Hey there reader of my newsletter. I don’t know why you subscribed, but it was probably because you read my book. If you expected me to send emails with tidbits about early 2000s underground hip-hop, I apologize that I am not living up to my niche.
If you did read the book, and didn’t just buy it and put it on your bookshelf, like I have done with many many books, you likely know that it includes some fiction. From the reviews I’ve seen on Goodreads, some people like that and some people hate that. I try not to let their opinions hurt my feelings or boost my ego, but they do both. If you wanna leave a good or bad review on Goodreads or Amazon, I would appreciate that.
I’m writing with a bit of self-promo here. Okay, a lot of self-promo. I already promoted my book. But I am excited that, after a lifetime of writing (and at least 7 years of seriously pursuing publication) I finally have a piece of fiction out in a literary journal.
The story is called “Bodies & Spirit,” and you can read it on Across the Margin here. It’s about a guy who’s losing his mind experiencing night terrors, confronting his fear of death while awaiting the birth of his first child. Ya know, a light read! If you prefer to hear me talk about Madlib and DOOM, you can also listen to my appearance on the Across the Margin Podcast here.
After the Madvillainy book came out, my brother accused the fictional portions of being a reflection of my psyche. I tried to reassure him that I am not Dr. Truthaverse, and that fiction borrows from real life but doesn’t 100% reflect it. He poked a hole in that argument when I informed him that I did, like the character in my book, take a trip to Long Beach, NY that closely parallels what Dr. Truthaverse wrote. “Bodies & Spirits” is also inspired by my real life. The image the editors chose to accompany the story is scarily similar to the being that scared the shit out of me in my real bed one night. But it is definitely fiction, albeit maybe auto-fiction. Regardless, after working on novels and facing so much rejection for so long, I’m proud to see it there. I hope to continue publishing fiction various places and I hope you will read it.
I also want to promote (ugh) my podcast. It’s called Connecting the Classics. Each week, my cohost Lee and I choose a classic album and connect from one album to the other using tangential references, resulting in six songs of separation, Kevin Bacon-style. Basically, we delve into albums and the webs that connect all music while discussing stories and tidbits about all sorts of songs and artists. There’s a KMD episode if that’s what you’re here for. We also have an Instagram you can follow. We know we should be doing TikToks but we’re too lazy.
But since you’re a newsletter head I wanted to direct you to our new newsletter, the Connecting the Classics substack. Once a week, we’ll send you a link to the podcast as well as a link to join our open, collaborative playlist. You can add your own songs to the playlist related to whatever theme we’re discussing that week. You get a nice playlist to listen to and we’ll shout you out on the podcast if you participate.
I know it’s a tall ask to get you to listen to another podcast but if you’re a music fan I genuinely think you might enjoy it. The newest episode that comes out this week is all about Bells. We talk about Yeat and AC/DC and everything in between. I will warn you though that I forgot to turn my mic on so my audio quality isn’t great. It’s usually pretty great.
Okay that’s enough self-promo for now. I’m still figuring out what this newsletter is but I appreciate you subscribing and maybe reading. I’ll probably continue to use it to write about music-related things whenever the mood strikes and I don’t plan to publish whatever essay I’m working on elsewhere. Currently I’m working on an essay about Deltron 3030 for Passion of the Weiss, but I have a lot of other ideas brewing. I don’t really know where to publish articles anymore so maybe I’ll do it here. And maybe I’ll start a third newsletter where I publish short stories by myself and other contributors once a week. I’ll beg you to subscribe to that later.
Alright have a good rest of your day.
Goodbye.
-Will Hagle