In Conversation

After Our Three Year Old Learns the Realtor Won’t Rent to Families with Children I buy her a donut, the last glaze twist in the shop at two in the afternoon. We sit in the window and watch the traffic on Main Street. I drink coffee. She sips chocolate milk through a straw. All these …

A Witch’s Promise To My Christian Cousin you’ve inherited some money & married well two or three times a true Capricorn you have scrambled your way to the top of the garbage heap you tell anyone who will listen that you are favored by God you owe it all to a man named Jesus dying …

Holy Toledo (pt 1 of 3) I wanted to drive up the eleven hours to Toledo, Ohio to attend the Underground Lit Fest, a two-day poetic odyssey, ten of those minutes earmarked for me and my shit. It had been ten years since I engaged in a face-to-face conversation with Michele McDannold, and fifteen years …

The Shining She must have taken a shining to me Sat there looking at me with her lovesick puppy dog eyes Asked me if I wanted to go to a secluded motel somewhere and get it on as if I didn’t know what that would lead to in the end   Alan Catlin worked for the …

Digging Ditches My father found me a job digging foundations at the low-income housing development north of town. He knew the boss. In fact, he knew everyone who commanded a platoon of shovels and picks. I was hired without much vetting, a favor to my father who feared his son needed a shovel to become …

From Womb to Word: The Spellwork of Briana Muñoz’s Matriarchy Briana Muñoz’s Matriarchy (El Martillo Press) is a collection that insists on the sacredness of creation—in every sense of the word. Her poems braid the biological and the political, the ancestral and the immediate, the sacred and the profane. The voice that emerges here is …

Citizens for Decent Literature Press Announces the Posthumous Release of Brian Fugett: Poems — Honoring a Defiant and Unforgettable Voice in Indie Lit Citizens for Decent Literature Press, a project of The Literary Underground, is honored to announce the posthumous release of Brian Fugett: Poems on November 5, 2025, timed with the Full Beaver Moon. …

Halloween 365, or Tom Atkins Always Be Trying to Sip on my Kool-Aid I can’t believe Halloween has already passed by.  The tail end of Autumn, my favorite time of year is racing away. Of course, I believe in celebrating the sixty-one days of Halloween, kicking off the season on September 1st with my annual viewing …

Underground Lit Fest Brings National Poets to Toledo – November 7 & 8, 2025 Toledo, OH – On November 7 and 8, Toledo will host the Underground Lit Fest, a two-day celebration of independent literature and poetry featuring writers from across the country alongside Toledo’s own literary voices. Events will take place at The Attic …

Shopping She looked at him with her best bedroom eyes Hung on his every word as he spoke too long and too loud about anything that came into his head Slid forward in her seat as he offered her a drink said, “Sure why not I’ll have another How else will I ever learn your …