Literary Mixtape Volume 26

Side A:

"Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man" • Concrete Blonde (by Guy Cramer)

"Barbarella" • Scott Weiland (by Riayn Spaero)

"Fruit Fly" • Nada Surf (by Erika Gill)

"Run, Run, Run" • Nico & The Velvet Underground (Rachel Turney)

"Twice as Hard" • The Black Crowes (by Wade Harris)

Side B:

"Night Fever" • Bee Gees (by Julián Martinez)

"Ballad of a Thin Man" • Bob Dylan (by Sheldon Birnie)

"Mother's Little Helper" • The Rolling Stones (by Erin Dawkins)

"The Tracks of My Tears" • Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (Amy Laessle-Morgan)

"Winter Solstice" • Phoenix (by Davi Schweizer)

January 31, 2026

Fuck fascism. This isn't a unique or groundbreaking position. This is a basic stance that should be taken for granted. But it feels as though it needs to be said, as loudly and as clearly as the moment calls for.

For a number of reasons both personal and professional, I don't typically engage in politics online. It's not for lack of having an opinion, or values; I know where I stand, and how I cast my vote. But silence can do harm. Some things need voicing.

I am not going to use this letter to overstep and pontificate about the situation America finds itself in. Folks much smarter than I am have plenty to say, and say it better than I could. And while I have deep, abiding love for the US as a neighbour, I'm not a citizen. I'm not going to tell you how bad things are, how heartbreaking to witness; you're living it. You know.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't use the space to state my position. Offering love and solidarity are cold comfort when your world is falling apart. Offering art today—as a writer, or an editor—feels almost foolish in the face of so much grief and turmoil.

However.

Thomas King once wrote "the truth about stories is that's all we are." Storytelling is the fundamental thing that tethers us to our identities, to our place in the world, to each other. It's what connects, or divides. And what we are seeing from fascist regimes is a violent urge to control the narrative. To tell lies that invalidate experience; to make villains of heroes, and heroes of villains; to excuse plain evils. Don't let them.

I am not going to pretend that what we are doing with M7 is explicitly anti-fascist. But the world needs writers. People who cut the tongues of violent men and historic liars by countering with better stories. People who say, in a million tiny ways: you do not get to tell me who I am, or what to believe. Not today, not tomorrow. We will tell our stories as we lived them, as we saw. We will tell them with heartbreak, with joy, with grief, with love, because that is a basic act of humanity, and you cannot rob us of that.

They will tell stories to divide. We will tell stories to connect.

Keep telling them.

They are all we are, in the end.

With love,

Kirsti