Literary Mixtape Volume 28
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Side A:
Side B:
July 26, 2026
I spent about five, maybe six months largely away from social media. It wasn't really orchestrated, or a grand decision to quit. I abruptly grew sick of it, and my relationship to it, and put my phone down. I spent the time decorating my house, watching movies, reading books, working too goddamn much, and travelling. I barely wrote.
I had to check the urge to scream online about what I was reading, or watching, or listening to. There is an urge to share, yes, but lurking under that is the urge to demonstrate that you are keeping up. And that urge disgusts me, even as I recognize the larger benefit to sharing. Because really, who gives a shit how much I devoured The Knockout Artist while laid up after surgery? Who gives a shit that I loved Anora in a way that I'm still trying to unpack? Who gives a shit that the best DJ set I've heard in years was in the back of a disgustingly hip restaurant in Madrid, by a DJ nobody seemed to care was there?
I guess that's what I'm grappling with. Engaging, or leaning out. Because to lean in means sharing, means community, means some kind of permanence, a record of all the things that shaped you. Younger versions of myself would have killed to have some sort of central place to record all the books and films and records that made me. It's here now, and I find myself frustrated and leaving that record for the wrong reasons—trying to keep up, or be relevant.
I'm trying to be more careful where I post now, and when. Trying to use one, maybe two platforms, if I can help it. Substack seems to have reached a tipping point, and as a late adopter, I'm comfortable moving most of my presence there. It's overwhelming to begin, though. After months away, there's a sort of bombardment that happens when you come back. All this input you weren't asking for, fed to you by the algorithm. Reminds you why you left.
Still, there's good that exists. On Substack, you're not scrolling past legions of videos that make you braindead. You can find new work that you're excited about. You can shitpost and write thoughtful essays in the same place. It makes me think about the state of publishing, I suppose. Its direction.
More and more, people are eschewing traditional publishing for self-publication, or underground publication. They're also increasingly favouring self-publication on platforms like Substack over submitting to lit mags, and who can blame them? Turn around times are slow; traditional publishing favours formulaic and pedantic narratives; indie/underground editors are tired and doing this on volunteer time, with little money or capacity to keep mags going strong after years. If you can find an audience by self-publishing, why not?
There's a larger conversation to be had about the dynamic between editors—truly skilled, dedicated editors who want to make writers' work shine—and writers. How sometimes gatekeeping or rejecting can help push a writer out of embarrassing, undercooked early efforts into sharpened, polished work. I'm so glad none of my earliest efforts saw the light of day. A good deal of growing as a writer is being able to look at your work with a degree of remove and know it's not fit for publication, for any number of reasons. (A conversation I had with myself recently, over something I was quite proud of upon finishing!) I find myself wading through a lot of bad writing on Substack to find good stuff, but then again, taste is subjective.
Be that as it may, the trend seems to be toward self publication in ever-evolving ways and I'm curious, like everyone, to see how it disrupts the publishing paradigm. Even the publishing paradigm of small literary magazines, blogs run by bands of volunteer editors whose tastes have been honed in the online literary environment. It's a wonder anyone's submitting at all, now that I see how Substack is changing the game—so what I am trying to say, I think, is thank you for giving a shit enough to submit to M7, to share your work when you could take it elsewhere.
That said, let's talk Volume 28.
Daniel Miller's beautiful piece on his daughter singing "Pink Pony Club" in the backseat of the car manages to achieve what he's scared he can't: being present enough to capture the moment without needing to filter it through a phone recording.
Christie Chapman's "Do It Again" takes us to a lurid striptease in a hotel room, a private moment between a young woman and a much older man that has more to do with her relationship to her own sexuality than it has to do with his gaze.
Federica Silvi's "Polyster Bride" is a small snapshot of someone couch-surfing and sleeping in pubs, one lost soul coming to righteous defence of another.
Shea Socrates takes us into a funeral with a mariachi mass in the middle of Michigan in "Amor Eterno". What breaks my heart particularly is the chaos of the scene—the father on FaceTime, the muddled coordination of proceedings, the balloons being released.
"We Are One (Ole Ola)" imagines a suburban housewife being best friends with Pitbull, enjoying Arnold Palmers and gossiping about the press and IBS. It's one of my favourites we've ever published, possibly because I never thought Pitbull would end up on the M7 master list.
Dan Sylvan Paige takes us into a seniors' home with "12 Blown Tires", where the narrator's mother clips hair for her fellow residents, then for the narrator (who winds up with the worst haircut of them all).
Justin Karcher offers a small poem for "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade. After years of reading for M7 I am still very much a fiction writer out of my depth with assessing or summarizing poetry, but I do know what I like when I see it.
Danielle McMahon's "Me and Bobby McGee" considers a crush, the speaker's own "Bobby McGee". It's a nice cap to a stacked issue—I kind of love that this one goes out with the line "the one who wrecks me sweetly".
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xo,
Kirsti