John Madera
@johnmadera.bsky.social
Author of 𝘕𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). Editor of @BigOtherMag.bsky.social. Find more at http://johnmadera.com.
Delighted to announce Big Other's nominations for Best Small Fictions 2027 (Black Lawrence Press) today! bigother.com/2026/08/03/a... Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
Announcing Big Other’s Nominations for Best Small Fictions 2027!
We are pleased to nominate the following fictions for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2027 (Black Lawrence Press): Martine Bellen’s “The Doctrine of Notions” Noy Ho…
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Stay tuned for the announcement of our nominations for The Best Small Fictions 2027! In the meantime, read Peter Markus’s “This Boy’s Tongue,” which was selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2020! bigother.com/2019/11/01/t... Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
This Boy’s Tongue
By Peter Markus This boy is but a boy. The boy that he is, he sees what a boy can see. When he sees what he sees, he says what it is that he sees. Boat, he says, and looks down at what wood …
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Stay tuned for the announcement of Big Other's nominations for The Best Small Fictions 2027! In the meantime, read Tim Horvath’s “Chop,” which was selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2021! bigother.com/2020/08/31/c... Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
Chop, by Rafaele Andrade and Tim Horvath
I am trying to keep myself busy while the world is on hold. And so I do what I have always done: I chop. I cannot go to the store, I cannot go to the beach, I must stay inside, but I can cho…
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Stay tuned for the announcement of Big Other's nominations for The Best Small Fictions 2027! In the meantime, read Hillary Leftwich’s “Past Hertz” was selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2021! bigother.com/2020/02/11/p... Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
Past Hertz, by Hillary Leftwich
I wake up every night unable to open my mouth. I’m grinding my teeth in my sleep. My dentist tells me it’s either fear or stress. Figure out which one, or both, and you’ll figure out where t…
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Stay tuned for the announcement of BIG OTHER's nominations for The Best Small Fictions 2027! In the meantime, read Robert Lopez’s “However Many Sayings to Live and Die By," which was selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2021! bigother.com/2020/04/21/h... Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
However Many Sayings to Live and Die By
By Robert Lopez What Not to Do, How Not to Live Don’t get born, don’t be a person, don’t get born as a person to a family of people. Don’t be black or white or brown and don’t be short or fa…
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Stay tuned for an announcement of Big Other's nominations for The Best Small Fictions 2027! In the meantime, read Dawn Raffel’s “Three Cities,” which was selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2021! bigother.com/2020/01/08/t...
Three Cities, by Dawn Raffel
(with appreciation for Italo Calvino) The City of Serena In the beautiful city of Serena, every old woman wears a mask. The body may yet appear lithe in slacks, in silks, in exquisitely calc…
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"In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn." —Stanley Kunitz (Image: Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas, 1939)
The phrase "witch hunt" has become so diluted that it's now invoked for experiences bearing about as much resemblance to being burned at the stake as a parking ticket does to exile.
"It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance...and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process." —Henry James in a 1915 letter to H.G. Wells
"You must make, said music in its voices of metal and wood in its dancing diagrams, moving apart and together, along and over and under a line and speaking in one voice, make my image. Let be what is gone." —from Denise Levertov's "The Charge"
Happy birthday, BIG OTHER contributor Tim Horvath! Celebrate by reading this Horvath fiction (with music by Rafaele Andrade), which we published in 2020, and which was subsequently selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2021! bigother.com/2026/08/01/f... Cc: @timhorvath.bsky.social
From the Archives: Chop, by Rafaele Andrade and Tim Horvath
Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Tim Horvath! Celebrate by reading this Horvath fiction (with music by Rafaele Andrade), which we published in 2020, and which was subsequently selected for inc…
bigother.com
"Language without rhythm, without physicality, without the undertow of that sea which once covered everything and from which the land first arose like a cautious toe—levelless language, in short, voiceless type, pissless prose—can never be artistically complete.” —William H. Gass
As I often say, art is food. And if you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Jean Dubuffet, who said: "Our need for art is absolutely primordial, as strong as, and perhaps stronger than, our need for bread. Without bread, we die of hunger, but without art we die of boredom."
“Where are you?” read a text I received from an unknown number today. “In the here and now,” I texted back. “You?” And then they ghosted me, presumably from the there and then. (Images from Eric Pickersgill's REMOVED, where subjects' devices are removed before photographing.)
Delighted to publish a superb septet of poems by Karen An-hwei Lee in BIG OTHER today! Moving between the intimate and cosmic, these poems reveal the body, color, language, and everyday wonders as portals into grace, mystery, and connection. bigother.com/2026/07/30/s...
Seven Poems, by Karen An-hwei Lee
Philoxenia Darling strangers populate my life, ones I love dearly, more than life herself—a prophet and a blind woman, a small terrier mix, possibly Jack Russell, part Maltese or bichon fris…
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Social media: where people share hot takes on the blockbusters that left them cold, while rarely sharing the marginalized works of art that set their minds and bodies ablaze. In other words, let’s choose to build and sustain a culture of wonder over a culture of disappointment.
Happy birthday, William H. Gass! bigother.com/2026/07/30/w...
William H. Gass on Art, Writing, Sentences, Reading, Literature, and More
Happy birthday, William H. Gass! Here are some quotes from his books, interviews, etc. Speaking of interviews, read my career-spanning interview with Gass! “Naturally the artist is an enemy …
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"I believe I have understood our age as that of the absolute corruption of all ideas. Nevertheless, I am of good cheer: for I know that new love can come only from complete decay." —Johann Gottlieb Fichte (Image: Alex Grey's Nature of Mind, panel VI (1996))
"The Universe is a continuous web. / Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers." —Stanley Kunitz
"I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or whatever will bewilder me. Whatever will bewilder me. [....] Spiral out; keep going. Spiral out; keep going. Spiral out; keep going. Spiral out; keep going."
TOOL - Lateralus (Official Audio)
YouTube video by TOOLVEVO
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“There is nothing so certain in our fears that’s not yet more certain in the fact that most of what we dread comes to nothing.” —Seneca "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." —William Shakespeare
"to go / just that much further, beyond the end / beyond whatever ends: to begin, to be, to defy." —Denise Levertov
"Be what you are. Give What is yours to give. Have Style. Dare." ―Stanley Kunitz
"You see, I want a lot. Maybe I want it all: the darkness of each endless fall, the shimmering light of each ascent." —Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy birthday, William T. Vollmann! 67, today! bigother.com/2026/07/28/w...
William T. Vollmann on Reading, Writing, Curiosity, and More
Happy birthday, William T. Vollmann! 67, today! Here are some quotes from the writer: “If I try not to put limits on the curiosity, then I’m more likely to actually learn something.…
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