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Middle West Press

@middlewestpress.bsky.social

1.3K followers 550 following 210 posts

Middle West Press is an Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry books. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest. Also #veterans. Visit: http://www.middlewestpress.com

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Middle West Press @middlewestpress.bsky.social · 9d

NEW! HAUNTING VISIONS OF 'FLYOVER COUNTRY!'

“Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters”
- Print: amzn.to/47buzvn
- Kindle e-book: amzn.to/3ZSvQn0

Short poems & 300-word narratives that illuminate, celebrate, or challenge stereotypes of Midwestern identity!

Book cover of "Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn" anthology features a giant, shambling creature towering over a lone humanoid figure walking through a flowery forest. Text reads: "NOW ON SALE! More than 50 fresh visions and explorations regarding the ‘forgotten’ terrain and deep recesses of the American Midwest!"

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Becky Spratford @raforall.bsky.social · 5d

31 Days of Horror: Day 11-- Why I Love Horror by Poet @cybergodwrites.bsky.social

raforallhorror.blogspot.com/2025/10/31-d...

31 Days of Horror: Day 11-- Why I Love Horror by Poet Maxwell I Gold

Yesterday and today I am doing a mini series within a series by featuring Horror poets and their Why I Love Horror essays. Before we get t...

raforallhorror.blogspot.com

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Becky Spratford @raforall.bsky.social · 6d

31 Days of Horror: Day 10-- Why I Love Horror by Poet @pedroiniguez.bsky.social.

So excited to share his voice with all of you

raforallhorror.blogspot.com/2025/10/31-d...

31 Days of Horror: Day 10-- Why I Love Horror by Poet Pedro Iniguez

Today and tomorrow I have something a little different. I am featuring award winning dark speculative poets and their Why I Love Horror es...

raforallhorror.blogspot.com

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The Deadlands @thedeadlands.com · 1h

15 days until halloween!! 🎃

*checks ledger*

we haven't quite met our goal of gaining one new patreon patron a day 😞

but ya'll have still been amazing and we are SO GRATEFUL 🙏

but let's keep this skull rolling 💀🎢

will you join the deadlands? www.patreon.com/c/the_deadla...

Get more from The Deadlands on Patreon

a zine containing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about Death

www.patreon.com

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KDS 📖 🎲 🎮 🎃 @kdsbooks.bsky.social · 2h

My October Tales of the Weird subscription from @blpublishing.bsky.social has arrived!

All the Fear of the Fair: Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow edited by Edward Parnell

An exciting in and complicates my spooky season reading choices!!

🩸📚💙

#horror #booksky #circus

A circus tent with a spooky hand emerging and a sign that says “enter if you dare”

Cover design by Mauricio Villemayor and illustrated by Sandra Gomez

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Radon Journal @radonjournal.bsky.social · 18h

Our Editor in Chief was the guest editor on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association's latest Eye to the Telescope issue.

The chosen them was "cyberpunk" and the poetry community responded in droves. If you enjoy Radon poetry, you'll absolutely enjoy these twenty poems

SF & F Poetry Assn @sfpoetry.bsky.social · 21h

Check out the latest Eye to the Telescope edited by @caseyaimer.bsky.social!

Issue 58's theme is Cyberpunk and it's LIVE and free to read now:

eyetothetelescope.com/archives/058...

Eye to the Telescope

Eye to the Telescope, the quarterly online journal of SFPA, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, an international organization of speculative poets.

eyetothetelescope.com

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Dr. Cavar 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸 ✡️ @cavar.bsky.social · 1d

thank you @anmlymag.bsky.social / @sarahclark.bsky.social for making space for autistic protest poetry & inviting me to introduce the issue. as i read through these works, i feel i can see the future of our craft.

anmly.org/autistic-pro...

The small something could be a creature, perhaps a technology. Maybe, in more abstract terms, a political orientation or set of social norms. Looking back, I now understand “A small something” as part of a larger body of autistic poetic work, which, in my view, are always and already “protesting” neuronormative creative and political frameworks. Thinking back to the misleading figure of the savant and this demand for autistic exceptionality, it seems to me that to impute autistic life into our creative practices, to document it as it exists and not as our neurotypical counterparts with it were, then we must turn to a form prepared to resist normative grammars and restrictive relationships to language, activity, and achievement. After all, these very restrictions—this sociocultural “common sense”—are what got us into this mess in the first place: demands for tact over honesty, ambiguity over courage.

Instead, I want live in a poetics which refuses common sense, a poetics of autism.

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Djamila Knopf @djamilaknopf.bsky.social · 1d

I don't have my own library, so I painted one. medium: Procreate, Photoshop

a digital painting of a woman standing in a library with a big window

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Trio House Press @triohousepress.org · 1d

Look who is long listed for The Maya Angelou Award! The Grace of Black Mothers by @martheaus.bsky.social!💛💜💛💜

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Middle West Press @middlewestpress.bsky.social · 1d

Check out these new books from Middle West Press LLC and other members of Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP)!
www.clmp.org/news/books-l...

Includes “Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters”!
- Print: amzn.to/47buzvn
- Kindle: amzn.to/3ZSvQn0

Text: "Now featured on [Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP)] list of October releases!"

Image: Book cover of Middle West Press "Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn" features a giant, shambling creature towering over a lone humanoid figure walking through a flowery forest; superimposed on partial images of other CLMP member book covers.

Middle West Press @middlewestpress.bsky.social · 1d

Spooky veterans' lit?! Check out this 2025 review of "The Haunted Zone: A Horror Anthology by Women Military Veterans" from @tundraswanpress.bsky.social !

Review here:
morbidlybeautiful.com/haunted-zone...

Now Read This: The Haunted Zone - Morbidly Beautiful

"The Haunted Zone" is a diverse collection of twenty-one horror stories penned by twenty-one women, each a remarkable military veteran.

morbidlybeautiful.com

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Satyros Phil Brucato @satyrosphilbrucato.bsky.social · 1d

It's about time Strange Days finally begins getting the retrospective love and respect it deserves. To me, it's the best pre-Matrix cyberpunk film other than Blade Runner and Robocop, and still better than most cyberpunk films made since.

www.polygon.com/strange-days...

30 years ago, Katherine Bigelow made a sci-fi flop that changed her career for the better

Strange Days is a noir-soaked science-fiction thriller set against a backdrop of racial tension, police brutality, sexual assault, and disruptive tech

www.polygon.com

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Apex Magazine (is funding for 2026!) 🎉 @apexmag.bsky.social · 1d

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better...we've added STICKERS and MAGNETS as Kickstarter add-ons! ✨🎉

Snag four new designs, PLUS a magnet of our Little Golden Apex banner when you back the Apex Magazine 2026 Kickstarter! 🖼️

www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...

Four die-cut stickers: A statue of the Virgin Mary crying tears of blood, with a banner reading "Writer Tears" underneath. A cute crow standing on top of a skull with the text, "make every day a corvidae!" An abstract Surreal art piece with "Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful." on top. A black circular sticker showing an orbit map, with "APEX. strange. surreal. shocking. beautiful." written in chartreuse text.

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Mathraptor @mathraptor.bsky.social · Dec 11

A new terror emerges to maybe end Godzilla's reign forever!

Coming in 1976!

"SPACEGODZILLA! THE COSMIC DEATH!"

(6"x9" ink and watercolor on watercolor paper)

A Showa Era inspired design for Spacegodzilla. It kicks up dust as lighting crashes behind it. It's colors are bright, inspired by the Trendmasters toys. The idea is an older Godzilla suit with a bunch of add-ons. The skin on the arms and legs is reused from King Ghidorah, mimicking Gigan's design. Gold peaks through the blue. It has two tails, Ghidorah hair and chin-bits, and a turtle-like shell mounted on the back with plates going over the neck.

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Babe&Oak @babeandoak.bsky.social · 2d

Hi #PortfolioDay

I’m Élle • Freelance illustrator & surface pattern designer

Specializing in detail heavy B&W work & passionate about occult history, horror & symbolism

Open for work in publishing, book covers, TTRPGs, private & commercial commissions

✉️ [email protected]
🎨 babeandoak.carrd.co

Altar prayer card for the goddess Diana. A rectangular card has a black border with parts of the Orphic hymn for Diana surrounding it as a border in white text. In the bottom right are twin arrows over a crescent moon representing her and Apollo. In the bottom left and top right are white outlined 8 point stars. Inside the border is a marble shockwave black and grey pattern with white outlining that forms an arch at the top with lining to look like columns on both sides. In the middle is a stag skull with painted antlers of a diamond and star pattern. Behind the skull are smaller 8 point stars and cloud ripples. Above the skull is a scraggly branch of queen Anne’s lace with small dots above. In the top corners are two constellations for Sirius as her hunting dogs and Roman numerals for 13 and 8 for the date of the Nemoralia festival.

Victorian Ward - Black and white illustration of a Victorian wall with a scarab ward framed. The border of the whole piece is a torn paper. Inside is Victorian black and white striped wallpaper with damask type filigree in the black and smaller stripes and speckles in the white with small vertical black stripes on either side. In the damask pattern are slightly abstract symbols of infinity, an hourglass and other resurrection symbols. In the middle is an ornate rectangular frame framing a large scarab beetle with its wings out. On its wings are celestial symbols like Jupiter, stars and the moon. Around the scarab are peony flowers and branches of a tree branching towards the top left with a vine white line swooping in an out and around the frame in the same direction. The scarabs body is engraved like metal with filigree. Behind the scarab in the frame is grain shading grey over black.

Dark Vibrations - Inktober 2022 black and white ink illustration. Plain rolling hills lead to the door of a building with a large central spire and a small covered porch. To the left side of the building is a three facet bay windows and the other windows have ornate stained glass. On top of the central spire is a lighting conductor in the shape of a 5 point star. In the highest window of the spire is stain glass in the shape of an eye. Converging at the start is a large vortex spiraling and expanding through the whole sky. The vortex is pulling party’s of the building up towards it and cracking parts of the wood and foundation. The vortex is casting light and highlights on the building and the tress behind it. Converging towards the building is a circle of 12 white bird silhouettes.

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Alison Birch @irishali13.bsky.social · 2d

For your Tuesday
We Lived Happily During the War
~ ILYA KAMINSKY
—And when they bombed other people's houses, we protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not enough.

We Lived Happily During the War
BY ILYA KAMINSKY
And when they bombed other people's houses, we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.

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DuendeonSpooko @duendeonfuego.bsky.social · 2d

This is worth talking about.

Cities across the country are trying to cancel this weekend's protests because... they apparently don't meet "special event" policies which require insurance. And insurance companies won't cover them because of the current threat environment.

DuendeonSpooko @duendeonfuego.bsky.social · 2d

just watched the city attorney argue that this weekend's protests are a "special event" and could not be permitted without insurance while the police chief defended our "constitutional rights" and honestly I have never been so confused in my life

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DuendeonSpooko @duendeonfuego.bsky.social · 2d

We have moved from Manufacturing Consent to Manufacturing Content

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 2d

You need to see this:

“The show of force is the point. They want these images to be out…The Department of Homeland Security is walking around Chicago with a film crew.” @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social

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My Bloody Valentine Nolan @vallescurarule.bsky.social · 2d

Two volumes of the writing guide series *Spec Fic for Newbies* standing on a desk in a library. Books are red/black and blue/black. Behind them a black cat is watching. Cat's head is outlined in a green line to draw attention.

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

A couple of parking signs for anyone who wants to print them out for this coming Saturday.

Parking Signs

If you want to print out a poster for October 18th, here are two; fully-guaranteed countrywide but maybe especially suitable for in and around New York. No King Anytime sign ...

kieranhealy.org

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 2d

I’m not in Chicago and you probably aren’t either, but maybe as it does for me this from the folks on the frontline of ICE resistance will make you happy. So bright and colorful!

✨pb✨ the tri(p)(b)une @pbthankyou.bsky.social · 2d

Free whistles on Clark just north of Lawrence out front of the funeral care by Village Discount

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 3d

A fight between President Trump, Illinois Gov. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson has often played out in a quiet suburb that is home to an ICE processing facility where most of those detained in “Operation Midway Blitz” are initially taken.

How a small Chicago suburb became a flash point in ICE’s crackdown

Broadview is home to an ICE facility that is at the center of the ongoing feud between Trump and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Residents are ready for it to be over.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 3d

A majority of Chicago residents don’t believe deploying the National Guard is a solution to crime in the city, and oppose the military and National Guard being used to help in deportations, according to findings from a recent survey.

Most Chicagoans think using the National Guard for policing is 'unacceptable,' poll finds

A survey conducted in September reveals that a majority of Chicago residents oppose the National Guard intervening in local policing and deportation efforts.

trib.al

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Middle West Press @middlewestpress.bsky.social · 3d

“You’ll find no pumpkin-spice lattes here. It’s monster season!’””
—Brett Allen, author of the Midwest cryptids novel “Sly Fox Hollow”& the GWOT service comedy “Kilroy Was Here”

Info on the anthology:
- Print: amzn.to/47buzvn
- Kindle: amzn.to/3ZSvQn0

And find Brett's books here! amzn.to/497e6cW

Image: Book cover of "Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn" anthology features a giant, shambling creature towering over a lone humanoid figure walking through a flowery forest

Text: “[T]he perfect book for the cryptid-curious reader who doesn’t mind losing a little sleep! You’ll find no pumpkin-spice lattes here. It’s monster season!’””
—Brett Allen, author of the Midwest cryptids novel “Sly Fox Hollow”& the GWOT service comedy “Kilroy Was Here”

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Andrea Kaston Tange @aktange.bsky.social · 3d

"A liberal arts education encompasses the arts, the humanities, the social sciences and STEM. It rejects the notion that some branches of knowledge are more important than others. Instead, it emphasizes that tackling the big questions of our current moment requires cross-disciplinary approaches."

Andrea Kaston Tange @aktange.bsky.social · 3d

My latest: "Numerous studies show that majors in the humanities—typically, in departments of English, history, philosophy, religious studies, classics and languages—lead students to employment and life satisfaction outcomes as positive as those for majors traditionally championed as 'practical.'”

Counterpoint | Minnesota humanities graduates thrive in meaningful careers

"The stereotype of the underemployed history major is simply not true," professor Andrea Kaston Tange writes.

www.startribune.com

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Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 6d

I bet no one told you that the Missouri Farm Bureau endorsed the Republican politicians who support Trump’s tariffs and trade war…the two things decimating Missouri soybean farmers.

Did you know that the Farm Bureau sends out a list of “farmer-friendly” politicians to each Farm Bureau member?

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