If we are going to kick off a literary renaissance, then not only writers are going to need to step up their game, but READERS TOO.

Today’s 50-minute deep dive is for all my readers out there who want to not just read DEEPER, but learn how to let literature touch their SOUL.

And to do that, you’ll have to take the critic/reviewer that lives in your mind out back and CAP THEM.

I am done with flat criticism. I am done with book reviews.

You want to know how a literary renaissance starts? When we let the words from the greatest authors of all time GO DEEP, to our mystical idealism, to our longing, to that DAWG INSIDE, that idiosyncratic schizo soul we kept hidden away.

However, that’s not enough…

Today’s video is about what to do once you let the WORDS IN.

What to do with that power, how to bring it out to the world and change it.

I believe literature can change our lives and, in turn, change the world.

My goal is to not only wake up a billion new readers, but WAKE UP A BILLION NEW TRANSFORMATIVE READERS.

It STARTS NOW.

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance, click here to join.

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Now, in art and literature, birds have been ravaged and flattened into endless clichés: the caged bird, the dark raven bringing omens, and birds as symbols of freedom.

Shapeshifting, mystical travel, birdsong, green language, trance, and true wonder are absent from modern literature, and if they do exist, have been imprisoned in the fantasy and magical realism genres.

However, in today’s segment of the symbol literacy course, we will study the authors who still remember the true cry of the raven, who can write directly about birds not just as a symbol, but who bring birds’ ritual vision, their patterns of flight, and rhythm to their work with complex and aesthetic framings/metaphors.

Plus, of course, we will have to study the mythological origins of birds in literature and our animistic relationship to them.

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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That you can write consistent beautiful poetry by just relying on an initial feeling, image, or moment.

Sure, it sounds great in theory, but most sentimental Instagram poets, boring literary poets, and confusing spiritual poets never learned the most difficult things a poet must do in every poem: leaving behind the initial inspiration and feeling and finding the real subject.

This is what separates poetry from prose. This is what enables the associative leaping that poetry is known for.

In today’s video, I am going to do a deep dive into the subjects that trigger our poetry, what to do with that, and how to mine your unconscious to find that associative distance where the magic happens.

To do this, we will analyze some of the best poems of all time and look at my evolution as a poet, away from pure inspiration, to the more associative and trusting approach we’ll be discussing today.

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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I don’t buy the toxic mindset that writers shouldn’t worry about reviving literature, or that it matters. We’ve let the pessimists, the nihilists, the university writers, the reclusive ARTISTS, and the rest of the good ol’ boy club run literature into the ground for decades, it’s time for a change, because, guys, IT AIN’T WORKING.

It’s due time to PUT ALL THE CHIPS ON THE TABLE and actually start doing shit that works, but the only way that can happen is if we know what works.

Well, today, I’ll talk about the only eighteen pathways of reviving literature, and we’ll figure out together what we are leaving behind, and what’s going FORWARD on this LITERARY RENAISSANCE TRAIN that isn’t stopping until we storm Penguin Random House HQ, until we get real literature from dangerous authors in the hands of every potential reader out there, and until we RAISE THE BASELINE.

So let me LOGIC BRO OUT, for just a moment, and get OBJECTIVE while collapsing into waves of subjective mania, and then let’s get to WORK

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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duende drones effloresced
                                           into my sightline —

the night before, 
Sekhmet's blood
                                  flooded
the xeriscape Desert floor

unquenched, high noon 
ignited my infrared body

to appear with you tonight

            at the M Cave

where the feds obliterated Kenny Veach

where we'd                     redshift 
across the adrenaline darkness
where    eros    would ionize us
with         death valley salts 
where our chromatic qualia would
telemetrically 
stipple the sky

before the duende drones found us —

another alien on fox news  

                    an f-22
shrieks                
                   one hundred feet overheard

they'll never let us
into the M Cave 
this is why we have
                      fentanyl         in the osprey's wings
why phantom orbs 
                     swarm the glow outside 
                                 of your father's trailer —
he doesn't hear the coyotes crying 
at the witch's temple       when your window opens 
he doesn't know that tonight,
outside this urban terrarium
in the airless wind
   my 4Runner
                will climb away 
from Vegas     into the darkening mountains

the stratosphere’s needle shakes —

I'll take you higher than  
                           the Luxor's pyramid
                                      further than your 
                                             childhood Eucharist
          
shadow rap on the cassette —
my sciomancy drawing 
        black cicadas out of  
           the flock cameras 

listen: I hear helicopters coming —
              beneath them
   the pulsing of millions 
            of datura blooming 
       
we once knew the Desert with its hidden gardens —

with only two miles to go,
what are you saying? 
that you never learned
the names of the flowers? 

the canyon narrows, 
and when we get out
you'll follow me through a Desert of doors
toward the Cottonwoods

I don’t care if you’ve read these novels before or this is your first time; I want everyone to roll up, meet some other awesome readers in the breakout rooms, and share your best theories and ideas with the group!

Because everyone has a take on Judge Holden and Fight Club… And we want to hear yours! Over the next month in my content, I have some awesome videos planned on both novels, plus explorations into how masculinity, our desire, and our conception of history are all manufactured.

Excited to see everyone there!

Here is the schedule and link to the club

August: All times are in PST

8/22

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy - 9-10:15 AM

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - 10:15-11:15 AM

Click here to join the club and get access to hundreds of hours of literature/writing courses, and support the literary renaissance!

For the repressed and mediocre author, who has built their identity on imitating authors and established forms, they are more than cooked, and sometime within the next year or two, will have work that won’t read any different than AI prose.

AI has trained itself on every novel ever written, on the billions of HOT TAKE culture war takes online, and the endless bland book/movie reviews published in academia and newspapers.

The time has come for the schizos, the savants, the authors who aren’t scared to not be formulaic, to stand out from the pack.

Today’s video will talk about what writers will be replaced, and what writers will have more readers than they know what to do with, once the AI apocalypse is over.

See everyone in book club tomorrow!

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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Over the past five decades, two ideologies of improvement have pervailed in the world of writing, and both have failed to produce a collective of great writers.

First, there are the independent authors who believe they can become great through just writing, by studying the greats, putting the time in, and existing in silence. Most of these authors reject the MFA approach, but never get their writing or careers off the ground.

Second, there are authors who think that studying craft, only producing stories for Substack/workshops, and networking in the industry will help them produce great literature. Many of these authors do get books published, but almost none of them have an impact on the world of literature.

If we continue with these mindsets, or even combine them, there will be no literary renaissance. Sure, there will be outliers who break through with these approaches, but at large, without a new mindset, without a new approach, the world of literature will continue to decline.

This video doesn’t provide the exact game plan or answers, but rather discusses high-leverage mindsets from both sides of the aisle, including a discussion of my five favorite craft books that can hopefully, as a collective, get us moving in the right direction.

Thank you, guys, for everything, and see you guys soon in the next video!

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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In this prophetic poem, Blake writes about the American Revolution, but not as a historical event, rather as a metaphysical revolution against the THOUSAND YEAR REIGN OF URIZEN (the logic bros.)

Blake’s approach, as always, is WILD, as Blake viewed America not as a birth of freedom and hope, but rather the UNLEASHING of the Orc energy into the world for the first time in a long time, and throughout the poem, Blake pits that ORC energy against the DRAGON from across the Atlantic.

And of course, my analysis of the poem combines close-reading analysis with wild takes on America, the founding fathers, how George Washington, Mick Jagger, hippies, and the Pentagon are connected, and so MUCH more.

The course is gaining steam, so I REALLY recommend going back to episode one and working your way through it, because the library of esoteric vocabulary and ideas keeps building and BUILDING!

So, I will keep RAISING the stones on my end, and on your end, I want you to carry the fire of Blake and the literary renaissance. I love you all and see you soon for a new video in the symbol-literacy course on BIRDS.

If you guys want to watch the full video and get access to the William Blake Course, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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I’ve been reading Harold’s work on here for over a year, listening to his literary podcast with , 1StoryPod, and recently read his debut novel Tropicália.

I loved this interview because Harold wasn’t scared to discuss what it FEELS like to be a modern writer, with all the resentment against other writers and the industry, the wins, the contradictions, and the journey of getting better.

As always, the podcast was all over the place. However, there are some GEMS in here, and Harold is one of the best examples: success in this space is not LUCK but is built through years of hard work. He shows up with new posts and podcasts every week, is consistently publishing new novels, and is highly active in in-person spaces across the country. Plus, hearing his story about a publisher reaching out to compile his Substack posts into a book should be encouraging to everyone out there.

So, everyone, go BUY Harold’s debut novel, go sub to him on YouTube and Substack, and let’s keep this LITERARY RENAISSANCE GOING.

Before many of us picked up a pen or wanted to be writers, we were unconsciously programmed by the publishing classification system into genre logic, which made us constrained, shelf-conscious writers rather than imaginative and dangerous writers pushing the limits.

Things have gotten so bad that literary fiction, which resisted commercial classification systems for centuries, has now become nothing more than flattened genre fiction with approved pathways to discuss morality, interiority, and trauma. The workshop mindset is nothing more than enforced conventions masquerading as taste, ambition, and realism.

In today’s video, I want to talk about how the genre mindset and the publishing world's segmenting of modern writers hurt our ability to write masterpieces more than anything else, including digital technology, social media, and so much more.

I will also talk about the solution to escape this (including how not to fall into this trap while promoting your own work) and how to become a dangerous writer and thinker again.

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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I am super excited for the book club, as this is one of my favorite novels and is a great introduction to Murakami’s works, or, if you're so-so about the Murakami you’ve read, a good display of his literary abilities.

The video above deep dives into what the book is about, why you should read it, and what we’ll be discussing about it in the club. Can’t wait to see everyone there!

Here is the schedule and link to the club

7/25

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - 9-10:15 AM

Joe was my creative writing professor back at UNLV, and he BLEW MY MIND, and without him, Write Conscious would have never happened. He helped me uplevel my view of writing, reading, and the process of becoming a real writer.

So, today, we are going to talk to him. But, before that, I hit a Brett Easton Ellis-type intro where I talk about my lead-up to his class, the ghosting of my ex, the drugs, the LORE, and then what it felt like to be around the first serious writer of my life.

Plus, we’ll read and examine part of my story that I workshopped in his class, and THEN…

We will hear from Joe for over 90 minutes, where we discuss….

• his novel, The All-American

• why literary fiction still matters for men

• how Joe approached what it means to be an American, through immigration, deportation, and other transformative and emotional framings

• finding the discipline to be a good writer

• his favorite books

• deep dives into what literary fiction is and its differences from genre (some of my favorite stuff)

• how to stop writing abstract prose

• craft books

and so much more!

If you want to support Joe, of course, buy his book, join his email list on his website (he emails you only about book updates like once or twice a year, lol), and keep doing your part in the literary renaissance.

Next up on the podcast, we are going to shake things up and talk to a shadow figure on Substack, a voice of the voiceless, who has been on a generational run on Substack lately. See you then!

The pipeline of get short stories published in literary magazines » get an agent » sign a novel deal is also dead, and almost no authors are getting novel deals that way anymore.

However, Substack has resurrected the short story. But not for everyone. The authors who know what they’re doing (which has nothing to do with writing skill) have used their Substack stories to pick up major publishing deals for their novels, without ever having to leave Substack. While other authors publish dozens of short stories into the void, and can’t even get more than a dozen people to read them.

In today’s video, I am going to talk about the state of short stories at large, with discussions on

• The actual number of short story collections being published

• How many agents and readers actually read short stories in literary magazines

• An analysis of Substack authors who used their short stories to get novel deals and what they did differently from the average Substack fiction author

• Examining new short story authors on Substack, and why they will get publishing deals eventually.

• A discussion on how writing short stories on Substack is better than getting an MFA in all regards, and no, you can’t do both at the same time.

• Why writing your stories on Substack, as you would for a literary magazine submission, is a terrible idea.

• How many short stories should you be posting

• Why you don’t need to post short stories at all to Substack, and examples of indie fiction authors who are selling books and making waves without publishing any fiction to Substack

• Plus, so much more!

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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This month, we are reading what many believe is Murakami’s best novel,

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

I love this novel. As I first read through Murakami’s bibliography, I knew this was the one I had to read last, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The magical realism in this novel is on fire and perfect.

If you haven’t read Murakami, this is his masterpiece and the best place to start.

I would still encourage you to join if you can’t make the call, because you can

• Watch the recorded calls, which will be posted below

• Lurk and listen to the call while it’s live if you’re busy with your family, commuting, working, or doing whatever. I am 100% fine with you popping in, saying your thoughts, and leaving if you’re super busy!

• FYI, beginners and expert readers are all welcome :)

We will meet on the date below at 9 AM PST on Zoom and talk for 75 minutes

7/25 - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Zoom Link and Book Club Call Recording (Book Club call links are updated the day of the call below)

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At some point in your writing career, you’re going to get mad; you’re going to want to write about a cause, a movement, politics, something happening in the news, and that urge, which countless authors have followed, has led to countless cringe-worthy pieces of poetry.

I can’t tell you how many crappy political poems I’ve read on Instagram or Substack, seen on TV, or heard at poetry readings.

Sometimes even from poets who I know are good!

For many authors who write poetry from intuition and flow, the original creative urge comes from a feeling, a moment in nature, or an image that drives the initial framing of the poem. However, when an author says, “I want to write about this,” that initial framing is lost, which can cause the work to fail in countless ways.

So, in today’s presentation, we are going to see how eight legendary poets handled their approach to revolutionary poetry when the call came, and how they transitioned from writing about lemon trees to writing political poetry so strong that it got them killed.

And what’s crazy is that all the poems followed the same system and used the same elements to really drive the point home, which leads me to believe that all of us can write poetry of this caliber too if we know what to do.

Plus, we’ll review one of my poems and see if I failed or succeeded in following the pattern I talk about!

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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Blake predicted our imaginative fast-content culture, where worldbuilding, always-innovating, fantasy, invention, hacking creativity with routines, aesthetics, psychedelics, flow states, remote viewing, and all the end discourse do nothing but put more mediocre art into the world.

Imagination is much more than that, and in today’s episode, we are going to deep-dive into Blake’s theories of the imagination through his poetry, prose, and art, and how Blake kept innovating and creating great art.

This is one of my favorite videos I’ve ever done, and will motivate and reorient everyone, whether you’re a casual reader or writer.

If you guys want to watch the full video and get access to the William Blake Course, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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At this very moment, I am building the supergroup, the new Wu-Tang clan of writers, and in the stream, I first show you guys why you should be doing the same thing.

Writers, for way too long, have been lone wolves, thinking that they’re just ONE NOVEL, 1 lucky BREAK away, from making it, if the publishing gods would bless them.

However, that isolation, compounded by writers' introversion and the technological prison cells we’ve all been placed in, has killed authors’ ability to reach their highest potential.

Great Writing alone is not enough anymore.

In the stream, I cover the three things authors need and the coordinated action we all need to start taking to get the ball rolling.

At the start of July, expect to see the literary renaissance all over your Substack feed, as I am ready to coordinate the community into MASSIVE action.

If you guys want to watch the full livestream, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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In today’s presentation, I’ll be breaking down Blake’s poem Visions of the Daughters of Albion, which is not only his most modern poem, but which is a commentary on the male loneliness epidemic, the destruction of society through “free love”, the nightmare of The Red Pill movement, and most importantly, what true love and true vision actually are.

The more I read Blake, the more I realize that he really wasn’t messing around. He saw hundreds of years into the future, the problems society was hurtling toward, and understood that the logic bros (Urizen) would never allow us to solve any of our main psychological problems through technology, government, or religion, all of which are controlled by hyper-rationality.

All our problems are spiritual problems, which means only a spiritual approach can solve them. Today’s episode will focus on the malignant approach our society has toward sexuality and love, and we will follow Blake through his poem, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, for the resolution.

I will say, reading this poem and making this presentation have made me move some malignant, closed-minded goalposts I’ve kept entrenched since I was about fifteen, and I am really grateful for that. I hope you guys will have a similar transformation after reading the poem and watching this.

Thank you, guys, for the support, and see you soon in the next Blake video, which will cover his poem, America: A Prophecy

If you guys want to watch the full video and get access to the William Blake Course, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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Think about it, Infinite Jest, The Brothers Karamazov, Blood Meridian, Moby-Dick, East of Eden, Hamlet, Dune, Suttree, Absalom, Absalom, Sometimes a Great Notion, Gravity’s Rainbow, all feature fatherless characters or have fathers driving the malignant actions or individuation of the protagonists.

Plus, with authors like Mishima, McCarthy, Wallace, and Faulkner, their father trauma bleeds into all their novels.

Modern literature feels empty, doesn’t have that IT factor, doesn’t connect to the darkest parts of our being, because we’ve replaced the father, in modern society, with influencers, politicians, podcasters, and internet communities, while simultaneously killing the main modality of growth that the father provided, initiation.

Today’s livestream presentation will be a full breakdown of all these concepts, with some Q&A at the end.

If you guys want to watch the full video, join the most active book club in the world, get 100+ hours of content like this, and support me and the literary renaissance - click here to join.

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