Welcome to The Muck: Where the Work Gets Done

Writing is rarely a clean or easy process. Most of the time, it’s a struggle—a messy, complicated effort to turn a raw idea into something that actually breathes on the page.

You’ve officially joined The Muck. I named this newsletter after the imagined place where Ocala, the central figure of my collection Death Roll, was born: a meat ranch in the gut of Florida. Ocala was an alligator intended for the plate; while her body went the way of the harvest, her head was saved by a doll maker. She was reborn as something entirely unintended—a doll with the head of a gator and the body of a Victorian child.

The creative process is much the same. Out of the Muck comes the strange, the salvaged, and the new. To be a writer is to live in that swampy, fertile ground, trusting that the most vital stories only emerge when you aren't afraid to get your hands dirty in the "unpolished" parts of life.

Moving forward, this space will focus on three main areas:

The Hatchling (The Creative Life)

This is a look at the creative process in its rawest forms. I’ll take you behind the scenes of my current novel and new poems, but I’ll also share how the work intersects with the rest of my life—the labor of mothering, the tactile joy of crafting, and the disparate art projects that feed my imagination. It’s about how we hatch new ideas in the middle of a messy, beautiful life.

The Specimen Jar (The Editorial Eye)

This is a space for my personal obsessions. Rather than “industry advice,” I’ll use my editor’s lens to examine the specific things that haunt my imagination—the “bones” of a Shirley Jackson sentence, the eerie folklore of the Irish coast, or the strange artifacts that demand my attention. This is where I pull a single idea off the shelf to see why it still has teeth.

The Bellow (Our Community)

This is a space to amplify the literary community at large. From the latest releases at independent presses to the poets and prose stylists making waves in the journals, I’ll use this section to shout out the work that demands to be heard. It’s a celebration of the writers, curators, and small presses who are doing the incredible, gritty work of keeping the literary world alive.

Life is rarely perfect, and the creative process is even messier. But it’s in the muck where we find the stories that actually matter.

Before my next letter arrives:

Reply to this email and tell me—what is one small thing that made you feel inspired today?

Stay ferocious yet tender,

Trista

P.S. My new poetry collection, Death Roll, is out now! Grab your copy here!