John Madera

From the Archives: This Boy’s Tongue, by Peter Markus Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Peter Markus! Celebrate by reading Markus’s “This Boy’s Tongue,” which we published in 2019 and was subsequently selected for inclusion in The Best Small…

Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Peter Markus! Celebrate by reading Markus's “This Boy’s Tongue,” which I published in the journal in 2019! And then go read "In This Tree," a Markus fiction I published in 2019!

bigother.com/2026/03/06/f...

From the Archives: Five Poems, by Brendan Lorber Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Brendan Lorber! Celebrate by reading these Lorber poems we published in 2022! After that, go read Lorber’s “How a Poem Happens to Happen”! An…

Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Brendan Lorber! Celebrate by reading these Lorber poems I published in the journal in 2022! After that, go read Lorber’s “How a Poem Happens to Happen”! And then go read the ten Lorber poems I published in 2019!

bigother.com/2026/03/06/f...

From the Archives: Centralia Mine Fire, by Sarah Blackman Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Sarah Blackman! Celebrate by reading this Blackman fiction we published in 2021! Following that, read Blackman’s “The County Coroner,” which …

Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Sarah Blackman! Celebrate by reading this Blackman fiction I published in the journal in 2021! Following that, read Blackman's "The County Coroner," which I published in 2019!

bigother.com/2026/03/06/f...

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
―Thomas Pynchon

I went to see the total lunar eclipse before dawn this morning but it was too cloudy to see it, alas. But I did write a poem about not seeing it but still seeing it!

Afterlife Check out Afterlife - <p><i><b>A kaleidoscopic meditation on grief, memory, and the uncanny, where dreams, histories, and forgotten encyclopedias blur the line between life and afterlife.</b></i></p><...

Pre-order Angela Woodward's AFTERLIFE! A kaleidoscopic meditation on grief, memory, and the uncanny, where dreams, histories, and forgotten encyclopedias blur the line between life and afterlife!

(Message me for a review copy, interview requests, etc.)

bookshop.org/a/578/978157...

"Do not give in to living the way of the society of calculation. Better disaster than to dis-exist."
—Alain Badiou

Every month is Women's History Month! Happy Women's History Month!

"We have art so that we shall not die of reality."
—Friedrich Nietzsche

(Image: Roberto Matta's Let Any Flowers Bloom, 1955)

"I wonder, will our imagination
remain a temple burning with candles
against all odds?
Behind a nipple and a bone?
The simplest of glands laid in a circle
around skin and liquid
that stirs up imagery
winged and prismed, as if blood
were a wine inducing visions."
—From "A Hymn," by Fanny Howe

"Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown—but no more..."
—John Keats, from ENDYMION, Book I

(Image: Andy Goldsworthy's Rowan leaves laid around a hole, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 1987)

And One by One They Disappeared, by Stephen O’Connor Here in the snow, in the woods, there is black, there is white, and endless shades between, but none of the colors have names. This tree trunk: a burgundy-infused pigeon gray. And this one: …

Delighted to publish a superb short fiction by Stephen O'Connor in BIG OTHER today!

bigother.com/2026/02/23/a...

Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social

Weekend Bites: Lucy Sante Nonfiction, Naujawanan Baidar’s Music, Tayari Jones’s Latest, and More In our weekend reading: writing from Lucy Sante, thoughts on books by Tayari Jones and Ruyan Meng, and more.

Big thanks to VOLUME 1 BROOKLYN for reading and sharing the marvelous Jennifer Maritza McCauley poems I recently published in BIG OTHER!

www.vol1brooklyn.com/2026/02/21/w...

Cc: @vol1brooklyn.bsky.social and @bigothermag.bsky.social

Stay tuned for new short fiction by great author Stephen O'Connor in BIG OTHER!

In the meantime, go discover more of Stephen's marvelous writing!

www.stephenoconnor.net

David Foster Wallace on Writing, Fiction, Freedom, and More Happy birthday, David Foster Wallace! Here are some quotes from the writer:   “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”   “I am someone who t…

Happy birthday, David Foster Wallace!

bigother.com/2026/02/21/d...

Anaïs Nin on Life, Art, Writing, Death, and More Happy birthday, Anaïs Nin! Here are some quotes from the writer:   “The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. Most of the writing to…

Happy birthday, Anaïs Nin!

bigother.com/2026/02/21/a...

Which marginalized artist will you champion today?

Audre Lorde on Poetry, Politics, Feminism, and More Happy birthday, Audre Lorde! Here are some quotes from the writer:   “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat hi…

bigother.com/2026/02/18/a...

“I am deliberate / and afraid / of nothing.”
—Audre Lorde

(Image: Alex Grey's Holy Fire, 1987)

Audre Lorde on Poetry, Politics, Feminism, and More Happy birthday, Audre Lorde! Here are some quotes from the writer:   “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat hi…

Happy birthday, Audre Lorde!

bigother.com/2026/02/18/a...

#AudreLorde

"It is only enough / To live incessantly in change."
—Wallace Stevens

"Reality was the keener for being fugitive, concealed, and doubtful..."
—Guy Davenport, "The Dawn in Erewhon"

Four Poems, by Jennifer Maritza McCauley How to Love a Mango Girl Crack open her chestwall with surgical loveliness, remove the slippery, heaving Thing inside, and let her see what spurts out. She’ll tell you the Thing is gorgeous,…

Delighted to publish a marvelous quartet of poems by Jennifer Maritza McCauley in BIG OTHER today!

bigother.com/2026/02/17/f...

Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social

"In the darkness of our lives, there is not one place for Beauty. The whole place is for Beauty."
—René Char

"'Communication' only takes place between two people who risk themselves, each lacerated and suspended, perched atop a common nothingness."
—Georges Bataille

“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke

(Image: René Magritte's The Lovers, 1928)

History of Human Migrations, by Luis Othoniel Rosa Translated by Katie Marya   Humans are born one hundred ninety-six thousand four hundred eighteen years ago in East Africa. We begin expanding throughout the African continent one hundred twen…

Read Rosa's writing in BIG OTHER:
bigother.com/2022/06/10/h...

Animal Spiral Check out Animal Spiral - <p><strong>The post-colonial birth, life, and death of the collective consciousness known as the Animal.</strong></p><p>Middle-aged streamer twins in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, ar...

Delighted to share that Luis Othoniel Rosa's forthcoming ANIMAL SPIRAL (translated by Katie Marya) features writing I originally published in BIG OTHER!

bookshop.org/a/578/978191...

Cc: @luisothonielrosa.bsky.social, @charcopress.com, and @bigothermag.bsky.social

Gordon Lish on Writing, Art, Language, and More Happy birthday, Gordon Lish! 92, today! Here are some quotes from the writer:   “Do not confine your work to plodding plot. Rather, let your work go where it will and your heart will lea…

Happy birthday, Gordon Lish! 92, today!

bigother.com/2026/02/11/g...

"Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution."
—Anonymous