September Wanders and October Destinations
A monthly literary campfire stew.
It’s Sunday morning. The coffee boils in a little pot on a campfire grate. A steady drizzle drips through the foliage. The forest is misted emerald. And all that matters here is to sit quietly hunched in the rain, warm soup in two hands, as you watch a team of squirrels wander through with satchels of blackberries to sell on the black berry market.
What’s upcoming in October, what we left behind in September, and what feels electric today. A monthly fantastical simmering stew.
September Wanders and October Destinations.
There are those cutesy Tik Tok videos where a domesticated piglet rubs snouts with a whimsical barnyard duck, and then seven kittens wander through the background and an alpaca sticks its head in the frame and it’s as if BarnYardCirCus69xoxo has just solved world hunger.
This is…not quite that.
Here’s where we came from, where Stomp’s going, and what I’m enamored with right now on this cypress swamp island of writers who hum out harmonica rhythms into the crackling night.
The October Stomp Roams Destinations.
Sunday, October 15th – “Irreverently Vulnerable” interview series with Philadelphia Author and Filmmaker J. Eliza Wall
I sit here trying to think of an accurate and positive way to describe J. Eliza Wall in one line, and I think…she is an entire box of colored pencils. Or a stew with 47 herbs. Or…okay, these are supposed to be compliments.
J. Eliza Wall is an author who last year published her debut novel with Little Creek Press, an atmospheric coming-of-age story called Like the Sun Holds the Moon. In the 2023 spring, she published her second children’s book in collaboration with Illustrator Akira Serene, called Trash Crab.
She is a filmmaker whose most recent project, the short narrative OVULE, screened at The Women’s Film Festival in Philadelphia. She is a mixed-media artist, an art educator, and a muralist who has contributed to the vibrant wallscapes planted all over the city.
I’m excited that she will be the guest for the weird and heartfelt interview series that is Irreverently Vulnerable.
Sunday, October 22nd – The Fantastical News Courier – October, 1982
A newspaper edition previewing the era of the next week’s Stomp story, complete with police reports, obituaries, and true-to-life coverage of the Fantasticals trying to live in peace (or mayhem) on the periphery of human society.
I profess that I explicitly chose 1982 for this month’s Stomp story as an allusion to the trick-or-treating scene from 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Sunday, October 29th – Stomp Halloweens in the Valley in 1982
October 1982. Stomp sits at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains and makes a wonderful Poptart n’ turnip stew. A suspicious kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) offers him a protection job, guarding a Fantastical rights activist in the San Fernando Valley.
Stomp must descend into the chaos of Halloween children, endure the terror of trick-or-treating, and learn that sometimes the best weapon in a fair fight is an aquarium full of hornets.
The Literary Sparks that Got Me Turnt Up in September.
The TALESTACK NEWS by
The TALESTACK NEWS is a segment of S.E. Reid’s
universe, which I will call…Pacific Mist Noir. Her writing, which often takes place on a surf-swept island in Puget Sound, is itself an archipelago of unique fiction islands. She writes supernatural flash fiction, atmospheric shoreline monster fiction, and even ghost empathy fiction.Whenever I come across a new fiction community, I want to light it up like the beacons of Gondor. So, this is TALESTACK NEWS:
All the freshest happenings from around Substack's Fiction Neighborhood: announcements, contests, publishing updates, and more! *FIRST and THIRD Mondays* Send suggestions and announcements to: talestack.editor@gmail.com.
Where Stomp left footprints in September.
Sunday, September 10th – Irreverently Vulnerable with “The Books That Made Us” and “Cosmographia” Creator
What approach or tool have you found is most helpful in growing your community?
Substack Notes! Since it launched back in April I’ve gone from one newsletter with 400 subscribers to two newsletters with well over 3000 subscribers! I’m probably on there a bit too much but everytime you post, engage, and chat with the lovely folk on there, the more new readers seem to be drawn in. I’ve connected with so many readers and fellow writers through the platform. It’s really made it feel like we’re all in it together, supporting and cheering each other on. It’s a lovely vibe — something all too rare on the interwebs.
This interview was whimsical, super informative, and as seen above, practical. M.E. Rothwell is a modern-day adventurer and a curator of maps. He’s also grown his Substack presence into an ally for the under-appreciated fiction community (this is going to change and change quickly – you can spray that on a mural somewhere). Read the full interview here:
Irreverently Vulnerable with M.E. Rothwell
Sunday, September 17th – The Fantastical News Courier – September 17, 1993
Yes, Stomp’s universe has a supporting newspaper. I went back in time to 1993, like Gandalf researching Isildur’s Bane, and dug up all the happenings around the country from this unsettled era. Fantasticals were starting to get Rights in legislation, but there was immense pushback from the traditional community that fears and loathes these creatures that exist on the periphery of our world.
The Fantastical News Courier - September 17th, 1993 Edition
Sunday, September 24th – Stomp Robs a Cloudbrew Beer Truck
Up here at 4,000 feet, the mountains breathed in and out in quiet meditation. Low clouds misted by without purpose, pushed gently in by the guiding hands of the Pacific Ocean. The pines moved gently in the breeze. Deep below in the valley, mining camps were specked with white tents that looked like little patches of snow that had laid themselves down softly by the Trinity River. And in this mountain forest furrow of trail, chaos blazed through like an ant having spasms in a patch of smooth sand.
Stomp weaves back and forth between his memory of a high-speed chase through the Klamath-Siskiyou Range in 1851 and 1993, as Stomp and his crew flee up the I-5 toward the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie Primitive Wilderness with a trio of juvenile endangered unicorns.
This is for sure the most action-driven story published so far, in a setting that melds the peaceful mists of the mountains with a turtle in a beer truck who wields a rocket launcher.
Stomp Robs a Cloudbrew Beer Truck
Friday, October 6th - The Battle for Fiction Relevance on Substack
(Also titled “On Growth & Encouragement: A (brief) Essay”)
Your stories are your own (unless you’re out here rippin’ and raidin’ newsletters with boarding hooks like a story pirate). Your voice is your own. You are, at a baseline, enough.
There are four routes a writer on a writing platform can go:
1.) Be supportive and encouraging toward their fellow creators.
2.) Be a salty shit-talker.
3.) Put their head down, ignore everyone, and quietly work.
4.) Throw their laptop into the nearest bay, run screaming along the pier carrying a pair of strawberry waffle cones, all the while screaming, “Ah! The bees! The bees!”
The Battle for Fiction Relevance on Substack
That’s it for this morning. Welcome to all Stomp’s new subscriber friends. See you soon. Oh, and please help me improve Stomp Roams by taking part in this serious poll filled with gravitas:
Stomp thrives because of you. Please consider fueling his wanders with a share or subscription. Follow Jon Delp at @Ljacktwain.
Can’t wait to read more about pop tarts and turnips.