John Madera

Delighted to share that NERVOSITIES, my debut collection of short fiction, was published today! Kapow! NERVOSITIES has received advance praise from some of the world's finest writers, e.g., Rikki Ducornet, Brian Evenson, Lance Olsen, Sam Lipsyte, Garielle Lutz, & Michael Martone.

"I love ignorance of the future and do not want to perish of impatience and premature tasting of things promised." —Friedrich Nietzsche

Untitled (1963), by Eva Hesse.

What mountaineer-mystic W. H. Murray said after being freed after years spent in German and Italian POW camps: "Find beauty. Be still."

"To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry." —Gaston Bachelard

“Intricately placed sentences that jump and spill in Olsen’s distinct, prismatic style,” @SimonDavidLowe writes about Lance Olsen’s An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies in @PopMatters. Read Lowe's insightful review! (Media inquiries welcome.) popmatters.com/lance-olsen-h…

"You are a song, a wished-for song. Go through the ear to the center, where sky is, where wind, where silent knowing. Put seeds and cover them. Blades will sprout where you do your work" —Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

Fearmongering isn't activism. Doomsaying isn't imaginative. Coercion isn't persuasion. Defeatism isn't realism. Conformity isn't belonging.

Happy birthday, Stephen Paul Miller! Miller's the author of many books, including BEAUTIFUL SNACKS (Marsh Hawk Press)! (Message me for a review copy, etc.) bookshop.org/p/books/beautif…

“The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.” —Simone Weil (J. M. W. Turner's The Shipwreck (1805))

Happy birthday, @BigOtherMag contributor Cole Swensen, a poet of extraordinary perceptual fluidity and experimental adventurousness! bigother.com/2026/10/22/from…

On October 24, 2026, join us in person or online for an evening of readings celebrating @BigOtherMag and the writers who make literature such a vital space for connection, discovery, and conversation! nyimc.org/event/big-other/

Read Marcus Pactor's superb interview with Lance Olsen about AN INVENTORY OF BENEVOLENT BUTTERFLIES, where they engagingly explore Henry Darger, experimental fiction, identity, memory, and the art of reading, and more. heavyfeatherreview.org/2026/… Media inquiries: please message me.

Thanks, @LargeheartedBoy for featuring Lance Olsen’s music playlist that explores the music behind An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies, his reimagining of artist Henry Darger’s life and work. Read the feature: largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/… (For media inquiries, please message me.)

Happy birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin! bigother.com/2026/10/21/ursu… Cc: @bigothermag

"I is another." —Arthur Rimbaud

"I want to be a poet, and I'm working to turn myself into a seer...It has to do with making your way toward the unknown by a derangement of all the senses." —Arthur Rimbaud

“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.” —Arthur Rimbaud

"True alchemy lies in this formula: Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse.” —Arthur Rimbaud

With whom did you have a face-to-face conversation today? How did it go?

"When you are not seduced by trivial situations, there is a natural sense of uplifted mind and vast vision." —Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Image: René Magritte's Le faux miroir (The False Mirror), 1929)