#01: Beginnings:
Welcome to Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, a new weekly newsletter from Hobart.
Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo will be home to original work while also reminding you of all the amazing things you might have missed at Hobart, HAD, or W&S.
A lot of Buffalo will be free — a lot — but there will be a paywall. Here’s what we’re currently thinking about that: we’re hoping to put craft lectures, audio stuff, longform projects, and more behind the paywall — I’m also trying to think through the logistics of making myself available as an editor to whoever might need someone to take a professional look at something — and some of the money that we get from subscribers will go to paying more writers we publish at Hobart.
Melanie is my yoga instructor. Sometimes she’s pregnant, other times not. Her voice is soothing in a way that would annoy me under other circumstances, like a preschool teacher without a preschool class. (Jiordan Castle, The Dragon, Hobart.)
So when I say that this newsletter will be home to original work, what do I mean?
I mean this story from Corey Farrenkopf. I mean this excerpt from Cheryl Pappas. I mean these poems from D.T. Robbins. I mean a chat with Katherine O’Hara and Matt Boyarsky. I mean this essay about the recently-wrapped second season of Critical Role by Jordan Sutlive. I mean this Q&A&review of Steve Anwyll’s Welfare by Teddy Burnette — & more.
Maybe instead of talking I could throw a punch and then you could throw a punch and we could be in an action flick brawl right here in the grocery store, the kind that last too long and are too dark and too fast to tell what is happening, just arms and faces flying in and out of frame, fists smashing into the places you don’t hit in polite fights, below the belt or the liver or the kidney. (“I’m Here If You Need To Talk,” Jessica Dawn, HaveHasHad.)
I Want To Send You Stuff, But What Are You Looking For?
Well — what have you got? That may sound flippant, but I’m not joking: I want the editorial lens here to be wide. If you’ve got something, I’m interested.
There wasn’t enough food
for breakfast this morning
so we just fucked
and thought about Italy. (“Splendido Splendente,” Will Mountain Cox, Hobart)
If you need some help, here’s a Weekly Prompt:
“How did you get away with it?”
(Send your answers to evan at hobartpulp dot com.)
We’re also posting other stuff that you might like, too, like — (1) Robert Coover and Joy Williams answering the question, ‘Why Write?’ (2) a monologue by Thomas Bernhard, (3) a poetry reading by James Tate, (4) “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem,” (5) Edwin Thumboo’s “The Exile,” (6) “People Are a Living Structure Like a Coral Reef” … and more and more and more and more.
And, before you go, a few upcoming items: Elizabeth Ellen and Elle Nash are starting their book tour in Los Angeles at Stories Bookstore on July 7th. Aaron Burch was recently on the podcast Textual Healing. I was recently on the MFA Writers podcast. Joy Castro and Felicia Rose Chavez are hosting an event to help you plan your anti-racist writing workshop on July 6th. The Poetry Coalition is offering paid, part-time fellowship positions. You should apply! (Applications are due July 15th.) University of Toronto Press is launching a new book series focused on food. GrubStreet's Essay Incubator is accepting applications. (Applications are due July 26th.)
In the meantime: what’s going on with you? How are you? If you want to chat or submit something to the newsletter, drop me a line at evan at hobartpulp.com
‘til soon,
Evan