Author: John Winkelman

Weekly Round-up, October 4, 2025

John Winkelman

A road crew preparing a street for a new layer of asphalt.

[A road crew preparing our street for a new layer of asphalt.]

This was another chaotic week. I put in a couple of long work days which left me too exhausted to participate in the fun things.

Reading

With dedicated reading time in short supply I am browsing through my large stack of unread literary and SFF magazines and journals. I have enough there to keep me occupied for at least a year.

Writing

Nothing new to report. Maybe after next Saturday.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Politics, Language
Setting: Border Town
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon, “Sweet Emotion,” from their 2005 album Sixty-Six Steps.

Interesting Links

IWSG, October 2025: The Favorite

John Winkelman

Squirrel footprints in a concrete sidewalk slab.

Hello all, and welcome to October 2025, which feels an awful lot like June 2025 here in West Michigan, with daytime temperatures staying in the mid- to upper 70s through the middle of next week. So it goes.

For the past year I have been involved with the Grand River Poetry Collective. We are slowly ramping up our events, and have even published a few books. The latest release is David Cope‘s Moonlight Rose in Blue: Collected Poems 1971-2024, and it is absolutely gorgeous! We have published a total of three books so far, with several more in the works.

Last Friday we held an open mic at Hermitage at Diamond, which is mid-renovation and thus the perfect venue for the rough-and-tumble world of poetry. I read an older poem, “Afternoon Traffic,” which was published a few years ago by Portage Magazine. That is the first time I have read a poem in public since before the COVID lockdown of 2020. It felt…good! And being around other poets, in person, was exactly what I needed after an absolutely hellish summer. There will be another open mic, as well as a reading and signing for all of the books we have published so far, this Friday (October 3).

The Grand River Poetry Collective is spinning up and online literary journal called The River. I am assisting in this endeavor which means that after six years of down-time (Caffeinated Press and The 3288 Review closed down at the end of 2019) I am again in the publishing business. So far? Feels pretty good. When the project goes live we will post the link and shout it to the world.

In other literary news, I just re-upped my membership to the Poetry Society of Michigan after several years absent. Involvement in one literary project does seem to act as an attractor for other literary projects.

Magical ConFusion, the 2026 iteration of the ConFusion Science Fiction Convention, will take place from January 30 to February 1, 2026 at the Sheraton hotel in Novi, Michigan. Once again I am the Head of Operations, which means I have about four months of quiet time, followed by four days of chaos. The “magic” in Magical ConFusion, references the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, so if you have the opportunity to attend, bring your decks! We are accepting applications for panelists, as well as ideas for panel topics. We also have plenty of room for volunteers and staff members. ConFusion is a very writerly convention, and just about my favorite event of the year.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for October 2025 is: What is the most favorite thing you have written, published or not? And why?

I think my favorite written work is the unpublished novel I wrote back in 2018, called Neighbors: A Malediction. It was a lightly fictionalized account of my interactions with an obnoxious neighbor over several years. It was my favorite, because the words seemed to flow frictionlessly and I never felt a moment of writer’s block or hesitation. I think this was because, being in the middle of this frustrating, maddening situation, the writing process felt more like memoir or Gonzo journalism than like writing a work of fiction.

And the first draft (which so far is the only draft) is pretty good! Certainly better than any of the other first drafts gathering dust in my hard drive. If I had three months of dedicated time I could whip it into shape to send off to beta readers. Times being what they are, if I dedicated myself to the task in my free moments I could probably reach that point by next summer.

With the Month of Writing (formerly known as NaNoWriMo) on the horizon I have thought about editing Neighbors during that time, but instead I will probably do what I did a couple of years ago, and use my Story Prompt Generator to come up with an idea a day to whip my writing muscles back into shape.

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group Badge
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

 

September 2025 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

Summer was frustrating and hellish so I indulged in a little retail therapy. Poetry and philosophy help me settle my nerves.

Acquisitions

Books acquired in the month of September 2025

  1. Salvage #15 [2025.09.07]
  2. Jonathan M. Metzl, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland [2025.09.07] – Purchased from Books & Mortar.
  3. Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (Verso Books) [2025.09.20]  – Purchased from Black Dog Books and Records.
  4. Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan (editors), Autotheories (MIT Press) [2025.09.26] – Purchased on a whim.
  5. Camille Newsom, Purgatory Junkie (Main Street Rag Enterprises) [2025.09.26] – Purchased from the author.
  6. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Critical Editions) [2025.09.27] – Purchased on a whim.
  7. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil [2025.09.29] – Purchased after watching Hannah Arendt.
  8. Mmeory (Air and Nothingness Press) [2025.09.29] – Reward from a recent Kickstarter campaign

Reading

Books I read in September 2025

Books

  1. Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth (re-read) [2025.09.14]
  2. Juan Felipe Herrera, Notes on the Assemblage [2025.09.18]
  3. Yuri Herrera (Lisa Dillman, translator), Season of the Swamp [2025.09.26]
  4. Camille Newsom, Purgatory Junkie [2025.09.28]

Short Prose

  1. Kameron Hurley, “Traveling Light, In Love” [2025.09.07]
  2. Jim C. Hines, “No Such Thing as a Free Twinkie” [2025.09.21]

 

Weekly Round-up, September 27, 2025

John Winkelman

[The interior of the west wall of the old church at Hermitage and Diamond, the late afternoon sun shining through the stained glass window.]

This was another intense week at work, doing the final round of bug fixes before the next big push. My brain was already fried from (gestures at everything), but now it is breaded, deep-fried, and slathered with ranch dressing.

Impotent and incontinent president Donald Trump has made a feeble attempt to name ANTIFA a terrorist organization. Being a coward, Trump will undoubtedly declare anyone who doesn’t have a MAGA hat in their profile pictures to be ANTIFA. Trump is a fine example of why presidents should be tested for late-stage syphilis before being allowed to hold office.

And to anyone who thinks “ANTIFA” is more of a threat to this country than is MAGA, I point out that MAGA is in fact the American fascist party, and therefore anything “ANTIFA” does in response to the existence of MAGA is de facto self-defense.

Reading

I am still working my way through Baudrillard’s Simulation and Simulacra. It is a slow process. Not because of the difficulty of the text, though it is challenging. My problem is a lack of dedicated time in which I can focus on learning what he has to teach. This is not a book for browsing between laying down and falling asleep.

I ordered Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, and it should arrive in a couple of days. The excerpts I have read indicate that the information contained therein (as well as The Origins of Totalitarianism) will be especially pertinent in the days and years to come. Actually, they have been pertinent since 2016, and really since about 1980. And REALLY really, since about 1969.

Writing

With the writing event calendar filling up, I am reviewing old poems and short stories with an eye toward assembling a chapbook or two. For new writing, maybe something during November, if I can focus long enough to get my thoughts together.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Fae, Dreams
Setting: Library
Genre: Fantasy

Listening

The Serpent Power, “Endless Tunnel” from their 1967 album The Serpent Power.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, September 20, 2025

John Winkelman

A katydid on a white porch rail.

[A katydid on the rail of our porch.]

The last few months have been exceptionally chaotic, even by the standards of this already-chaotic year. I don’t recall the last time I had extended periods of so little time to myself. I don’t remember the last time my brain was so full of static.

I don’t like it.

However, with my partner out of town for a few days I found myself with some solitude and free time. I celebrated by watching Hannah Arendt, which I recommend to everyone. I have read some of Arendt‘s work, though not in at least a couple of decades. The Origins of Totalitarianism sits in my nonfiction bookcase, and I am pretty sure I have Eichmann in Jerusalem around here somewhere.

The political landscape here in the USA, particularly in the days following the death of the popular anti-intellectual influencer out in Utah, is becoming dangerous. Studying up on the banality of evil seems a good thing to do when the 47 administration seems to be following the exact same playbook used in Germany in the late 1930s.

Arendt points out that the many cogs in the machinery of evil may not be themselves malevolent, but the fact that they allow themselves to become cogs, to subsume their humanity in the larger whole of the destructive force, is an important point to recognize. This does not absolve the cogs of the responsibility of their actions, but it explains how easy it is to become a cog in the first place.

I recently read The Unaccountability Machine, which explores the ways that systems (corporations, governments, etc.) can make it impossible for the participants in those systems to act against the rules of the system. We can learn some things about authoritarian and totalitarian governments from the study of cybernetics.

Reading

I finished Notes on the Assemblage, and am now casting about for the next thing. Probably Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Writing

Still in a slump.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Aliens, Apocalypse
Setting: Lost City
Genre: Solarpunk

Listening

The Eurythmics, “Missionary Man” from their 1986 album Revenge.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, September 13, 2025

John Winkelman

An abandoned trucker hat in a concrete stairwell. The hat is black, with the word HUMBLE embroidered in yellow.

[Found in a stairwell in a downtown Grand Rapids parking garage.]

This past week was crazy. Both not enough and too much work. And the world took a decided turn for the chaotic a couple of days ago.

Master Yen Hoa Lee, my instructor of tai chi and kung fu for the past 35 years, passed away on September 1. His obituary is here. I will write more about him when I have the emotional energy to do so.

Reading

I am re-reading Jim Harrison’s Returning to Earth, which I tend to do when someone close to me dies.

Writing

Nothing new to report. Thinking about what I will do in November.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Mutants, Kaiju
Setting: Boardroom
Genre: Noir

Listening

David Bowie, “Ricochet”, from Bowie’s 1983 album Let’s Dance.

Interesting Links

August 2025 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

August was an insanely busy month for me, but did offer up occasional reading time, mostly in airplanes, and at airports, and sitting in the public areas of convention centers before anybody else was awake.

Acquisitions

  1. Kaja and Phil Foglio, An Entertainment in Londinium (Airship Entertainment) [2025.08.05] – Kickstarter reward
  2. Eugene Vodolazkin, The History of the Island (Plough Publishing) [2025.08.14] – Purchased at Snowbound Books in Marquette, Michigan
  3. Juan Felipe Herrera, Notes on the Assemblage (City Lights Books) [2025.08.14] – Purchased at Snowbound Books in Marquette, MI
  4. Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Colleen Doran (artist), Good Omens: The Official (and Ineffable) Graphic Novel (Dunmanifestin, Ltd.) [2025.08.25] – Reward for a Kickstarter which persevered through multiple rounds of slings and arrows over the past couple of years.
  5. Zig Zag Claybourne, Amnandi Sails (Obsidian Sky Books) [2025.08.29]

Reading

Books

  1. Dan Davies, The Unaccountability Machine [2025.08.17]
  2. Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (re-read) [2025.08.24]
  3. Dennis E. Taylor, For We Are Many (re-read) [2025.08.25]
  4. Dennis E. Taylor, All These Worlds (re-read) [2025.08.26]

Short Prose

  1. Kameron Hurley, “The Wonder” [2025.08.28]

Weekly Round-up, August 30, 2025

John Winkelman

Great Golden Digger Wasp on a mint blossom.

[Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) on a mint blossom.]

And so ends the month of August. Cooler evenings mean better sleep, if not necessarily more sleep. That comes with retirement or other forms of unemployment. I am almost fully recovered from the travels and travails of the past several weeks, but could use another couple of decades of down-time.

Reading

Other than the slow progress through Simulacra and Simulation, I am giving my brain a break and just wandering through my shelves like one might browse the contents of a bookstore.

Writing

This week I tried to catch up on my journaling – writing down the events of the past few weeks so that in the years and decades to come, I don’t lose those memories.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Kaiju, Apocalypse
Setting: Frontier
Genre: Science Fiction

Listening

A random comment on a social media prompted an old memory to surface, and I went down a small rabbit-hole of music research.

The Cookies, “On Broadway”, from their 1954 album Presenting The Cookies.

The Crystals, “On Broadway”, from their 1962 album Twist Uptown.

The Drifters, “On Broadway”, released in 1963.

George Benson, “On Broadway”, from his 1978 album Weekend in L.A.

Gary Numan, “On Broadway”, from Numan’s live album Living Ornaments ’79.

Clem Curtis & The Foundations, “On Broadway”, released in 1984.

Interesting Links

  • The Phersu Atlas looks like an amazing resource for history buffs and scholars. Fully interactive. limited functionality at the free tier, but loads of information at the (reasonably priced) paid tiers. Discovered in the article “Dead States, Living Borders: Three Historical Cases of ‘State Revival’: Armenia, Vietnam, and Poland” by Lorenzo Hofstetter at Naked Capitalism.
  • “Legal battle erupts between Michigan school librarian, activist parent” (Kim Kozlowski, Bridge Michigan). Another baseless attack on a librarian by the cowardly neo-Nazis of Moms for Liberty. Moms for Liberty’s stated goal is to stand up for parental rights. The only parental right Moms for Liberty is really interested in is the right of conservative parents to sexually assault their own children. The reason the members of Moms for Liberty want to ban all books dealing with gender and sexuality is because they don’t want their own kids to be able to understand or describe what their parents are doing to them. Everyone who supports Moms for Liberty’s book-banning goals should immediately be reported to Child Protective Services. There are no facts which contradict this statement.

Weekly Round-up, August 23, 2025

John Winkelman

A sign warning of the potential presence of snakes and alligators, at the edge of a sidewalk, at a facility in Orlando, Florida.

[A sign warning of the potential presence of snakes and alligators, at the edge of a sidewalk, at a facility in Orlando, Florida.]

I am back from a somewhat-sudden couple of weeks of travel. Z and I spent six days driving approximately 1,500 miles around Lake Michigan, visiting friends and family in Bloomington, IL, Madison, WI, Marquette, MI and Sault Ste Marie, MI, as well as stops at various places in between. We deemed this a necessary trip, as our family members are aging at the expected pace, which is to say, faster than we would like.

We returned home late Saturday afternoon, then I immediately began preparing for a work trip to Orlando. We left for the airport a little after 7:00 Sunday morning, and by late afternoon I was in Florida.

I spent three days doing work stuff, then hopped the plane for home. Z picked me up at the Grand Rapids airport around 11:45 Wednesday evening, and we arrived back home around 1:00 am Thursday.

And now I am tired, and very much looking forward to NOT traveling for a few months.

Reading

I finished The Unaccountability Machine while en route to Orlando, and made good headway in Simulacra and Simulation while at the work event. By the time I boarded the flight home my brain was complete mush, so I loaded up the wonderful We are Legion (We are Bob), the first book in the Bobiverse series by Dennis Taylor. It was just what my brain needed after such an exhausting summer.

Writing

Per events of the past couple of weeks, nothing here. Not even journaling.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Evolution, Colonization
Setting: Virtual Reality
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

Starbuck, “Moonlight Feels Right“, released in December 1975. After picking me up at the airport, Z suggested we stop somewhere for food, as I had not eaten since breakfast. So we stopped at The Grand Coney for some comfort food. A song came on the radio which I vaguely recognized, though I couldn’t make out any of the lyrics. So I searched “70s song marimba solo”, and this was the first result. So if your day can be improved by a marimba solo, this is the song for you.

Interesting Links

  • “James Dobson, Burn in Hell” (Erik Loomis, Lawyers, Guns, and Money) – Conservative Christian child abuser extraordinare James Dobson was dragged squealing and bleating to his much-deserved reward. He was 89 years old, which means he lived about 88 years too long. He made a career of instructing conservative Christians on the best ways to beat their children to achieve the desired result of reducing them to the status of frightened animals instead of fully-realized human beings. Dobson was an active supporter of noted child rapist Donald Trump, which is really no surprise, as both men are held up as heroes by the white Evangelical church specifically because of these predilections. And if any conservative Christians read this entry and feel insulted, I would like to point out that it is not the job of real people to put any effort into differentiation between “good” conservative Christians and “bad” conservative Christians. If you don’t want to be lumped in with the bad ones, then you need to clean your house.