poetry – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: author and ‘Mucky Mondays’ maestro Shawn Scott Smith

‘Community has always been a thing for me, and I saw a chance to give back to some of the writers I admired.’

Ever had a case of the Mondays? Of course you have. But thanks to Shawn Scott Smith, a writer, editor, and pinball aficionado from North Carolina, you can get your week off to a better start by reading a poem or flash fiction piece selected and curated by Shawn via his online literary presence, Mucky Mondays.

Shawn launched the project earlier this year, and it didn’t take long for him to fill his calendar for 2026. (I’m one of the lucky mucks to be included in Scott’s publication this year. Check out “Scenes from a Chinese Restaurant,” which Scott kindly nominated for a Best of the Net award.) He will solicit submissions for the 2027 lineup beginning in November.

An accomplished writer in his own right, Shawn’s first collection of poetry and short stories, Telemetry: Poems and Shorts 2014-2017, was published in 2018. His newest book, Atomic Number, contains 117 poems, each one titled after an element of the periodic table. (Check out a couple of poems from the collection.) He’s also been published in a bunch of literary magazines, including Alien Buddha, BULL, Burial Magazine, Dodo Eraser, and Hawkeye.

Read on to learn more about Shawn’s writing journey, the origin of Mucky Mondays, his pinball obsession, and more.

Friday Five: Karina Longo, editor of La Rotonde Review

‘I wanted to build a space that balanced curation with inclusion.’

Well over a century ago, the Parisian bistro Café de la Rotonde was well-known as a creative hub for artists like Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, and for fostering avant-garde art movements like dadaism and surrealism. By the 1920s it had become a popular hangout for expatriate American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and other writers, philosophers, and intellectuals.

Karina Longo, editor-in-chief of La Rotonde Review

The bistro’s reputation as a catalyst for creativity inspired poet Karina Longo to bestow its name on her recently launched online poetry magazine. La Rotonde Review made its debut in January with an aim, as Karina explains on the magazine’s about page, “to offer a space where high-quality poetry is celebrated, and poets from all backgrounds are supported.” La Rotonde Review got off to a great start in January with its inaugural poem, “Salt,” by Joseph Fasano, and has been publishing fantastic work since. Soon, La Rotonde Review will publish its first anthology: a collection of poems connected to the theme of “dissolution,” which she discusses in more detail below.

Karina, who can be found on Twitter as @TheDarkestStar_, is a neurodivergent Brazilian-Italian poet based in Milan. She has been published in many impressive literary magazines, including Expat Press, Apocalypse Confidential, Eunoia Review, Eulogy Press, Some Words, Trampoline Poetry, Michigan City Review of Books, Dodo Eraser, HAWKEYE, Burning House Press, Blood + Honey, Be About It Press, Mythic Picnic, cataloguing poetry, Micromance Magazine, Resurrection Mag, Londemere Lit, and Prosetrics. She also has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Read on to learn more about Karina and her lit mag.

Friday Five: Orange Rose editor Amber Budd

‘Literary magazines exist to uplift the work of other writers, and that’s always been my main priority.’

In less than a year, Amber Budd has built something incredible for the online literary world with The Orange Rose Literary Magazine. Since launching The Orange Rose last July, she has published five issues, each one of which is filled with a broad range of writing–short stories, nonfiction, flash and micro fiction, and poetry from writers well known, lesser known, and unknown–as well as visual art and photography. (Note to writers: Amber’s call for prose submissions for Issue 6 ends May 31, so get busy! [Orange Rose has already hit its cap for poetry submissions.) I’ve had three short stories appear in Amber’s magazine (in issues 2, 4, and 5, which was a pet-themed issue in honor of Amber’s recently departed orange cat, Biscotti). I also received one kindly worded rejection email from her.

Amber is a Missouri-based writer (as am I) who, at age 24, juggles her editor-in-chief work with her pursuit of an MFA in writing, which she began last fall. She holds an AFA and BA in Creative Writing and previously served as editor for Arrow Rock Literary Journal and as a reader for Fractured Lit. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple magazines and journals, and she is currently writing her first novel that will eventually serve as her master’s thesis. Though her chronic illnesses limit her day-to-day capabilities, she uses her free time, according to her bio, “to replay the same two video games for the millionth time, crochet while binge-watching her current TV obsession, and squeeze in D&D sessions with her friends.”

Friday Five: some words with Justin Carter

‘Everything starts, in some way, with my life, and then the question becomes if I want to dive into my life or not’

Like a lot of teens who came of age during the early days of the internet, Justin Carter spent a lot of his online time reading and posting on message boards. He is such a fan of the format of these online forums that he decided to create a literary magazine based on the message board structure. The result: the retro-looking lit mag Some Words. Since going live some six months ago, Some Words has published over 120 stories and poems, including a poem each day during National Poetry Month (April). I was honored to have one of my poems (“A Cure for Doomscrolling“) included in the April lineup.

When he isn’t running the lit mag–or perhaps moderating is the more appropriate term–Justin writes poetry and short stories, as well as freelance articles about women’s basketball, racing, and the NFL from his home in Des Moines, Iowa. He also is a relatively new dad. Justin’s first poetry collection, Brazos, was published in 2024 by Belle Point Press. Originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, Justin holds degrees from the University of Houston, Bowling Green State University and the University of North Texas, where he graduated in 2019 with a PhD in English. His poetry appears widely, including work in The Adroit Journal, Bat City Review, The Journal, Sonora Review and Sycamore Review. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, Daily Science Fiction, HAD, Passages North, and other spaces.

Read on for more about Justin’s reasons for creating Some Words, his advice to submitters, writing poetry versus writing fiction, and more.

Friday Five: talking trash with Benjamin Drevlow

A Q&A with the author of ‘Trash Poems for Trash People’ and editor of BULL.

Content warning: strong language.

Reading Benjamin Drevlow‘s new collection of poems/pomes, Trash Poems for Trash People, put me in remembrance of my grandfather who, on walks home from his job at the shoe factory, had a habit of picking up items others left on the curb and bringing them home, thinking he might somehow find a use for them. The idiom “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” also sprang to mind as I read through this collection. That phrase aligns with the opening words of this volume’s epitaph:

Trash only becomes trash if you throw it away

Let it grow and clutter and climb and spread wings and fly.

Suddenly it becomes the hot new home decor.

Like some weird sort of alchemist, Drevlow, who is also the editor-in-chief of a great literary magazine called BULL and the author of several other books, turns trash into treasure with the poems in this collection. At least I think it’s treasure. Does that make me one of the trash people? If the old, discarded boot someone tossed at a dumpster and missed fits this misfit…

Read on to learn more about his reasons for writing this book, his work at BULL, his influences, his teaching gig at Georgia Southern University, and more.