Seph Murtagh
@sephmurtagh.bsky.social
Writer. Fiction and essays in 3:AM Magazine, Minor Literature[s], & Socrates on the Beach.
Pinned
Seph Murtagh
@sephmurtagh.bsky.social
· Apr 15
For @thedodgemag.bsky.social I wrote a meditative short story about deer hunting (or about the pleasures of simply waiting in the woods, as the case may be). Big thanks to @addisonzeller.bsky.social for giving this piece a home. www.thedodgemag.com/sephmurtagh1
Renata Adler, bringing the goods in PITCH DARK. Extraordinary passage, extraordinary novel.
August 21, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Renata Adler, bringing the goods in PITCH DARK. Extraordinary passage, extraordinary novel.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates melancholy from happiness.
-- Woolf, Orlando
-- Woolf, Orlando
August 21, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates melancholy from happiness.
-- Woolf, Orlando
-- Woolf, Orlando
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
"Representing the canon that scholars of Asian American literature have built, it is the most expansive dataset to date on Asian American literature."
Data and essay: doi.org/10.18737/092...
Data and essay: doi.org/10.18737/092...
The Canon of Asian American Literature – Post45 Data Collective
This dataset traces the Asian American literary canon through nearly 1,900 scholarly citations from 1971 to 2023, capturing which authors and texts have shaped the field over time.
doi.org
August 15, 2025 at 4:27 PM
"Representing the canon that scholars of Asian American literature have built, it is the most expansive dataset to date on Asian American literature."
Data and essay: doi.org/10.18737/092...
Data and essay: doi.org/10.18737/092...
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
The thing people who are terrified don’t understand about cities is that all you need to know is what is your business and what is not your business
August 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
The thing people who are terrified don’t understand about cities is that all you need to know is what is your business and what is not your business
Ah, the sour smell of fallen, trampled fruit fermenting on city sidewalks. It's one of my favorite smells of the year. Fills me with a great inner peace. We are nearing the end of the torrid heat.
August 15, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Ah, the sour smell of fallen, trampled fruit fermenting on city sidewalks. It's one of my favorite smells of the year. Fills me with a great inner peace. We are nearing the end of the torrid heat.
Sitting in my office, starving, receiving updates from daycare that my daughter is being fed "sun butter and jelly sandwich, green beans and fruit cocktail"
August 12, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Sitting in my office, starving, receiving updates from daycare that my daughter is being fed "sun butter and jelly sandwich, green beans and fruit cocktail"
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Great new review of Jen Craig's Wall up over @greggerkesocrates.bsky.social's Socrates: "Her novels are at once obsessive attempts to give a full account of grief-laden lives, & a demonstration of the impossibility, the ridiculousness, even, of such a pursuit" socratesonthebeach.com/gus-oconnor-...
Gus O'Connor on Jen Craig — Socrates on the Beach
socratesonthebeach.com
August 6, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Great new review of Jen Craig's Wall up over @greggerkesocrates.bsky.social's Socrates: "Her novels are at once obsessive attempts to give a full account of grief-laden lives, & a demonstration of the impossibility, the ridiculousness, even, of such a pursuit" socratesonthebeach.com/gus-oconnor-...
Found the hand-drawn cocktail book that my wife and I made during our drunken shut-in covid days.
August 6, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Found the hand-drawn cocktail book that my wife and I made during our drunken shut-in covid days.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Got a lil bagatelle at beloved @hexliterary.bsky.social
August 5, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Got a lil bagatelle at beloved @hexliterary.bsky.social
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Sunday morning writing mantra, via DeLillo, from inside my cocoon of dimmed lights, closed doors, and noise-cancelling headphones: "A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."
August 3, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Sunday morning writing mantra, via DeLillo, from inside my cocoon of dimmed lights, closed doors, and noise-cancelling headphones: "A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
say it again:
4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities
demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities
demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
It's important to note here that we're not just talking about faculty & university staff. 100s of U.S. colleges are in towns or small cities where they form the major industry & lifeblood of the community. Loss of students -> loss of rent $, restaurant $, bars, bookstores, gaming stores...
The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact
August 4, 2025 at 12:30 PM
say it again:
4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities
demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities
demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
I believe these are the first four academic books to cite an episode of American Vandal, which, like, there will be prizes.
July 29, 2025 at 11:48 PM
I believe these are the first four academic books to cite an episode of American Vandal, which, like, there will be prizes.
Wrote 1000 words on Gabriel Blackwell's DOOM TOWN, a strange and deeply affecting novel that I won't soon forget.
On Gabriel Blackwell's Doom Town
I’m generally not a superstitious person, but there have been times in my life when catastrophes have piled up with such alarming speed and synchronicity, that I've been inclined to believe that the u...
substack.com
July 26, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Wrote 1000 words on Gabriel Blackwell's DOOM TOWN, a strange and deeply affecting novel that I won't soon forget.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
We're excited to start off our featured author posts with Elvis Bego's work "A Part"! Check out the rest of his work on our website (link in bio) in our Summer 2025 Issue out now!
July 16, 2025 at 4:08 PM
We're excited to start off our featured author posts with Elvis Bego's work "A Part"! Check out the rest of his work on our website (link in bio) in our Summer 2025 Issue out now!
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
I've been reading Trieste by Dasa Drndic for the last few days and it has absolutely wiped me out. Reading it next to Celan, Pound, etc., and my head is spinning. What a work of fiction - as well as a historical and documentary indictment of the world that reads it.
July 8, 2025 at 6:25 PM
I've been reading Trieste by Dasa Drndic for the last few days and it has absolutely wiped me out. Reading it next to Celan, Pound, etc., and my head is spinning. What a work of fiction - as well as a historical and documentary indictment of the world that reads it.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Happy Bloomsday to all who celebrate
June 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Happy Bloomsday to all who celebrate
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
New work in @havehashad.com today! Another cheesy little dad piece that might be the cheesiest little dad piece I’ve written yet (while also maybe the one I had the most fun with?)
our first "square" is a banger from Adam Shaw!
"And I do this again and again, again and again until I finish my last pass and a raindrop hits my hand and a few more hit the grass and I smell how sweet it is, really, the work and monotony of it all..."
https://www.havehashad.com/kk41b
"And I do this again and again, again and again until I finish my last pass and a raindrop hits my hand and a few more hit the grass and I smell how sweet it is, really, the work and monotony of it all..."
https://www.havehashad.com/kk41b
June 13, 2025 at 3:04 PM
New work in @havehashad.com today! Another cheesy little dad piece that might be the cheesiest little dad piece I’ve written yet (while also maybe the one I had the most fun with?)
My 17 month old daughter has developed an allergy to mosquitos and I'm frankly annoyed that no one, from my wife to our pediatrician to her daycare providers, seems to want to use the official name for it.
June 13, 2025 at 3:45 PM
My 17 month old daughter has developed an allergy to mosquitos and I'm frankly annoyed that no one, from my wife to our pediatrician to her daycare providers, seems to want to use the official name for it.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
“I don’t want to overstate the case, but what’s at stake is life and death”: An Interview with Ben Libman (@benlibman.bsky.social) —Cristina Politano (@monalisavitti.bsky.social)
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/29/i...
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/29/i...
“I don’t want to overstate the case, but what’s at stake is life and death”: An Interview with Ben Libman — Cristina Politano
Ben Libman is a Paris-based Canadian writer who has mined the geographical specifics of his family’s history, from Nazi-occupied Austria to post-war Canada, in order to challenge the creation…
minorliteratures.com
May 29, 2025 at 8:00 AM
“I don’t want to overstate the case, but what’s at stake is life and death”: An Interview with Ben Libman (@benlibman.bsky.social) —Cristina Politano (@monalisavitti.bsky.social)
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/29/i...
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/29/i...
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
This is my ego as a novice lit mag editor talking, but I imagine someone, somewhere will benefit from reading this entire issue whole, preferably in order of presentation.
yourimpossiblevoice.com/issue32/
yourimpossiblevoice.com/issue32/
May 24, 2025 at 5:32 PM
This is my ego as a novice lit mag editor talking, but I imagine someone, somewhere will benefit from reading this entire issue whole, preferably in order of presentation.
yourimpossiblevoice.com/issue32/
yourimpossiblevoice.com/issue32/
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Off here for now, but here’s a photo from today’s writing: Virginia Woolf’s bedroom at Monk’s House, from a 2023 visit. The fireplace features a painting by her sister Vanessa Bell of Godrevy Lighthouse in Cornwall, where they visited as children, and said to be an inspiration for To The Lighthouse.
May 21, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Off here for now, but here’s a photo from today’s writing: Virginia Woolf’s bedroom at Monk’s House, from a 2023 visit. The fireplace features a painting by her sister Vanessa Bell of Godrevy Lighthouse in Cornwall, where they visited as children, and said to be an inspiration for To The Lighthouse.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Everything about this is a tragedy, every level, from cheated freelancers to authors obscured to readers who don’t get served either.
This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?
May 20, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Everything about this is a tragedy, every level, from cheated freelancers to authors obscured to readers who don’t get served either.
Took the Substack plunge (yes, sorry, I know) and wrote a little thing about Redbud trees.
In Praise of the Redbud Tree
I have no name for them, the informal parks that sit in the middle of the residential blocks of my city.
substack.com
May 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Took the Substack plunge (yes, sorry, I know) and wrote a little thing about Redbud trees.
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
"Despite the weakness of the light, the path ahead was still visible to everyone. Then Brother Kelpius answered [...] that if he could not find his way among lesser lights, then he would never find his way at all ..."
— @unpaginated.bsky.social
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/15/b...
— @unpaginated.bsky.social
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/15/b...
Back Alley of the Universe: The Men of the Society of Women in the Wilderness — Matthew Spencer
Ancient Capital (1694-1695) Spring had come to the Wissahickon and Brother Kelpius was walking high along its banks when he chanced upon another hermit, an Englishman—their kind becoming common in …
minorliteratures.com
May 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM
"Despite the weakness of the light, the path ahead was still visible to everyone. Then Brother Kelpius answered [...] that if he could not find his way among lesser lights, then he would never find his way at all ..."
— @unpaginated.bsky.social
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/15/b...
— @unpaginated.bsky.social
minorliteratures.com/2025/05/15/b...
Reposted by Seph Murtagh
Still my favorite thing I’ve written, so I guess why the hell not share it again
minorliteratures.com/2024/06/20/o...
minorliteratures.com/2024/06/20/o...
Old World, New World — Addison Zeller
“…it matters not if you elude my arms, my heart, when my thought alone can imprison you.” — Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (tr. Edith Grossman) I. Teotihuacan An empty grid with stone jaguars. Use…
minorliteratures.com
May 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Still my favorite thing I’ve written, so I guess why the hell not share it again
minorliteratures.com/2024/06/20/o...
minorliteratures.com/2024/06/20/o...