Aaron Gwyn
@americangwyn.bsky.social
Novelist & Professor. Author of ALL GOD’S CHILDREN, WYNNE’S WAR, DOG ON THE CROSS, THE CANNIBAL OWL
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Aaron Gwyn
@americangwyn.bsky.social
· Sep 18
Last of the Cowboys
A short story written by Aaron Gwyn exclusively for Panoptica and our upcoming Stories of America series.
www.panoptica.ai
My new short story, “Last of the Cowboys,” just went live at Panoptica. Very proud of this one. If you’re interested, you can read it for free by clicking below:
www.panoptica.ai/a/last-of-th...
www.panoptica.ai/a/last-of-th...
How I feel at the end of every semester:
December 2, 2025 at 11:35 PM
How I feel at the end of every semester:
Today I decided I’d try my hand at making soap. Here are bars from my first batch: beehive-themed.
December 1, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Today I decided I’d try my hand at making soap. Here are bars from my first batch: beehive-themed.
As someone who’s been a professor at a state university for 22 years, I’d advise anyone teaching in higher ed to act as though everything you say in class, put in an email, write in the margins of a student essay will become public discourse.
Act as though you’re a target: you are.
Act as though you’re a target: you are.
December 1, 2025 at 7:12 PM
As someone who’s been a professor at a state university for 22 years, I’d advise anyone teaching in higher ed to act as though everything you say in class, put in an email, write in the margins of a student essay will become public discourse.
Act as though you’re a target: you are.
Act as though you’re a target: you are.
We lost Daniel Woodrell the day after Thanksgiving. He wrote about my people—the backwoodsmen of the Ozark highlands—more truthfully, more thoughtfully than anyone. I thought of his novels as friends.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
December 1, 2025 at 3:05 PM
We lost Daniel Woodrell the day after Thanksgiving. He wrote about my people—the backwoodsmen of the Ozark highlands—more truthfully, more thoughtfully than anyone. I thought of his novels as friends.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Rest in peace, Daniel: I’ll do my meager part to ensure your work lives on.
Both beautiful and terrifying, Katya’s sublime essay in yesterday’s New York Times is a piece of writing that needs to be read (at least) twice: once for its insights, once for the pleasure of its precise, lyrical prose. Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/o...
Opinion | Your Phone Isn’t a Drug. It’s a Portal to the Otherworld.
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Both beautiful and terrifying, Katya’s sublime essay in yesterday’s New York Times is a piece of writing that needs to be read (at least) twice: once for its insights, once for the pleasure of its precise, lyrical prose. Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/o...
“Alan Dershowitz? The charismatic?”
November 27, 2025 at 10:20 PM
“Alan Dershowitz? The charismatic?”
Pictured below: Jacques Derrida and Harold Bloom in the woods of Weehawken, New Jersey, agreeing to terms before their pistol duel.
November 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Pictured below: Jacques Derrida and Harold Bloom in the woods of Weehawken, New Jersey, agreeing to terms before their pistol duel.
“I will count my numberless blessings one by one.
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
November 27, 2025 at 3:09 PM
“I will count my numberless blessings one by one.
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
I. My teeth are sound.
I. The roof of my cave is sound.
I. I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
I. Yet.”
Something that’s always fascinated me about MOBY-DICK: it’s one of a handful of novels (ULYSSES and GRAVITY’S RAINBOW also spring to mind) that lends its reader the illusion of an education. Part of the reason for that has to do with all the texts Melville’s masterpiece is made of (e.g. the KJV).
November 25, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Something that’s always fascinated me about MOBY-DICK: it’s one of a handful of novels (ULYSSES and GRAVITY’S RAINBOW also spring to mind) that lends its reader the illusion of an education. Part of the reason for that has to do with all the texts Melville’s masterpiece is made of (e.g. the KJV).
Charlie Brown’s a psychopathic killer, but so what? Plenty of them around.
November 24, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Charlie Brown’s a psychopathic killer, but so what? Plenty of them around.
I only got to enjoy my PhD for about 12 hours. The day after my dissertation defense, I walked into the comp class I was teaching and said, “Well, you can finally call me Dr. Gwyn.”
A kid in the front row nodded and said, “Dr. Gwyn…Medicine Woman.”
A kid in the front row nodded and said, “Dr. Gwyn…Medicine Woman.”
November 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I only got to enjoy my PhD for about 12 hours. The day after my dissertation defense, I walked into the comp class I was teaching and said, “Well, you can finally call me Dr. Gwyn.”
A kid in the front row nodded and said, “Dr. Gwyn…Medicine Woman.”
A kid in the front row nodded and said, “Dr. Gwyn…Medicine Woman.”
Reposted by Aaron Gwyn
Our 51 Favorite Books of 2025! Congrats to @erikaswyler.bsky.social @americangwyn.bsky.social @imaniperry.bsky.social @nkolakowski.bsky.social @amiesouzareilly.bsky.social @melissafebos.bsky.social @venessakelley.bsky.social www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/our...
November 24, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Hell is empty and all the devils are here (Martha's Vineyard).
November 22, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Hell is empty and all the devils are here (Martha's Vineyard).
You either die an English professor or you live long enough to see yourself teaching in the Human Narratives department.
November 19, 2025 at 11:19 PM
You either die an English professor or you live long enough to see yourself teaching in the Human Narratives department.
Reposted by Aaron Gwyn
I wrote about the indignity of being ruled over by these people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 18, 2025 at 1:44 PM
I wrote about the indignity of being ruled over by these people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Just found my retirement home.
November 17, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Just found my retirement home.
László Nemes’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic fairytale, OUTER DARK, is set to start filming early next year.
November 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM
László Nemes’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic fairytale, OUTER DARK, is set to start filming early next year.
Reposted by Aaron Gwyn
Whipping Post
open.spotify.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:08 AM
We are poorer as a society for allowing politics to saturate every aspect of our lives: our relationships, our Literature, our idle entertainments. I suppose it might be less regrettable if we’d gotten something in exchanging our souls for the pursuit of power, but we haven’t.
November 15, 2025 at 4:50 PM
We are poorer as a society for allowing politics to saturate every aspect of our lives: our relationships, our Literature, our idle entertainments. I suppose it might be less regrettable if we’d gotten something in exchanging our souls for the pursuit of power, but we haven’t.
The conditions fiction writers face today are far less grim than the ones James Joyce faced in 1914 when he began writing ULYSSES. While Europe became a slaughterhouse, Joyce wrote on. Artists are called to create works of lasting beauty, no matter the conditions. NOT doing so is grim.
November 14, 2025 at 12:18 AM
The conditions fiction writers face today are far less grim than the ones James Joyce faced in 1914 when he began writing ULYSSES. While Europe became a slaughterhouse, Joyce wrote on. Artists are called to create works of lasting beauty, no matter the conditions. NOT doing so is grim.
Reposted by Aaron Gwyn
I'm hearing that The End Times (a short novel told in the form of a newspaper delivered over the course of a year) is printing its first edition today. You've still got a chance to sign yourself or a friend up with @badhandbooks.bsky.social right here : badhandbooks.com/preorders/th...
The End Times by Benjamin Percy with Stephen King (Physical Subscription) — Bad Hand Books
FEATURED IN FANGORIA and FORBES : A YEAR OF EXPERIMENTAL STORYTELLING FOR ONE LOW PRICE. WE’VE EXPANDED OUR ORIGINAL PRINT RUN, BUT DO NOT WAIT TO BUY. Get ready for an immersive, seria...
badhandbooks.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:12 PM
I'm hearing that The End Times (a short novel told in the form of a newspaper delivered over the course of a year) is printing its first edition today. You've still got a chance to sign yourself or a friend up with @badhandbooks.bsky.social right here : badhandbooks.com/preorders/th...
This week reminded me of Will Rogers’s famous quote: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
November 12, 2025 at 6:34 PM
This week reminded me of Will Rogers’s famous quote: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Louis C.K. was on Maher a few weeks back, talking about his novel. He bragged about not doing any research for it (“I just made it up”), which struck me as a bizarre thing for a writer to admit. I’ve read a few paragraphs floating around SM and research ain’t all he didn’t do. This is AWFUL prose.
November 11, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Louis C.K. was on Maher a few weeks back, talking about his novel. He bragged about not doing any research for it (“I just made it up”), which struck me as a bizarre thing for a writer to admit. I’ve read a few paragraphs floating around SM and research ain’t all he didn’t do. This is AWFUL prose.
Reposted by Aaron Gwyn
My tale of gunplay and regret in a convenience store has been published by Pistol Jim Press.
pistoljimpress.substack.com/p/filthy-hab...
pistoljimpress.substack.com/p/filthy-hab...
Filthy Habit by Keith Roysdon
from Nails in the Coffin: a Pistol Jim Press series
pistoljimpress.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM
My tale of gunplay and regret in a convenience store has been published by Pistol Jim Press.
pistoljimpress.substack.com/p/filthy-hab...
pistoljimpress.substack.com/p/filthy-hab...