Samuel Rafael Barber

The Bruce Bowen of absurdism. 2026 John Simmons Award for The Box in Which We Live, a story collection. Brown BA, Arizona MFA, Columbia MA, Denver PhD.

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

Everyone on this platform should move to Instagram already, but for the stragglers, my first book is available for preorder: https://t.co/92lLT7F1Kc.

It’s a shame Elon ruined this website with his Neo-Nazis as it was the only social media platform I’ve ever actually liked

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

@Aatif_Rashid Agreed—same with the eternal show vs. tell debate. All Bolaño does is tell—he overwhelms the reader with so much telling they don’t realize it as they become implicated in the plot unfolding in the background.

I’m commenting, though, because Schwartz taught me and is incredible

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

@etinarcadia3go @Teaweave Have fun reading about the Yugoslavia stuff and his Milošević fandom! Really enjoy Goalie’s Anxiety… and a few others but he’s said and done a lot of stupid crap

[garielle lutz @gariellelutz]

It was a thrill to be interviewed by Mark de Silva as part of his Unpublishables series. Many thanks!

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

People on here should move to instagram. I don't like social media and don't prefer how image based that platform is, but at least it isn't full of Nazis and bots.

I have a book coming out in the fall. I'd like to keep up with y'all. @samrafbarber over there

[Miracle Monocle 🧐 @miracle_monocle]

Is this our wildest issue yet? You be the judge: https://t.co/IbzpQiQwCA

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

RIP

https://t.co/mWo8iuGrHw

[Alvin Lu @alvinlu]

One of the great accomplishments of this novel is how it elides just enough of the details a more conventional novel would labor over, leaving only the barely visible crystalline structures holding them together, so that the result is an elegant, fractal pattern.

[George Szirtes @george_szirtes]

FOR LK

In this translation
you will look in vain for a
full-stop, Stops are there,

but hard to find. Keep
searching. Oh look, there is one!
He must have taken

breath. Time can stand still
for the blink of a whale's eye.
Then the whale goes down,

spouting as it dives.

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

Krasznahorkai is, of course, awesome

[Nick Greer @nickgreergkcin]

i am the detective who is revealed to be the killer

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

It’s likely you’ve heard all about myself and my organization from a corporate media only too willing to enact the agenda of our oligarchic overlords. It’s time Humans for a Safer North American Tree Octopus Future set the record straight at MQR:
https://t.co/lkBq5pGhPW

[Raquel Gutiérrez @raquefella]

Looking to place a few poems from my debut collection, Southwest Reconstruction (Noemi Press, out 12/1). Editors, let me know where to reach out. Thanks!

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

Pauline Kael has expressed some of the most ludicrous opinions I’ve ever come across in any genre of criticism (in particular with Kubrick). But I’d take a million wannabe Pauline Kaels over this influencer culture we’re stuck with

[one dozen rats at a keyboard @PanasonicDX4500]

we need to bring back elitism in media criticism again. people should feel ashamed if they think this is good. they should be embarrassed to go out in public.

[Samuel Rafael Barber @SamRafBarber]

I've had thoughts on so-called AI since 2016 (when I wrote this) because I was aware of Effective Altruism and found their perspective on art/life itself equally grotesque & contemptible:

https://t.co/c4Y2Y9syMD

[blake butler @blakebutler]

Submissions for WANTED [whatiwanted (dot) org] are now open exclusively to writers seeking their 1st publication

[4Columns @4_columns]

“Be it resolved that the highest aim of criticism is to complete the work of art by providing it with general social and historical significance.”—Ciarán Finlayson’s manifesto on the future of arts criticism, from this week’s summer missive https://t.co/Sl1uhXSsg4

[john @johnsemley3000]

Sean Evans: so Tom, in the 17 years between Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland, you reportedly slunk around Northern California, addicted to TV, sending crank letters to a local newspaper under the name "Wanda Tinasky"--

Thomas Pynchon (choking on NUCLEAR ASS hot sauce): holy fuck