by Nathan Mellott

Plant the cotton. Harvest. Manufacture Thread. Weave. Fell a tree. Plane lumber. Assemble frame. Stretch canvas. Mine limestone. Pulverize. Purchase rabbits. Slaughter. Chemically treat and clarify fats. Blend with minerals. Apply gesso. Seal. Dry. Receive Commission.  

Professional in the US State Department requests oil painting in the theme of Washington DC’s gifted Japanese cherry trees, while in blossom.

There are a couple questions that most people who’ve decided to pursue writing, whether in the MFA world or as a career, are probably familiar with: “Well, but are you going to do with that?  Where do you see yourself in ten years?”  In the first semester of my MFA, I remember sitting around a workshop table with Elizabeth McCracken and discussing the financial aspects of making it as a writer.  Most of the class seemed to agree that this is something that’s not talked about often enough.  We all know, or have heard, that it’s difficult to find academic jobs, that we’ll need to find a way to balance personal writing with outside work, but how, exactly, to do that is frequently something that we’re uncertain of.

As writers and readers, it’s sometimes too easy to become jaded about the potential of literature.  There have been some weeks when I pause while reading new poetry and ask myself, “How many poems have I read recently about deer?  Five?  Six? What distinguishes them?”  And there have been, equally, moments when I’ve looked at my own writing and asked the same question. Where have I allowed myself to take risks, to push into territory that feels unsafe? What can this work do that pushes the boundaries of what we imagine literature to be?

by Tonya Chen

I have a confession. I pick my bookstores by convenience, peruse the shelves for what I’m looking for, and occasionally leave with a receipt, never learning much about much about the individual stores themselves. But independent bookstores are more than collections of carefully curated literature. They are idiosyncratic cultures that reflect the founders—the bibliophiles of our world. As a visitor, I miss out on their unique aesthetic preferences, expertise, and people. Recently, I decided to be an observer and explored the literary scene of Austin, a culture that walks and breathes with the support of independent bookstores.  

by Jessica Hincapie

It’s submission season again, and while it seems like everyone you know has a poem/story/essay/blog/yelp review being published and revered, for most of us, these months are met with nothing but tepid rejections. The kind, that are so inoffensive, they somehow end up being the ones we obsess over the most. 

by Katelin Kelly

I hold the unique position of celebrant. This means I send follow-up emails with “congrats” in the title. This means I memorize contributor names while composing layout. This means I write litanies of praise like this one.

When our editorial board selects pieces to publish, we often ask, “Is this someone whose work we want to promote?” This goes beyond quality standards and extends to a larger commitment over the journal’s lifetime. Who will we want to publish again and again? Whose work is changing the face of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction? What new canon is bursting?

by Eriel B.M. Fauser

In a perfect writerly world, you could live, eat, and breath your craft. You could fill all the crevices of your time with the clacking of a keyboard and scratching of a pencil against paper. And because that perfect writerly world just happens to work this way, the mere production of content on your Word file or in your Moleskin journal would generate some mad skrilla for you to build a livelihood on. No publication necessary. Yet, the writerly grind doesn’t yield instant profit so we must seek out ways to support our habits and stimulate our minds until we’re ballin like J.K.

Cecily Sailer struck that balance between passion and profession. 

Dear Readers,

Hello, and thanks for stopping by The Cave, your new interactive space for all things related to Bat City Review, Texas literature, and so much more. As a way to bridge the gap between our readers and staff, The Cave will be sharing new blogposts regularly, featuring all kinds of things—issue features, notes from the editorial desk, book projects by Bat City alumni, updates on our reading series, and news about former editors (good lord, sam sax!). 

Keep your eye on The Cave for news about the second installment of our Short Prose Contest and for insider tips on submitting to Bat City Review. It’s our hope that you’ll get to know us, The Staff, and we’ll get to know you, too. You can consider this our official Nice To Meet Ya! 

I’ll let Richard Hugo say it the way I wish I could.

     “Just now, a stranger drove by and waved.
     And I waved back my best wave, Albert. I shouted at him
     ‘hello,’ and it came back doubled by hills.”                                                                        
           -“Letter to Goldbarth from Big Fork” from 31 Letters and 13 Dreams

Stay tuned for more.

All my best,
Nick Almeida