Side A:
Side B:
July 28, 2024
Summer time is quiet for literary circles, like a lot of other realms. Writers never really stop writing – whether we're putting pen to page, editing, researching, day dreaming, or reading – but publishing generally slows in the summer months as folks go on vacation or reset.
Probably nobody cares, but I haven't written a damn thing in a month. It frustrates me to think about it, but I'm trying not to dwell. I've been filling the time with life: friends, dates, dogs, lazy afternoons on the back deck. The hardest part of myself bucks against not making progress (I wrote my first novel over two summers!) but I had a productive spring, and I have to stop and remind myself that it's okay to slow down and rest.
I don't know where this letter finds you – whether you're having lazy hazy crazy days of summer, or putting your nose to the grindstone no matter the season – but I hope you're not judging yourself too hard, whatever the choice. If you need permission to rest, let this be it. If you need encouragement to keep going, let this be it. I'm rooting for you either way.
If you need to feel productive, maybe something in this issue spurs you to write. Would love to see you in the inbox, even if we've slowed our publication pace to once a month.
"Graceland Too" is the best kind of summer nostalgia, and I feel lucky to have nabbed it when I did (it's not yet August, after all). Campbell's written it with the kind of breakneck pace that feverishly records out of fear of forgetting, a breathless ode to a lost desert summer buried under memory and, eventually, snow.
I'm not saying "Be Yourself" will make you cry, but it will at the very least touch your most tender nerve, whether you're a parent or not. Jack's a serial contributor at M7 now, and his range never fails to amaze me. If you like this piece, consider looking up his others on the site (you'll find them tagged with his name!)
"Rebel Girl" has sickening velocity for anyone who's ever been objectified or sexualized against their will; consider yourself warned. There's a twist, though, signalled in the first line: Sam's taken the "unexpected, yet inevitable" ending to a bone-crushing payoff.
No matter how many driving-themed music pieces roll through the M7 inbox, I never get sick of them. They trace intimate moments for the inextricably linked. "Satanist" tracks a love story across an ocean and eleven states to a singular moment behind the wheel: hearing a song as a sign, flooring the gas toward new love.
"King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3" traces shaky breaths drawn between a summer swimming lesson in a pool to the shores of an baptism. D.C. makes a witness of us (along with mom!) as he traces faith from childhood to adulthood, reminding us to blink if ever we're pulled too far under.
Did not expect bug-eaten memories to be among the M7 oeuvre but I'm tickled to publish a little road-side childhood memory in "No Scrubs", waiting for the bus and eating bugs (and one lyric I guarantee we've all misheard).
Happy summer, folks. See you in the subs, when you're ready to get back at it.
xo,
Kirsti
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