Aaron Gwyn
@americangwyn.bsky.social
Novelist & Professor. Author of ALL GOD’S CHILDREN, WYNNE’S WAR, DOG ON THE CROSS, THE CANNIBAL OWL
Lately, I’ve been making soap. I started with a question: “What if showers could be both cleansing and Metal?”
Today, my question has been answered. 🤘💀
Today, my question has been answered. 🤘💀
December 14, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Lately, I’ve been making soap. I started with a question: “What if showers could be both cleansing and Metal?”
Today, my question has been answered. 🤘💀
Today, my question has been answered. 🤘💀
Got an advance copy of Missouri Williams’s new novel, THE VIVISECTORS, which is stunningly good—the best new work of fiction I’ve read since Benjamín Labatut’s WHEN WE CEASE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD. Williams’s novel publishes 5.26.2026. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
December 12, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Got an advance copy of Missouri Williams’s new novel, THE VIVISECTORS, which is stunningly good—the best new work of fiction I’ve read since Benjamín Labatut’s WHEN WE CEASE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD. Williams’s novel publishes 5.26.2026. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
In the new batch of Cormac McCarthy papers just made available to scholars by the Wittliff, you can find this list of “GOALS” that Cormac typed up at some point:
“Get rid of trash activities. Create an Internal Monitor. Remember dreams. Zen eating. Do not slide ‘just this one time.’”
“Get rid of trash activities. Create an Internal Monitor. Remember dreams. Zen eating. Do not slide ‘just this one time.’”
December 11, 2025 at 1:40 PM
In the new batch of Cormac McCarthy papers just made available to scholars by the Wittliff, you can find this list of “GOALS” that Cormac typed up at some point:
“Get rid of trash activities. Create an Internal Monitor. Remember dreams. Zen eating. Do not slide ‘just this one time.’”
“Get rid of trash activities. Create an Internal Monitor. Remember dreams. Zen eating. Do not slide ‘just this one time.’”
This world is not my home.
December 10, 2025 at 11:35 PM
This world is not my home.
Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) is not only a masterpiece: it’s a frighteningly prescient one. (Also, this film proves Andy Griffith
could have been the greatest actor of his generation if he hadn’t taken that detour to Mayberry).
could have been the greatest actor of his generation if he hadn’t taken that detour to Mayberry).
December 7, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Elia Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) is not only a masterpiece: it’s a frighteningly prescient one. (Also, this film proves Andy Griffith
could have been the greatest actor of his generation if he hadn’t taken that detour to Mayberry).
could have been the greatest actor of his generation if he hadn’t taken that detour to Mayberry).
Lot of ole boys who work out here in western Oklahoma lose their hearing—the wind takes it. Ranchers and roughnecks, they spend too much time on the plains, and when they’re old, that’s all they can hear—a constant breeze blowing.
December 7, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Lot of ole boys who work out here in western Oklahoma lose their hearing—the wind takes it. Ranchers and roughnecks, they spend too much time on the plains, and when they’re old, that’s all they can hear—a constant breeze blowing.
Photos from yesterday at the Cormac McCarthy Archive (the Wittliff allows scholars to take digital pics now).
Last two pages of BLOOD MERIDIAN with Cormac’s final emendations. This is the draft Cormac delivered to Albert Erskine at Random House before galleys were printed:
Last two pages of BLOOD MERIDIAN with Cormac’s final emendations. This is the draft Cormac delivered to Albert Erskine at Random House before galleys were printed:
December 5, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Photos from yesterday at the Cormac McCarthy Archive (the Wittliff allows scholars to take digital pics now).
Last two pages of BLOOD MERIDIAN with Cormac’s final emendations. This is the draft Cormac delivered to Albert Erskine at Random House before galleys were printed:
Last two pages of BLOOD MERIDIAN with Cormac’s final emendations. This is the draft Cormac delivered to Albert Erskine at Random House before galleys were printed:
Today I decided I’d try my hand at making soap. Here are bars from my first batch: beehive-themed.
December 1, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Today I decided I’d try my hand at making soap. Here are bars from my first batch: beehive-themed.
We lost Daniel Woodrell the day after Thanksgiving. He wrote about my people—the backwoodsmen of the Ozark highlands—more truthfully, more thoughtfully than anyone. I thought of his novels as friends.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
December 1, 2025 at 3:05 PM
We lost Daniel Woodrell the day after Thanksgiving. He wrote about my people—the backwoodsmen of the Ozark highlands—more truthfully, more thoughtfully than anyone. I thought of his novels as friends.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Pictured below: Jacques Derrida and Harold Bloom in the woods of Weehawken, New Jersey, agreeing to terms before their pistol duel.
November 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Pictured below: Jacques Derrida and Harold Bloom in the woods of Weehawken, New Jersey, agreeing to terms before their pistol duel.
“I will count my numberless blessings one by one.
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
November 27, 2025 at 3:09 PM
“I will count my numberless blessings one by one.
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
Something that’s always fascinated me about MOBY-DICK: it’s one of a handful of novels (ULYSSES and GRAVITY’S RAINBOW also spring to mind) that lends its reader the illusion of an education. Part of the reason for that has to do with all the texts Melville’s masterpiece is made of (e.g. the KJV).
November 25, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Something that’s always fascinated me about MOBY-DICK: it’s one of a handful of novels (ULYSSES and GRAVITY’S RAINBOW also spring to mind) that lends its reader the illusion of an education. Part of the reason for that has to do with all the texts Melville’s masterpiece is made of (e.g. the KJV).
You either die an English professor or you live long enough to see yourself teaching in the Human Narratives department.
November 19, 2025 at 11:19 PM
You either die an English professor or you live long enough to see yourself teaching in the Human Narratives department.
Just found my retirement home.
November 17, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Just found my retirement home.
László Nemes’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic fairytale, OUTER DARK, is set to start filming early next year.
November 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM
László Nemes’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic fairytale, OUTER DARK, is set to start filming early next year.
Louis C.K. was on Maher a few weeks back, talking about his novel. He bragged about not doing any research for it (“I just made it up”), which struck me as a bizarre thing for a writer to admit. I’ve read a few paragraphs floating around SM and research ain’t all he didn’t do. This is AWFUL prose.
November 11, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Louis C.K. was on Maher a few weeks back, talking about his novel. He bragged about not doing any research for it (“I just made it up”), which struck me as a bizarre thing for a writer to admit. I’ve read a few paragraphs floating around SM and research ain’t all he didn’t do. This is AWFUL prose.
Don’t know how many times I read “Sailing to Byzantium” before I realized it rhymed. Chalk that up to Yeats’s craftsmanship or me being an idgit (or a combination of both).
November 11, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Don’t know how many times I read “Sailing to Byzantium” before I realized it rhymed. Chalk that up to Yeats’s craftsmanship or me being an idgit (or a combination of both).
I don’t care how good A.I. gets, it’ll never approach Yeats. In a million years, ChatGPT couldn’t produce “disheveled wandering stars.” It couldn’t even produce “deep wood’s woven shade.”
November 10, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I don’t care how good A.I. gets, it’ll never approach Yeats. In a million years, ChatGPT couldn’t produce “disheveled wandering stars.” It couldn’t even produce “deep wood’s woven shade.”
Watching this 1998 production of KING LEAR with Ian Holm (best Lear I’ve ever seen). Lear truly wants to be just dead enough to enjoy it (“while we unburdened crawl toward death”), and it occurs to me that this particular desire destroys an awful lot of people.
November 9, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Watching this 1998 production of KING LEAR with Ian Holm (best Lear I’ve ever seen). Lear truly wants to be just dead enough to enjoy it (“while we unburdened crawl toward death”), and it occurs to me that this particular desire destroys an awful lot of people.
This morning I was thinking about something Brian Evenson told me, that Michael Ondaatje’s THE ENGLISH PATIENT contained some of the finest prose in the history of the language. Sounded a bit hyperbolic to me then, but I think Brian was onto something…
November 5, 2025 at 5:31 PM
This morning I was thinking about something Brian Evenson told me, that Michael Ondaatje’s THE ENGLISH PATIENT contained some of the finest prose in the history of the language. Sounded a bit hyperbolic to me then, but I think Brian was onto something…