Wow! I don’t even know what to say. It’s been so wonderful working with an getting to know Sarp. Thank you for this humbling nomination!

The Bulb Region@bulbregion.bsky.social · last mo.

It’s nomination season! ⚡️ Please join us in congratulating our Best of the Net 2027 Nominees!

When the Red-Headed Pilgrim & the band of lifeguards @poolpartymag.com welcome you to their inflatable, of course you say, HELL YASSS! Grateful that @kevinmaloney.net @femmeintheory.bsky.social & @brianstephenellis.bsky.social let this micro skinny-dip its way in. poolpartymag.com/why-song-of-...

Why Song of Songs Is No Longer Required Reading for Youth Group by Thad DeVassie

It is reminiscent of late-night Cinemax. It is a telenovela, juicy parts only. The book is rightfully missing from children’s early reader versions. It is making the youth pastor blush.

poolpartymag.com

"that you became a stranger hardened like a fossil in my gut, heavy and haunting when I lie in bed darkly, sleepless, wondering if you worried today, what you ate, if you laughed" @femmeintheory.bsky.social is back in The Bulb Region today with a deeply personal, elegiac poem. 🔗 below!

@aaronburch.bsky.social hitting that @therumpus.net marketing email preview text! 🔥 great piece by @barrettbowlin.bsky.social

Just finished TACOMA yesterday and holy shit!!! Immediately one of my favorite indie books of all time. Wild and fun and free. Haven’t felt this way about a book since Nagel’s DUPLEX. Soooooooooooo good 📚🔥🧨

Cannot WAIT to read all the reviews of Bad Bunny’s halftime show 🤤 👊 🔥

Can’t protest publicly, March, or close your business? You CAN cancel your Spotify and Amazon Prime accounts and you can also resist shopping today :)

Oof! Just read this one: so much packed into a small space. Motherhood, precarity, grief, imagination, brief, innocent childhood. Loved it.

The Bulb Region@bulbregion.bsky.social · 7mo ago

New Natalie Warther alert! 🚨 “I try to explain to my son, Mommy might become a bird before you become a bird. He says with hawkish confidence not to worry, that he would keep me as his pet.” Read “All the People Are Becoming Birds” in The Bulb Region. bulbregion.com/All-the-Peop...

Anybody notice the frequent use of “breakthrough” in The Pit? “Breakthrough pain” was invented by the Sackler family to justify dosage increases. It became the mantra of patients & doctors and is now inextricably linked to the opioid crisis. That it’s being used in this medical drama is SUSS!

I really loved this one and think you will, too. Plus, it features “Aaron” ( @aaronburch.bsky.social ) 🔥

Kevin Maloney@kevinmaloney.net · 7mo ago

“I WENT TO TACOMA TO VISIT my buddy Aaron, who was on sabbatical from his professor job at the University of Michigan…” Check out my new story THE BROKENHEARTED WHALEMEN’S CLUB up today at @bulbregion.bsky.social 🔥🔥🔥

We return with two new pieces tomorrow, but before then, do yourselves a favor and make sure to read this amazing memoir piece in @xraylitmag.bsky.social by The Bulb Region writer Ryan-Ashley Anderson (@femmeintheory.bsky.social). xraylitmag.com/nobodys-daug...

NOBODY'S DAUGHTER by Ryan-Ashley Anderson

I was almost five years old, it was Christmas day, and I knew something was wrong because I’d gotten everything I’d asked for: a blue and white-checked gingham romper with buttons up the front; black,...

xraylitmag.com

Really enjoyed 5 90s Bands by @emilylauracosta.bsky.social www.havehashad.com/hadposts/mol...

So many bangers, but a few that came to mind first… 1776 by @kevinmaloney.net is an all timer for me www.havehashad.com/hadposts/1776

1776 by Kevin Maloney

I have a high fever and can’t stop coughing, but Martha’s drunk and America is 242 years old. She calls me from her tiny house compound and says, “Get over here, dummy. There’s a party. Everybody’s he...

havehashad.com

“We spend the evening watching VH1 Pop-Up Videos and reading bible verses before turning on Ghost…” Our managing editor @femmeintheory.bsky.social has an amazing piece up at @bulbregion.bsky.social 🔥🔥🔥 bulbregion.com/Booby-Traps-...

Booby Traps, by Ryan-Ashley Anderson — The Bulb Region

Booby Traps — Ryan-Ashley Anderson THE FIRST TIME I KISS A GIRL, I’m nine years...

bulbregion.com

I’ve been reading and rereading and revisiting this piece on so many occasions since I read it the first time. Don’t miss it if you can.

finally having a quiet moment to dig into @bulbregion.bsky.social... and there's two new stories! started with this @femmeintheory.bsky.social stunner. so good! "If we don’t have a name for it, we can’t be punished, right? Can you be punished for breaking a rule you didn’t know?"

Booby Traps, by Ryan-Ashley Anderson — The Bulb Region

Booby Traps — Ryan-Ashley Anderson THE FIRST TIME I KISS A GIRL, I’m nine years...

bulbregion.com

THE BULB REGION is now online! 🚀🚀🚀 Make sure to read our four inaugural pieces at: www.bulbregion.com —

These nostalgic homages are 🔥

Marcus@marcusjmerritt.com · 7mo ago

Some of my Objects from Films drawings are up on X-R-A-Y today!

The animating force at the heart of US conservatism currently is incandescent rage at the mere idea of women's autonomy and independence. An image of a smiling woman who looks insufficiently deferential for their tastes riles them up enough to tear up the social contract.

Janel Comeau 🍁@verybadllama.bsky.social · 7mo ago

this is all it’s really about for them. Not domestic policy, not “economic anxiety”, just an endless desire to punish stand-ins for the Mommy who forced them take a bath, even if it tanks their own quality of life.

Two to pre-order: @kerrischlottman.bsky.social’s DAYTIME MOON & Luke Goebel’s KILL DICK. I recently finished the former & am now reading the latter. Wildly different books, they share a thread: the complication of searching for one’s own identity while navigating chaos, precarity, and loss.

A favorite from the title essay: “On two occasions around that time [2000], I objected to the behavior of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn’t happened at all as I had said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest—in a nutshell, female.” — @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

They settled on 2,500 words b/c we read @kevinrmaloney.bsky.social's story "Ghost" and they decided that was a length they liked--"kinda long, but without feeling long," so someone copy/pasted the text into Word to get an exact count, then rounded up. Editing!

Ghost by Kevin Maloney

originally published by Hobart, October 2014 re-animated by HAD, October 2021 Two days before Halloween I caught my wife having sex with my best friend Dave in a position we’d never trie...

havehashad.com

This one pretty much sums up the relationship I have with poetry and - who am I kidding? - with myself 😬😬. Thanks so much to @poolpartymag.com for publishing it recently; they’re doing really cool stuff 📱

(1) The last time I was this scared of somebody, I was 13. I had been drugged, then raped on videotape, & that night it was projected at a punk show. Many of my classmates were there. W/in weeks, I had been doxxed online b/f there was a word for it …

Kevin Maloney@kevinmaloney.net · 12mo ago

I feel like I need to speak up about a toxic experience my wife @femmeintheory.bsky.social had in a writing workshop recently: @charleneelsby.bsky.social's PSYCHODEMONICS, hosted by Burnt Tongue, a platform run by @emilottoman.bsky.social. Since R-A and I are big fans of Charlene’s work, when R-A..

You’re gonna want to read this one!

Pool Party@poolpartymag.com · 12mo ago

"When I told people about this fear, they’d laugh and I’d laugh and I’d say, “I know, I know” and I’d do this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and we’d move on." We're FUCKING THRILLED to publish "Megalohydrothalassophobia, or Something" by the wildly talented @aubrirose.bsky.social 🗿🌊😱 poolpartymag.com/megalohydrot...

Don’t understand how ppl and org’s can identify as “radically feminist” while also identifying as trans-exclusionary. Trans women are NOT men who have just cavalierly decided they “feel like women” in order to infiltrate women’s spaces. To claim that is utterly ridiculous & not based in evidence.

Am I broken? Really thought more was going to happen in the White Lotus finale after being strung along all season. The only thing that surprised me was Chelsea dying. Everything else was either jump scares or predictable mayhem (obvi Walton Goggins was going to kill his own father, for ex.) 😒

The is poem rife with hauntingly evocative imagery.

Pool Party@poolpartymag.com · last yr.

"...she laces honey-lacquered twine around her face, her head. Then she opens the hive to let the bees swarm around her most delicate organs." So excited to publish this amazing poem "The Bee Charmer" 🐝 by Portland poet Lauren Mantis. This one is 🔥🔥🔥 poolpartymag.com/the-bee-char...

Thank you Senator Cory Booker. This guy truly cares about the people he represents.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last yr.

"I don't want a Disney vacation of our history! I don't a whitewashed history, I don't want a homogenized history. Tell me the wretched truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness" -- 20 hours into his speech, Cory Booker is spitting absolute 🔥