What the Editors are Reading 12/5/2026
Yeah yeah okay whatever we fell off a little on this. Thanksgiving and other end of the year stuff came up and we got distracted but FUCK IT Editor’s reading list is back baby. Some bangers on here.
Frazer Art I’ve been looking at lately; Alan E. Cober, Ceri Amphlett (@ceriamphlett) Henrik Dresher (@henrik.drescher) Szpilki Magazine (@szpilkimagazine) Jean Dubuffet, Eugene Richards, Raymond Pettibon, Jhonen Vasquez JTHM SQUEE, (@jhnenvee) Yoshito Usui Crayon Shinchan.
YouTube Slop; Any Moral Orel or ATHF video essays, Las Vegas Shooting Theories, The Bad Art Show with Jenna Sparrow, Sketchbook tours, R. Crumb interviews, DIY skate spot builds, Modest Mouse live concerts from the late 90s, Gifted Hater illegal streams, The Boondocks analysis videos, NHL Hockey updates and much more!
Jenkin: I am reading Zukofsky’s “A.” This time the whole thing. It might be the best poem ever written. It probably is. Certainly the best American poem. Who can say? I sure can’t. But, it probably is.
Contemporary stuff you ask? I’m also reading Thom Eichelberger-Young’s Ointment Weather (CLOAK). And, I just bought Local Virgin of Impression by Ellen Boyette (published in September by Dead Mall Press).
Matt: I’m reading Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon. With less than 100 pages to go, I’m grateful that it’s much better than Bleeding Edge.
I also am taking a daily meditation with Jenkin Benson’s fantastic poetry collection, are we rocking with this? He’s a linguistic innovator who would probably hate that label, but he can yell at me on the pod about it.
I’m also about to start Moby Dick again. I’ll fight anyone who says it isn’t the best novel written in English by an American. I know, I know, you shouldn’t be ranking shit because it perpetuates the absurd exceptionalism of so on and so forth. But I don't care. It simply is the best. My favorite line, Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.
That is some rageful will. It’s an emotion we all experience and wish were possible in the face of grave injustice or loss. While Ahab is insane, we all know who he is because we have all had life take what is dear, so we continue to sail with him.
Spencer: Just finished rereading Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. As always, his allegory is thick and luscious (if you get past some dated language). All the Bokononists in my karass know what I’m talking about.
Now reading the Selected Poems of Jorge Luis Borges. The edition edited by Alexander Coleman features the work of a variety of translators, all of whom shed light on his work in unique ways, capturing his sense of history and preserving the incredible texture of his writing. Favorites so far are “Boast of Quietness,” “Anticipation of Love,” and “Recoleta Cemetary.”
Livvy: I’ve been rereading ZZ Packer’s collection of short stories, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere for what I do believe is now my tenth time. Everytime I read Packer’s words, her writing is so beyond compelling that it always feels like my first time. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” and “Speaking in Tongues” will always be the standouts in the collection.
Jake: I’ve been on a Denis Johnson kick that past month or so that’s been really nice but has also made me cry more times than I can recall happening in recent memory. I read Train Dreams on the first cold day of fall and it hit really hard for me. It might be the perfect Novella. Corey Quereshi gave me a copy of Incognito Lounge when he was in town for our last reading and it’s also been really impactful and very sad. The way desire is thought about in those poems is really incredible and heartbreaking. Train Dreams the film also just came out which I went to see and was a little weary of because it was a Netflix release but ended up being really moved by and cried a bunch. I haven’t seen anything else by the director Clint Bentley but he’s got my seal of approval currently.
I saw Cindy Lee a couple weekends ago and this probably isn’t news to anyone reading this but if somehow you haven’t listened to Diamond Jubilee I highly recommend that you do. My favorite release of the past few years. It’s so good and there is so much of it.
It is really hard to write about social media in a way that feels compelling and doesn’t do the SOCIAL MEDIA BAD thing. Notes of Bobby D by Dustin Wright captures so much of the parasocial thrill that really informs my addiction to instagram through a narration of Bob Dylan’s instagram and the world around it. A compelling part of art in a very general sense is that there are times that by simple reading/watching/etc. with a piece you are given access to a way someone thinks for a little while. Instagram, at its best, I think genuinely allows this to occur at a very intimate level with people you would otherwise have no business being intimate with and this piece expresses that beautifully I think.
Also two new publications on my end. New poems in Bruiser and in Grotto. (My name is gooood in Baltimore.) Really excited to have something out with both of them as I think they’re some of the best in the alt lit publishing space and somewhere that we as a mag look at with a lot of admiration (and sometimes a bit of envy).
Malik: Currently re-reading How to be An Artist by Jerry Saltz, this is something i exclusively read when i’m feeling a little creatively stuck, I think often times i can be laser focused on some of my creative passions which can lead to more rigid and formulaic photos but looking through some of the images as well as some of the mentality shared about giving yourself grace as an artist, being okay with trying and failing, doing something that feels outside of my comfort zone. Usually do most of my reading of this on the train with my notes app open so i can jot down ideas.