updates and ch-ch-ch-changes

Dear You—

I’d planned to use this platform to share not only updates but also excerpts of things I’m working on and current musings. I may go back to that format eventually, but for right now, while I’m the Racine Writer-in-Residence, it has changed. Paid subscribers will still receive excerpts from works-in-progress, previously unpublished work, and other things, but free subscribers will only receive the occasional ‘what I’m up to’ email from now until the end of December. I just don’t have time to write brand new things here, plus more new things for paid subscribers, plus my Writer-in-Residence posts, plus my other writing, plus…you get the idea. Not to mention, many of the things I was going to write about for this email list are now going to be blog posts on the Racine WiR blog.

Speaking of, I’ve now written four blog posts as Writer-in-Residence:

1. International Zine Month (Even though IZM is now over for the year, you might still enjoy the tour through my favorite perzines.)

2. Why Bother? (Thoughts on continuing to write/make art despite the naysayers and everything terrible in the world.)

3. Jack Kerouac in Racine (All the memories of Racine past and the observations of Racine present are based on my own experiences, but are told in the style of Ol’ Duluoz. So I’m not quite sure whether this is me looking through his eyes, or him looking through mine. Anyway. Jack Kerouac never visited Racine, but if he had grown up here and were to return now, it might go a little something like this…)

4. READ MORE POETRY (The Sealey Challenge has just begun, so if you’ve ever wanted to level up your poetry-reading game, now’s your chance…)

Speaking of poetry:

Most of the other stuff I’ve been doing has to do with Hello America Stereo Cassette and the release of my album, Self-Portrait with Ghosts and Trains. Hello America did a weird (in a good way) little Q&A with me. I also wrote a Summer Love List for them (featuring shoutouts to some of my favorite YouTubers, my local library, neighborhood walks, and lots of food).

And if you don’t yet have Self-Portrait, I’d recommend buying it this Friday, August 6th, on Bandcamp Friday—a day on which Bandcamp waives their revenue share for all sales, from midnight to midnight Pacific Time.

That’s all, for now. More to come, soon, as I write new WiR blog posts every week, am working on a ton of poetry, essays, stories, and zines outside of that, and will be appearing on a few podcasts and in the local newspaper within the next couple months.

love, love, and love,

JLM