John Waddy Bullion
LightNews LightNews
banner
johnwaddy.bsky.social
John Waddy Bullion
@johnwaddy.bsky.social
260 followers 250 following 300 posts
Restrooms are upstairs. Pay phone's upstairs. Pool table's upstairs. Foosball's upstairs. Cigarette machine's upstairs.
www.johnwaddybullion.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Advance praise for my collection of short stories THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS (out 11.18 from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social) from the wonderful Tom Williams
Like John Cheever, Mary Robison, and George Singleton before him, John Waddy Bullion's learned what happens when hilarity and heartbreak combine. As well, in these nine knockout stories, he operates with formal dexterity, unforgettable characters, and a striking voice. What a rare and original debut! - Tom Williams, author of Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Tales
November 11, 2025 at 5:50 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
empty submittable queue for the first time in like 5 years
Robert Redford asking “what do we do now?” in the 1972 film The Candidate
November 11, 2025 at 1:30 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Advance praise for my collection of short stories THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS (out 11.18 from
@cowboyjamboree.bsky.social) from Dina Guidubaldi
There’s a peculiar set of contrasts that exists in tiny college towns, one that John Waddy Bullion deftly captures in his collection This World Will Never Run Out of Strangers….The characters in this intertwined collection are mischievous, abandoning their prescribed roles and flipping their scripts. Students teach professors a thing or two; some townies do manage to up and leave. Bullion shows us that small-town trappings can also make a person clever, and with the right attitude, mishaps can become boons. Dina Guidubaldi, author of How Gone We Got
November 4, 2025 at 3:53 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
It’s November 1st, you know what that means

(James Brown’s “Go Power at Christmas Time” begins blasting)
A lit-up Christmas tree in the front window of a house
November 2, 2025 at 12:22 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
10/31/03: I am about to drink a bunch of Shiners and kiss this girl, who is my coworker. An excellent decision!
Me and the future Rachel Brucks Bullion on 10/31/2003
October 31, 2025 at 11:43 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
The classic Blue Bell ice cream fudge bars box, featuring a smiling middle aged man wearing a blue hat with the words “COACH” on the front, with a red coaches jacket and a blue shirt, holding a popsicle a smiling middle aged man wearing a blue hat with the words “COACH” on the front, with a red coaches jacket and a blue shirt, holding a popsicle
October 26, 2025 at 11:06 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Advance praise for my collection of short stories THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS (out 11.18 from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social) from Cynthia Shearer
Imagine that you can at last know the stories of those random faces you might have passed on the streets of some small American city you drive through --the regulars at a pizza dive, a boy hitchhiking in the rain, the manager of an adult-content emporium. American fiction's strength has always been its penchant for taking us into the borderlands that smudge any sharp distinction between the epic and the comic, and that's exactly what Bullion does here. He is particularly adept at capturing the precarity of boyhood, placing him in the same literary lineage that gave us Barry Hannah and George Saunders. Reading these stories is like coming across the Teacher's Edition, the one that includes the mysterious answers, if you know where to look. - Cynthia Shearer, author of The Wonder Book of the Air and The Celestial Jukebox
October 24, 2025 at 1:52 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Advance praise for my collection of short stories THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS (out 11.18 from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social) from @kevingrauke.bsky.social
This collection of loosely connected stories reminds us that, no matter how much we crave connection and a sense of belonging, we often fail to achieve it to any degree of satisfaction-and sometimes not at all. Bullion's young men do their very best, however, to forge identities in a lonely, latchkey landscape of a Missouri college town, where parents are checked out, if not absent, and the love is tough, if present at all. Now, this may sound like rough sledding, but its bite and poignancy are perfectly balanced with what is often riotous humor. Such a potent mixture is a rarity in today's fiction, which is why this collection is a thing to celebrate and share. Kevin Grauke, author of Shadows of Men and Yonderites
October 8, 2025 at 2:35 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
At Cosm Dallas for the TCU-ASU game but what’s more exciting is that I get to watch this lady eat a pizza
September 27, 2025 at 1:12 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Advance praise for my collection of short stories THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS (out 11.18 from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social) from @alexhigley.bsky.social
This is vibrant and crackling work full of the kind of American talk I most want to read: specific, strange, eerily familiar. I love the oddness and warmth in these stories. Alex Higley, author of True Failure
September 22, 2025 at 3:43 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
one thing they don’t tell you when you order one of these is you get to watch them cover it in microplastics first
A big tray full of microplastics
September 20, 2025 at 7:05 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
I’m eating the purple Korean corn dog at the TCU game and I don’t feel so good, gang
the “half acre Korean corn dog” available at TCU football concessions
September 20, 2025 at 5:46 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
I’ve been a fan of @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social’s work/aesthetic/whole dang deal for a long time, so I’m excited as all get-out to reveal the cover of my upcoming short story collection, dropping 11/18/25
the cover of my upcoming book, available 11/18/25 from Cowboy Jamboree Press
September 15, 2025 at 2:25 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Craig James, R-Fansville
September 13, 2025 at 11:30 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
The last shot of The 400 Blows
September 8, 2025 at 3:05 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
this was me when I hit that “Mariska” chapter and all those threads suddenly locked together
Gamer leaning forward meme
September 6, 2025 at 10:02 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
I'm convinced that I've just read the best novel of 2025 and it should come as no surprise that @alexhigley.bsky.social wrote it
Jack Bullion's 5-star Goodreads review of Alex Higley's novel True Failure: There is a chapter late in Alex Higley’s brilliant novel True Failure titled “Mariska” that made me literally sit bolt upright, with an immediate understanding of how thoroughly and profoundly the book had gripped me its thrall. I do not anticipate reading a funnier or better novel in 2025—True Failure is a masterclass in witty chaos, with a pocket universe of characters adrift in Chicago and Los Angeles, all of whom are stumbling through “the shaggy mishap of real life,” unable to resist making choices that are as calamitous as they are inevitable. Higley’s prose, as always, is sharp, funny, and unflinching, and if that wasn’t enough, the novel also boasts one of the most unforgettable depictions of a dog I’ve come across in recent literature. You have to read this book. So does Mariska Hargitay.
September 6, 2025 at 9:50 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
VARDAMAN My mother is a fish.
August 29, 2025 at 2:28 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
damn I wish I’d thought of this
an except from Tao Lin’s Paris Review piece “My College Diary.” The full text of the excerpt: I0/26 After finding Mary Robison's email address on Google, I emailed her this long email talking about Rachel and my novel and her novel.
August 7, 2025 at 1:37 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Screenshot of a Spotify playlist called “Garbage Country” The cover image is the fat “gimme da gorbage” raccoon The playlist description: “just awful trash”
July 30, 2025 at 3:00 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
One week away! See you bright and early, D and/or FW folks
Morning Fuckers, Dallas Free readings and donuts Mike Nagel John Waddy Bullion Kyle Seibel Adam Voith Deep Vellum 3000 Commerce St Dallas, TX July 19th 10:00am
July 12, 2025 at 7:36 PM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
oh no
A post from me back in April where I declare that “Lately I’ve been doing my best writing in grocery stores”
June 25, 2025 at 2:27 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
Po Campo informing Gus McRae and Woodrow Call that his “wife is in hell, where I sent her.”
June 20, 2025 at 4:38 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
this was magnificent
2500 Random Things About Me Too by Matias Viegener
June 11, 2025 at 12:58 AM
johnwaddy.bsky.social
now reading
The Big Nowhere, James Ellroy
June 8, 2025 at 2:09 AM