Literary Mixtape Volume 23
- kirstimackenzie
- Jun 29
- 3 min read
Side A:
Side B:
June 29, 2025
I feel like when I come to these editor's letters there's one of a few topics I default to: writing community, writing process, the weather... and, stop me if I've gone here before, but the endeavour of creating art during what feels like the end times.
Sorry for being a broken record, is what I'm trying to say.
Lately I've had AI on the brain. Less that I've been thinking about it and more that it feels constantly in my face, a rising tide of shitty, soulless art flooding our social media feeds and websites and workplaces. It feels like AI has gone from zero to one hundred overnight, and it's a fucking bummer.
You're not going to hear any arguments from me about how useful AI can be, and how we should adapt to it. I think we're cheating ourselves out of critical thinking and creativity by adopting it. Even bad art is better than AI, because there's something human in the attempt.
Lately I've been coming back to writing after a long period of stagnant creativity. It's awkward to start, of course. You wonder if you're any good, if the draft will go anywhere, if it's garbage like so many others started and stopped. But it's mine. There's joy in the process, even at its most frustrating.
As I type this, there's a little star next to the paragraph. Wix puts it there to encourage me to use content-generating AI to create these letters. And while I know I'm a broken record, while I know I don't always have something new or interesting to say about writing, I can't bring myself to use it. Because what you're getting is me—someone who wants you to know that I see you, making art in the end times, in the dumbest historical circumstances imaginable, and I'm proud of you for persisting in the face of so much bullshit.
I will tell you over and over and over that I'm proud of you, and to keep going. It's one of my deeply held beliefs that people need to hear good things. That we should never pass up the opportunity to say them, as often and as loudly as we can.
So I hope you'll excuse me for repeating myself. It comes from the heart.
Welcome to Volume 23 of M7, I hope you find something good here.
Travis Flatt's "Spiderwebs" weaves us a tale of Minotaur contemplating a spiderweb, a "scholar of shapes" drawn ever more deeply into the intricacies of his home.
"Mary Jane's Last Dance" folds us into a group of ski bums chasing the perfect run in exquisite cold then tumbling into the warmth of a lodge, tangled up in one another.
Thad DeVassie returns with "Raining in Baltimore", dropping us into the middle of an argument between a couple about the song's lyrics, a philosophical bout in the belly of an old car.
D.T. Robbins is also an M7 repeat offender with "Shoulder to the Wheel", where we play passenger as he telegraphs his inner world to his kids via a playlist of old, beloved tunes.
Pierrre Minar's "The Pretender"meditates on geography over a salmon cooking in a pan.
Hope you're well, pals. Happy summer to you.
xo,
Kirsti
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