Two books that, in different ways, inspire me to write. One makes me go, “okay, I don’t quite write like that, but I want to write this stuff.” Another makes go, “okay, I don’t quite want to write this stuff, but I want to write like that.” Style and content, my dudes, this stuff comes from lots of different places. If you are an artist of any kind, you need to know which parts of which influences are within you, you know? Should be obvious that both of these books are a joy to me, and it just so happens that they are both written by people whom I feel lucky to consider friends. I’m talking, of course, about The Barre Incidents<\/em> by Lauren Bolger and HAIR SHIRT<\/em> by Adrian Sobol. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Barre Incidents<\/em> by Lauren Bolger:<\/strong> first of all, it\u2019s pronounced Barre, not Barre, like I keep doing. Talk about some cosmic horror to start the year! This one comes drenched in Norse mythology, a welcome departure from Lovecraftian mythos. The inciting horror might be undead miners, but theres also a world tree<\/a>, Nidhogg<\/a>, Indrid Cold<\/a>, Mothman<\/a>, and vicious dog people. Of course, none of this horror works without human beings at the center. That\u2019s Kara and her best friend\/crush, Alec, two restaurant workers who understand that their town has supernatural goings on, but have no idea the shit they\u2019re about to go through. Their friendship has some early Jim and Pam<\/a> dynamics\u2014they banter, they worry about one another, they\u2019re vulnerable with one another. It\u2019s a strong foundation of a friendship, and that\u2019s necessary when you have to battle a demon of the underworld for the soul of your dead father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That dead father was a miner, so like Juan Martinez\u2019s Extended Stay<\/em>, we have the victims of cosmic horror tied to an incredibly taxing and often invisible working class job. In the Martinez text, it\u2019s restaurant workers in a hotel. Here, it\u2019s a miners, a job that you really can\u2019t do without some physical punishment. It\u2019s worth checking out these Secretly Incredibly Fascinating podcasts about salt mines<\/a>, coal<\/a>, and silica gel packets<\/a>. I like this idea of the working class as the victims of cosmic horror\u2014something to monitor for any syllabus makers out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quick last thought on this novel in particular, but it\u2019s a similar thing I had when I read Extended Stay<\/em> for the first time: I picture images in my head when I read, but not very vividly. Lauren\u2019s prose (Juan\u2019s, too) often has strange and bizarre and otherworldly images washing over you as you read. I found myself having to re-read paragraphs more than usual. Not necessarily a criticism of the prose, just something I\u2019m noting for myself about how this type of horror reads to me. Maybe it\u2019s a great trick, too\u2014what the character is seeing is mind-bending and unbelievable, so my sympathetic reader\u2019s mind is also trying to not believe what I\u2019m reading. Maybe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n HAIR SHIRT<\/em> by Adrian Sobol:<\/strong> there are a million unread poetry books on my shelf because I can\u2019t control myself at AWP. For this reason, I read a lot of poetry over break 1) because I wanted to and 2) to try to cut into that pile. This book, however, was a re-read. Frankly, it\u2019s because my good friend wrote a book that Makes Me Want To Write, and that\u2019s a beautiful thing. What I love most about Adrian\u2019s poems is the leaps he makes, the way that the poem logic jumps from thing to thing, never wandering too much but\u2014most crucially\u2014never letting something get hammered to much. He never plays the chord you expect next, but your ear is never bothered, either, if that makes sense. That\u2019s a quality I want in my own writing. Read HAIR SHIRT<\/em> if you haven\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What’re you still doing here? Micah and Brendan have wrapped ABSOLUTELY<\/em>. More stuff coming from them soon. I’ll have to figure out something to do with this slot. But first, why not the hourlong supercut of ABSOLUTELY<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_6842-1024x768.jpg\")
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