Barrelhouse

@barrelhouse.bsky.social

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Proudly independent literary magazine & small press, established in 2004. Books + print issues + online issues + conferences + writing retreats + other stuff. https://barrelhousemag.com/

Cover of BH 13, sad man in clown wig. It's funny
cover of An Encyclopedia of Bending Time by Kristin Keane, normal price $18, design by Shanna Compton
Cover of issue 25 -- sort of a psychedelic water buffalo thing going on
Cool graphic announcing that Melissa Llanes Brownlee's story "When Aerosmith and Run DMC Decide to co-parent" was selected for the Wigleaf Top 50. And Riley Richards' poem "Gerard Butler" was longlisted.
Group photo at BH camp
Bob Odenkirk in I Think You Should Leave, noting that triples is best
ABOUT AI: Anyone who uses AI to write something they submit to us is a loser, and we want nothing to do with them.
We open for subs June 1. All genres. $50, no sub fees. Barrelhousemag.com There's a whole UFO/alien thing going on too
sexy rock em sock em robots (cover by John-Paul Gurnett)
Conversation by Elizabeth Brogden In early 2025, I read Erica Stern’s first book, Frontier: A Memoir & a Ghost Story (Barrelhouse, 2025), in which she addresses the traumatic birth of her eldest son. At the time, I was a little over six years out from my own harrowing experience of bringing my daughter into the world and had struggled to find ways to reflect on it in prose that avoided (quite literal) navel-gazing. Erica’s work—an astonishing warp and weft of raw memoir and meticulously researched historical fiction—introduced me to fresh, meaningful, and profoundly pleasurable ways of writing about the painful scars left by umbilical ties. Our conversation took place a few months later
Frontier belongs on a shelf with books like Homing Instincts and Ordinary Insanity by Sarah Menkedeck; Near Breathing by Kathryn Rhett; Hysterical by Elisa Bassist, and Lady Parts by Deborah Copaken. Not all of these titles address complications in childbirth, but all address the ways women and women’s health issues are sidelined by the medical establishment. Stern’s memoir engages the reader on so many levels—intellectually, psychologically, emotionally, and sheer curiosity. It’s a hard one to put down. Finally, Stern’s talent for description awes the reader at every turn. Early on, her description of the Labor & Delivery room conjures an image of a multi-limbed monster: “…after the arms and claws recede back into the walls…” (47). A skilled writer, she doesn’t describe randomly, but carefully selects details from the memoir’s available landscape, to add depth and meaning and subtext, so that what she’s describing is both the actual, concrete object in the world (a child’s swing, a basketball post), but is also all the feeling and association that thing conjures.
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Outdoor staircase
Outdoor staircase
Barrelhouse booth at awp
Barrelhouse booth at awp
Black t with blowfish & text "unreliable narrator", green "keep it weird" shirt with fox bird thing, and the classic, never to be imitated "fucking poets, man"
Issue 26 cover, by Michael Bargamian. Classy couple having a nice meal in front of a wildfire. It looks very cool.
beautiful, not remotely cluttered, flyer of laser cat highlighting our various things. Booth 1185 Wednesday, reading with some other presses at the United Methodist Church on Mt. Vernon Place, 7-10 Friday, Erica Stern book signing at 10 AM & Barely offsite reading at noon Saturday, Reading at Metro Gallery, 5-7
screenshot of the PEN-Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award finalists, not gonna list them all, just note that it includes OUT THERE IN THE DARK by Katharine Coldiron
Poetry (2) "Burning Down the Waffle House" by Danny Caine "Grain" by Carolene Kurien Fiction (2) "Ruptures" by Ray Wise "Party Night" by Yusuf Poladin Nonfiction (2) "The Australian Job" by Steve Himmer "Leafing Through Jack Gilbert’s The Dance Most of All for Inspiration: An Essay of Marriage" by J. M. Jones
Giving birth a second time (and, years later, a third), didn’t take away any of my love for my oldest son. In fact, it allowed me to separate him from the experience of his birth. I could leave that trauma, or at least the power it wielded over me, behind. It had taken another round to figure out what should have been obvious: the child was not the birth. I hugged them close—children who had arrived in different ways, but who were both very much mine. [Family photo below]
Flyer for the conference with all the details in the post, plus a little alien guy and a funky spaceship
Snappy lil graphic announcing our best of the net noms: fiction- Missippi June by DeMisty D. Bellinger & My Pretties by K.C. Mead-Brewer CNF: Lingerie Momeny by Rebecca Mental & Centerfold by Patrick Crerand Poetry: Wisconsin Sexy by Carrie Conners, a brief correlation between queer sex and U.S. manifest destiny by d.S. randol & People Also Ask by Quinn Franzen Artwork: Cover art by Jiksun Cheung
After unexpected pregnancy complications put Erica Stern on the threshold of life and death, she was able to identify the liminal space that connects her to generations of mothers before her. Frontier is a fascinating hybrid memoir that combines the author’s personal experience with pregnancy and motherhood and a Wild West ghost story about a mother who died in childbirth that roams her old homestead, tethered to the family she left behind. With its intricate and unique blend of memoir, fiction, and research, Frontier highlights how versatile and provocative the art form of writing can be when handled by a writer as talented as Erica Stern.
promotional flyer with essential info for this event -- 6/5, 6:30, Volumes Book Cafe
Barrelhouse branded graphic noting that Ruth Joffre's student "A Girl Experiments With Being Human" has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2025
Beautiful books and stickers!
Flyer listing the readers for this event, with the same info as the post: 3/28 12 PM, Convention Center stairs
Honestly, exactly as described in the post. We look cool and fun and relatively young
Jason Jones reading
Danny Caine reading
flyer for event at Rhizome DC (located at 6950 Maple St. NW) for event on 3/14. doors at 7, readings at 7:30. List of readers included
Launch party flyer with key info being that it's March 19 at 7 PM at Tattooed Mom. Readers are Danny Caine, Yusuf Poladin, Olivia Muenz, and J.M. Jones. There's also a space cat situation happening in the image
Cover of Erica Stern's book, FRONTIER, which i think looks pretty cool but don't feel my description would do it much justice
flyer for a reading on the LA convention center steps on 3/28 at 12 PM, featuring a whole lot of people who I promise will not read for a long time, I give you my solemn vow. It'll be fun
The person at Waffle House drops my card and starts crying. She’s here alone until 2. It’s 2. Kind of hard to avoid the fact that I am part of the problem. With that in mind, how much of a tip is a good tip, and where is the line between a good tip and a messiah complex? Trying to quickly stop crying, she asks me, do you ever just get so tired? If she wants to burn down the Waffle House, I’ll go get some kerosene.
it's Harry fuckin Crews
Screenshot of an image showing Johns Hopkins University Scholars top book picks of 2024, including EMOTION INDUSTRY by Tracy Dimond and some other books that I presume are fine as well
This one is kind of hard to describe but it's a cool psychedelic kinda painting of a water buffalo staring at a dude who is drawing the water buffalo (art by Roger Doyle)
You'd think it'd be easy for writers to fill in the empty space after loss with words. But grief has a way of making it difficult for us to write at all, let alone about that loss itself. In this panel, a poet, an essayist, and a short story author will talk about what's worked to help them get down into the sludge and back on the page.
Most nonfiction pieces, whether in magazines or online, begin life as pitches --an email sent from a writer to an editor. In this workshop, we will walk through how to come up with arresting pitches for everything from book reviews to essays to feature pieces. We'll walk through the anatomy of an effective pitch letter, as well as editor etiquette. We'll also talk about the delicate question of money.
What does the title of a poem do? Is giving a poem a title like naming a dog? Does a title have a job? Does that job pay well? Does the title dream of doing something else? In this workshop, we will discuss and play with these and other questions about the relationship between a poem and its title. If you can, bring a poem of yours (or a few) that needs a title or has a title you aren't crazy about.
Remember that jingle you just can't get out of your head? The one that haunts and echoes until you find yourself humming then singing it out loud? What about those thoughts or obsessions that keep you up at night? Did you really leave the oven on? All the chorus's to your favorite songs, the names of past lovers, or those intrusive thoughts you say or hear over and over again. And repeat. To yourself, to others. Out loud. In writing. In this cross-genre generative workshop, participants will study how various flash writers incorporate repetition to portray a variety of emotions within their work. Attendees will also receive prompts based on the examples provided and will be given time to write.
Speed Dating With Editors is a 10 minute, 1-on-1 workshop with an editor With your registration, you get one ticket to “Speed Dating with Editors,” a 10 minute, 1-on-1 meeting with a literary magazine or small press editor where you’ll receive direct feedback about your work.