M Cortez
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mcortez.net
M Cortez
@mcortez.net
I write across genre about place and power for all the borderwalking weirdos out there. Creative work @ mcortez.net. Public theory @deceleration.news

type slowly. @ï
worked on this for a couple months with @harmanity.bsky.social and @viktoriavalenzuela.bsky.social and rly proud how it came out...people sent some amazing art & writing.
Our Winter 2026 Creative Review is out! From Boca Chica at Texas’s tip to the migratory flyways linking Eagle and Condor, writers and artists from TX and beyond share their love, grief, and rage for the fragility of our oceans and the coral reefs they shelter.

deceleration.news/sea-of-creat...
‘Sea of Creatures’—A Deceleration Quarterly Creative Review
In Deceleration's Winter 2026 Creative Review, writers and artists from our bioregion and beyond—from Boca Chica at Texas’s tip to the migratory flyways that link Eagle and Condor—share their love, gr...
deceleration.news
February 4, 2026 at 12:01 AM
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A small thing but for anyone with small children trying to explain what’s going on I would highly recommend the book “Noodlephant.” A fantastic parable about the power of community defense and mutual aid to combat fascism and racism, and the inherent violence of policing
January 30, 2026 at 7:59 PM
ok here's another flash nonfic for you. in my phone notes it's titled "True Story":

in Las Cruces my dad unbuttons his flannel to show me the shirt underneath: Straight Outta Tobin Hill, it reads in funky lettering. He was looking around for a shirt like that online but
January 30, 2026 at 5:23 PM
i know things are really dire right now. but maybe this will make you laugh (it did me). part of my writing practice has involved mining my phone notes for cast off buried treasure, things to possibly develop or incorporate into projects in progress. and so i found this:
January 30, 2026 at 5:01 PM
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We're going to win because their side has no good art and they know it.
January 28, 2026 at 5:48 PM
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Fun fact: Your local bookstore is doing more to protect you and your neighbors than Amazon is.
January 26, 2026 at 4:02 PM
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Have you gotten a copy of my poetry chapbook, Offerings to a Tumbled Temple? It's out now from @purpleinkpress.bsky.social I am proud to share these very vulnerable embodied poems about healing my relationship with my body and being in kinship with other disabled folks. I hope you read it!
January 24, 2026 at 12:35 AM
never been prouder to be half Minnesotan
January 24, 2026 at 12:03 AM
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BREAKING: The Greg Bovino Bitch Fund Benefiting Immigrant Rights in Minnesota has just donated $10,000 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, an essential org working on the frontlines to protect people from ICE's terror.
January 21, 2026 at 2:27 AM
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Excited to offer this learning opportunity this spring: Read / Write / Study Group: Languaging / Trans. Applications close January 23!
forms.gle/akbjxJbENDDi...
January 19, 2026 at 6:54 PM
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damn what is wrong with me, i am having the hardest time concentrating on work, i lament as i compulsively refresh live feeds of unspeakable horrors
January 17, 2026 at 7:52 PM
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If you read one thing today, let it be this:
“An Elegy for My Neighbor, Renee Nicole Good: Fellow poet Danez Smith memorializes the Minneapolis mother's call to witness”

❤️💔

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
An Elegy for My Neighbor, Renee Nicole Good
Fellow poet Danez Smith memorializes the Minneapolis mother's call to witness
www.harpersbazaar.com
January 9, 2026 at 10:42 PM
routine frustration on behalf of others: the things you need to do to make up for what you couldn't do bc of executive dysfunction require the same executive functioning you didn't have to begin with, if not more of it.
January 9, 2026 at 11:38 PM
“Even though we know ICE has killed before — and will again — … their brutality has not hardened or corrupted us. We are still shaken and heartbroken by their violence. That is the cost of staying human in inhuman times — and it’s a cost we pay in defense of our neighbors and … our own humanity.”
Tonight, I was one of more than 200 people who gathered on Chicago’s North Side to mourn Renee Nicole Good. Several people asked me to publish my remarks from the vigil, so I’m sharing them here.
The Cost of Staying Human
Remarks from a vigil for Renee Nicole Good
organizingmythoughts.org
January 8, 2026 at 3:33 AM
BMI is problematic, but the BMI calculator on the CDC website hasn't worked for months. just sayin
January 7, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Also
🤠 Hey, Texas faculty! As you prep for the spring semester check out our blog for tips + advice. 👇

1) Don’t self-censor, know your rights! 2) Report censorship of your teaching, research, or expression.
3) Organize your department. We are stronger together!

aaup-texas.org/blog/f/2025-...
2025: A Year of Resistance, Solidarity and Resolve
CONTACT:  Brian L. Evans, PhD, President, Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), affiliated with the Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT), aaup.texas@gmai...
aaup-texas.org
January 4, 2026 at 10:07 PM
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A big part of what keeps me going are the small people in my life. Their unbridled joy at small things makes me want a future for them where they can keep enjoying those small things. So we continue despite the horrors because there is always also joy alongside.
January 4, 2026 at 10:01 PM
for some reason been waking up at 4am every morning, and this time when I did I saw that in the handful of hours I’d been asleep, the US literally invaded another country and kidnapped their president
January 3, 2026 at 11:28 AM
after five days of mocos so relentless I’ve been fantasizing about a steroid injection in my face, I’m honestly glad to be running a fever—may it finally burn away the RSV.
January 3, 2026 at 2:52 AM
this was my favorite part, this and the Cornelius Eady poem. liked that he wrote the poem for his students as much as for zohran.
January 2, 2026 at 3:36 AM
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i am always taken by melancholy the day after Christmas, thinking about the great tragedies of history, like the fact that in his long musical career William Shatner never did a cover of Scatman John's 'I'm The Scat Man' where the refrain was, 'I'm the Shat Man'.
December 26, 2025 at 9:27 PM
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Call for submissions to our Winter 2026 Creative Review! Seeking creative responses across genres to the global crisis of coral reefs and oceans.

#CallForSubs #WritingCommunity #poetry #fiction #photography
December 9, 2025 at 5:12 PM
told today my classes may not make, so i made flyers. utsa english majors: take my classes!
December 20, 2025 at 1:54 AM