David M. Briggs and Halberd Books

@halberdbooks.bsky.social

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My name is David M. Briggs, but everybody calls me either Dave or Hal. I am a mid-30s Midwestern writer, designer, performer and enthusiast who is full of love and poetry and breakfast cereal. davidmbriggs.com

A deck of Magic the Gathering cards alongside the deckbox from The Hobbit prerelease.
Preview for a poem by David M. Briggs in Colorful Nights, a ShuYuka fanzine. Preview text reads as follows: I want you to know that I'm kind of like you
We are talking about stories as always and I have had a peach sangria and you stop the conversation and look at me and say, “I want to try something for a second, just to see how it feels,” and we lean in, I know exactly what is going to happen and yet nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me -- not the day we met and I thought you were gorgeous and wanted to talk about poetry and stories with you for hours, not even my birthday I pulled you aside and apologized, nearly sobbing into a seven and seven for being a bad friend who just could not keep my feelings to myself, not the years trading tales over texts or tabletops -- nothing could have prepared me for how it felt for you to kiss me for the first time, breathy, soft, but more powerful than I assumed, me, reeling, agonizing over how to react, how to kiss back when I have spent ages imagining the touch of your lips and your hands are in my hair and your breath is on my face and though I know this is not a promise, not a declaration, barely a statement, but now I am ruined, for a moment, in the most glorious way, my entire body is screaming, and whatever happens next feels thousands of years away from this moment and I am intoxicated far beyond what one glass of sangria can boast and I want to fall to my knees and be a part of something bigger, and yes, I know that nothing can be certain beyond this, and yes, I know we understand the ways this won't work, this can't work, the ways I know I'm only doomed but in this moment I am owned, I am subsumed, and I am thrilled to know that I will never be free from this feeling and never will have to be, and when we are done, you lay your head on my chest and then look up, your hands on my face, and you say in this electrifying low voice like nothing I have ever heard, “I’m sorry I can’t promise anything more,” and all I have wanted is not to feel guilty about the way thinking about you keeps me awake at night, not to feel that I have betrayed your trust by imagini…
Front cover of "November and the Wild Year and Everything that Followed: Poems" by David M. Briggs.
A display of poetry books: Halberd Books vol 2 and Halberd Books vol 3
[picture of a poem written in sharpie pen on a handmade journal. text in all caps follows:] In a world that devalues the process of making I will make and remake myself David M. Briggs aka Dave aka Hal He/She/They 11/16/2025 Halberd Books
The cover of Crispy Zine, a publication dedicated to queer midwestern artists. it centers on paint brushes next to a tastefully risqué painting of a muscular man showing off his butt. Text reads "Crispy Zine" on the top and "A Protest Wrapped in a Love Letter" on the bottom.
Excerpt from "It Never Rains In Iwatodai" by David M. Briggs, aka Hal, for the P3RE:flect fan project. Text displays on a laptop screen, and it reads as follows: You're your own person, no reflection, no occult occluded other, no moonlit morose mystery. Your strength shines through, lights loyalty and love within the hearts of each lucky soul who seeks you out. You are dynamic and interesting and everybody loves you. This is your city. This is your story. And you will be the one to tell it.
simple artwork of bigfoot created with typography
the mothman created with typography.
Video of the Halberd Books and Pooshie Mart display at a vendor market. There is no dialogue.
Photograph of Halberd Books display featuring a number of books by David M. Briggs with black and white covers.
I am nonbinary. Any pronouns are fine as long as they're said with respect. I am nonbinary, which falls under the Trans umbrella. If you have ever loved me, you have loved a trans person. If you have ever cared for me, you have cared for a trans person. If you have ever spoken ill of trans people, you have spoken ill of me. If you have voted for the extermination of trans people, you have voted for the extermination of me. I am very privileged to look the way I do, to comfortably look like a man, to be engaged to a woman. I could hide these parts of myself and be quite secure. But I won't. I would rather die than deny my own lived experience for the comfort of those who hate me. And since I will not kill myself, only through your actions can I be silenced.