@cowboyjamboree
Press & online rag dedicated to grit lit & rural writing with rough edges. Survival is triumph enough. We dig Folk & Old Country music: @npcountrycovers.bsky.social. EIC: @vanwinkle.bsky.social www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com
“The narrative is carried by a strong radio script, written in the colloquial voice of the region and interspersed with laconic dialogue from characters with some of the most original names I’ve seen in any novel lately.”
Very honored to be featured on Andrew’s Friday Five today.
Are radio dramas a lost art? Not for novelist and @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social editor Adam Van Winkle, who revives the form in his novel COUNT THE DUST. Read more about the novel and Adam in today's Friday Five. #WritingCommunity andrewcareaga.com/2026/03/13/f...
It's been over a week since CJ released IN THE DESERT by @barbarabyar.bsky.social. If you haven't jumped on this wild ride yet what are you waiting for? Life's too short to miss out: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/in-the-deser...
One of the year’s best novels
Standin' on the gone side of leavin'
She found her thumb and stuck it in the breeze
She'll take anything goin' close to somewhere
She can lay it down and live it like she'd please
Rodney does Guy: youtu.be/4q5INUJ7-_o?...
Terry Allen, Untitled (The Last Lament), mixed-media: colored pencil, graphite, pastel, and gouache over a lithographic poster
It's been over a week since CJ released IN THE DESERT by @barbarabyar.bsky.social. If you haven't jumped on this wild ride yet what are you waiting for? Life's too short to miss out: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/in-the-deser...
Gawdang, that Cowboy Jamboree puts out good stuff…
Cover of Saltburn. A seal sits under a beach umbrella.
Saltburn by Drew Gummerson. A collection of overlapping short stories set in a fictionalised version of Saltburn-by-the-Sea, featuring mermaids, a foetus museum, and a psychic piece of ass, among other bizarre elements. Yes, this book is surreal, but it's also a biting commentary on capitalism, war & homophobia. At its heart is the outsider, a boy who doesn't fit in, sometimes because of his sexuality, sometimes because he turns into a girl at midnight. It has some very bleak moments but also parts that made me laugh out loud. A great read if you enjoy the bizarre, and aren't squeamish about gay sex (which there's a LOT of).
Profound and perverse, this collection of stories is set in a fictionalised Saltburn. Told with deadpan sincerity, these interconnected tales shift between playful and obscene and include - a gift shop owner exposing a scam involving seaside rock and kidnapped women, a boy developing psychic abilities after preserving an accidentally-bitten-off piece of ass and a rebellious son of the glove manufacturer who falls in love with a deep-sea diver. .
Six short stories set in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire, a few miles from Redcar, not far from Middlesbrough. Themes of poverty, grief, sexuality, sexual discovery...echoes of Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Burroughs, but set on the shores of the United Kingdom. There's a bit of the ordinary madness of Magnus Mills thrown in there as well. This is a brilliantly bizarre book, just like one of Drew Gummerson's other novels Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel that I read a couple of years ago. It's hilarious, innovative, the attention to detail is unreal and the imaginativeness unrivalled - beginning with a young boy's chaotic life as he grapples with his mother's eccentricity and the rest of the town's madness. Difficult to sum it up in a few paragraphs, one of those you have to experience. Talented writer and definitely recommend.
Happy 1st Birthday to my short story collection Saltburn!
🧂🔥🥳🍾🎊
@renardpress
Reviews: www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...
Buy: renardpress.com/books/saltbu...
Substack: open.substack.com/pub/drewgumm...
RIP Loveline!!
I read a little bit from this essay at AWP, and a woman came up to me after and said she also lost her virginity to a loser in the 90s and now she felt seen, and I was like, my job is done here.
open.substack.com/pub/stephani...
🖤✊
Four book covers: In the Desert by Barbara Byer, The Barre Incidents by Lauren Bolger, A Woman's Guide to True Crime by Mary Thorson and Every Galaxy a Circle by Chloe Clark
I saw a shirt at a reading that said "Read Women Writers." I do. Four books I have recently read, am reading, or will be reading with great anticipation very soon.
@barbarabyar.bsky.social
@renbolger.bsky.social
@pintsncupcakes.bsky.social
@marythor.bsky.social
ALSO: READ SMALL PRESSES
Ooh, that title story looks familiar. Here’s a preview to a stellar collection from a great writer: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/bodies-in-ba...
Thanks again to Mike Chin for organizing this reading & all the killer readers from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social & Malarky Books. And allowing me to do my fat-guy wannabe white guy spoken-worder schtick. youtu.be/qTrHDk99A8w?...
Photo of a book cover: In the Desert a novel by Barbara Byar. With a desert and two people in a phone booth.
Because I didn't get enough of books at #AWP26, the new @barbarabyar.bsky.social novel from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social arrived at my house today.
Hey Willie fans! New OBW ep's hitting next week. Hear Kenny Chesney, Taj Mahal, George Saunders, Tami Neilson, Jamey Johnson, Eurythmic Dave Stewart y mas talk on the way Willie Nelson's music has shaped their lives and makes the world a better place.
Hear trailer here: bit.ly/4aZa3yU
YOU'RE ALL INVITED!
On March 15th, come help me celebrate with
@theandrewkclark.bsky.social the publication of my debut novel, IN THE DESERT from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social
Links to follow!
Author with listeners in the background.
Listeners watch an author read from a book.
Listeners watch an author read.
Listeners watch an author read.
Loved reading with Lilith at AWP, @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social, @malarkeybooks.bsky.social and friends, and with @hootreview.bsky.social and Scrawl Place. The organizers found great spaces and put together amazing line ups!
Oh Loretta she's a barroom girl
Wears them sevens on her sleeve
Dances like a diamond shines
Tell me lies I love to believe
Terry Allen and Kurt Vile do Townes Van Zandt: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7r2...
Fella across town said he's looking for a man
To move some old cars around
Maybe me and Marie could find a burned-out van
And do a little settling down
Born on this day in 1944: the great Townes Van Zandt
January: @patricktrotti.bsky.social's QUIET HOURS: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/quiet-hours....
February: @stephanieaustin.bsky.social's BURN: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/burn.html
March: @barbarabyar.bsky.social's IN THE DESERT: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/in-the-deser...
In case you've been hibernating and are just waking up with the Spring weather, Cowboy Jamboree has come out of the gates like a house on fire in 2026. Just look at these bangers (in thread below):
March: @barbarabyar.bsky.social's IN THE DESERT: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/in-the-deser...
February: @stephanieaustin.bsky.social's BURN: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/burn.html
January: @patricktrotti.bsky.social's QUIET HOURS: www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/quiet-hours....
