to arrive. The reading was almost completely organized by Mark Wadley and the Bruiser team and we could not have expected or asked for such hospitality. I can’t thank those guys enough for their help and hard work and really being exemplars for what it means to be a part of a creative community. If you are reading this and aren’t already familiar, please go check out Bruiser, buy some zines (I’m especially partial to David Simmons’ Foul Black Rookeries, which I’ve come to describe as cosmic trap horror), and support them. Current Space was a beautiful venue, and the kind folks had already organized chairs and tables for the event. Floor lamps with specialty bulbs bathed the space in a violet glow, and the newly built bar space at the rear of the gallery was lit red. The whole vibe really felt like what hex embodies.

Every single reader was perfect. It is a pretty common topic of discussion in the hex group chat how lucky we are. Lucky to have such incredible writers submitting to us, lucky to have earned the trust of readers willing to spend a few minutes with the work we publish. And all of that was on display at Current Space that Friday night. Catty dead girls, child horror actors, speculative obituaries and much much more. We also crowned Julián with a mushroom circlet, as he’s our leading contributor, current holder of the coveted mushroom emoji, with 5 hex publications. Basically, if you weren’t there, you fucked up! (JK but not really). It was also really reassuring (and reaffirming) to know that hex could fill a room. We are so incredibly thankful to everyone who came out, to Current Space, to Bruiser. And, we’ve already started chatting about what we’ll do next year in Chicago, which will also be our 5th anniversary of the magazine (!!!). We hope to see you there!

I spent the rest of my time in Baltimore attending other offsite readings, eating food, writing in packed coffee shops, and exploring. Kate and I visited the American Visionary Art Museum, which exclusively features work by outsider artists. After a single trip, I have no hesitation calling the AVAM one of the best museum’s I’ve ever been to. The art was so often surprising, exciting, and the artist bios were no different. I left feeling the sort of high that engaging with good art gives you. I have lots of photos, but they don’t do the AVAM justice. If you fuck with art, with artistic weirdos, you simply must go. I ate an amazing muffuletta sandwich with a Peroni. I had oysters and shrimp and a Moscow Mule with the ever wonderful Aaron Burch. I got to see so many friends—some for the first time—and even better I got to see many of them read and share their work. It’s a vulnerable thing, to write, and even more vulnerable to get on a stage and read that which you wrote. It’s inspiring. My creative coffers feel sated. That’s really what AWP is about for me. Hanging out, having fun, basking in the brilliance of so many like-minded people. It is not, I don’t think, writing the same god damn essay that says absolutely nothing about a book that will be replaced the following week.

Oh! I was also invited to read at the Burial Magazine offsite! It’s the first time I’ve ever been invited to read at an AWP event and (perhaps to be expected) I was noticeably much more nervous to read my writing than I was to help host a reading of other writers. The event was put together by Jameson Draper and Jennifer Ostopovich, working on behalf of Burial mastermind Z.H. Gill who unfortunately was unable to attend. Jameson did a wonderful job hosting. I’m not sure how I was lucky enough to get included with real writers, all of which crushed it. For my portion, I read my poem Bathtub, which Burial ran last month, and a one-sentence story originally published in the now-extinct literary experiment, Obliterat.

In other news, I’ve recently celebrated publishing a new (longish) short story called Basking in Glory in Doric Literary. It’s the first new long story I’ve written since my post-grad-school-hiatus dark period. It began as a test to see if I could still do it, write something longer than flash, but it quickly snowballed into an obsession and I really leaned into narrative indulgences and focused on writing something that was fun for me. It took up almost all of my writing focus and energy for 2025, and so I’m SO grateful that Dave took a chance on it. Too, the editorial experience I had with Dave was fantastic, and his editorial eye helped shape the story into an even stronger final form. All around a great experience. And I was lucky to have Basking published alongside a haunting and lovely new Matthew Jakubowski story, The Designer. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll go check those, and the mag, out!

hex literary, the online speculative lit mag that I run with two of my best friends a.k.a. your favorite lit mag’s favorite lit mag is opening for submissions TOMORROW, March 20th, at 12pm EDT. We will be open for 200 submissions, and we expect that those will likely fill by the end of the weekend at the latest, so get there early! As always, we are grateful to be considered by you all—as writers and as readers. We can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on. Go hit up our Future page for specifics on what we are (and aren’t) looking for, as well as a sign-up for future hex news and calls, and send us your brilliance! Who knows, maybe next year YOU will be reading at our offsite!

See you in the next one.

DM