Last week, The Itch Lit published a 10-question interview with me about memory, inherited beliefs, storytelling, and what I’ve learned from writing nonfiction, among other things. You can read it here.
The Itch Lit is relatively new to the online literary scene. On its about page, the editors describe it as “an online literary magazine devoted to the stories, poems, and essays that won’t leave us alone. We believe the best writing follows readers home, tugs at their sleeves, and demands another look.”
I’m grateful to The Itch Lit for publishing my creative nonfiction piece “Killing Machine” last June. This up-and-coming magazine is publishing some captivating writing. Check it out.
Remembering Missouri writer Jack Conroy, instigator of the proletarian writer movement of the Great Depression
Who could imagine, in these times, that my beloved deep-red home state of Missouri once harbored one of the leaders of a radical, left-wing literary movement that gave rise to some of the late twentieth century’s most acclaimed writers?
In the heart of Little Dixie, a self-taught writer’s words took him from the rubble and rabble of Monkey Nest, a coal mining village just outside my hometown of Moberly, Missouri, to literary fame during the Great Depression. Jack Conroy‘s novel about the working class, called The Disinherited, took him to the pinnacle, but too quickly he fell into neglected writer status. Too independent for Communist Party orthodoxy, Conroy butted heads with what he called the “New York intelligentsia,” and eventually his brand of Heartland socialism fell out of favor. I hope my recent essay about Conroy will help raise awareness of his crucial role in creating an important literary movement in America.
I was acquainted with Keith and his work from social media, but since the publication of Bad Intentions, I’ve dug into much more of his phenomenal writing. Following a 40-plus-year career as a newspaper journalist that started when he was in high school, Keith turned to the world of fiction writing in 2019. That background no doubt contributes to his talents as a fiction writer, and his experience as a crime reporter provided him with ample training as a writer of crime fiction.
He’s the author of two mystery/crime novels: That October, a 1980s-era coming-of-age novel published in 2025, and Seven Angels, published this summer, about a young woman who returns to her hometown to run the family funeral home business and discovers how much it’s changed–for the worse. He’s also the co-author of the true crime book The Westside Park Murders: Muncie’s Most Notorious Cold Case, which, as he notes in a recent blog post, continues to attract attention five years after publication. He’s a regular contributor to the crime/mystery/thriller hub CrimeReads, and has had short stories published widely, including as part of a new anthology, Daydream Believer: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of the Monkees! from Shotgun Honey Books.
Like others of his vintage (including me), Keith grew up in the golden age of Baby Boomer/Generation Jones pop culture, the pre-internet era of 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s TV, movies, comics books, and music. His interest in horror movies and magazines, true crime, haunted houses, and other strange phenomena heavily influence his writing.
As we enter spooky season, it seems fitting to feature Keith in this venue. Read on to learn more about his writing origins, influences, and projects.
Here are links to five bits of writing that recently captured my attention. They all have something to do with writing. Maybe you’ll get something out of one or two of them. Happy reading.
The Paris Review on discovering new writers. One of the legendary and upper-echelon literary magazines, The Paris Review, opened for submissions yesterday (Thursday, October 1), and to mark the occasion–and perhaps to encourage unknown writers–Owen Park, the magazine’s assistant editor, wrote about “the journey a piece can take from the slush pile into our pages.” From this piece, I learned that Philip Roth was among the literary luminaries who once submitted unsolicited manuscripts to this august publication. Others have also found their way into The Paris Review, as Park reports.
Why I’ve Stopped Submitting My Stories to Literary Magazines is an essay by writer Mary Felice, who describes herself as “a novelist at heart” and who posted this not in any literary magazine but on her Substack page, which is appropriate, given the subject and the nature of Substack. In the piece, she points out that literary magazines usually don’t pay, that it takes a lot of time and effort to submit, that it won’t advance her literary goals, etc. It’s worth a read, even if you don’t agree with everything she has to say.
Remembering Annie Dillard. The New York Times Magazine‘s Same Anderson writes (gift link) that Dillard, the brilliant memoirist, essayist, and novelist who died last month, was “a sort of drill sergeant of human consciousness: determined, always, to force herself, and others, to see.”
Running the writer’s race. In “This Side of the Finish Line,” writer Nancy Jorgenson discusses her ambitious goal of writing 52 essays this year in the form of an athlete’s mid-year progress report to a fictitious coach. The result is an enjoyable and insightful essay that even less ambitious writers (like myself) can relate to.
Farewell to another fine and beloved literary magazine.The Argyle Literary Magazine‘s final issue dropped at the end of September. Another fine literary magazine, and home to three pieces of my writing, is going away. The editors plan to go permanently offline December 15, so read the final issue soon! While you’re there, visit the archives for many splendid works of art, prose, and poetry.
It was a drizzly September morning a year ago, on the autumnal equinox. I was taking my morning walk along a nearby walking trail and absorbing the sights and sounds and smells of nature around me when I was struck by one of those “what if?” thoughts that sometimes inspires a line of thought that ends up as a piece of writing. (I wrote about the “what if?” approach to idea generation a couple of years ago.)
This line of thought took me way back to the creation story in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. It began with this question: What if God had chosen to put the Garden of Eden in the Missouri Ozarks? From there, my poem “Eden in the Ozarks” was born. It was published last April in The Argyle Literary Magazine, which, I’m sad to report, will cease publication after its next issue.
Since the equinox is now upon us, I thought it might make sense to share the poem here.
Eden in the Ozarks
by Andrew Careaga
What if God had chosen to put the Garden of Eden in these Missouri Ozarks. Would Adam and Eve have used sycamore leaves to cover themselves? Or catalpa leaves, big as catcher’s mitts? Or maybe the heart-shaped redbud leaves? These all thrive along the banks of these meandering spring-fed creeks.
If God had put the Garden of Eden in the Missouri Ozarks, would the serpent have been a copperhead? A water moccasin? Would a pawpaw have been the forbidden fruit? These are my thoughts today, this first day of autumn.
On the autumnal equinox, everything hangs in the balance, as it did in Eden of old. The seasonal seesaw teeters from warmth toward coolness as I walk beneath a gray-streaked dome of sky. The sidewalk damp from overnight rain,
splattered with the fallen leaves of sycamores, catalpas, redbuds, and the others: maples, hickories, black oak, white oak, pin oak, dogwoods, mulberries. Yes, my feet tread on the colors of fallen creation, vibrant yet muted
By the wet. Orange leaves tinged with scarlet or yellow green. Brown leaves dark as chocolate. The glories of a passing life. I also walk along life to come. Life contained within the dying,
flat, twisted catalpa pods, the golf ball-sized hickory nuts, their green shells turning to shoe polish black. These vessels hold seeds, awaiting resurrection.
But God did not choose to put Eden in the Ozarks. God chose another place, on the other side of the world, where humans walked long before any saw these ancient time-worn hills
and spider-vein rivulets. And when humans finally arrived here, those early sojourners, those banished ones, did they marvel at the sight of it? Did they wonder how they traveled so far for so long to arrive at a place so distant from paradise?
“Eden in the Ozarks,” by Andrew Careaga, published in The Argyle Literary Magazine “Bucolia” issue, April 2026.
