Blog — Half Mystic

Wuthering Heights in Words and Song: Female Hysteria, Melodrama, and Racial Complexity

The women of Wuthering Heights take up substantial space in their caustic, expansive splendor.

Everything Is Known and Loved Because It Is Known: Familial Song in Little Women

What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?

Literature, Music, FilmHana WidermanMarch 16, 2020Greta Gerwig

Introducing Say Mother Say Hand

It is a personification of the word despite: survival despite, forgiveness despite, love despite. This book speaks & we can’t help but pay attention.

Literature, Music, AnnouncementsTopaz WintersFebruary 18, 2020Marie Conlan, David Welch, Sara Veglahn, Karolina Zapal

From the Editor, Book Launch, & Giveaway: Sammie Downing's The Family That Carried Their House on Their Backs

Step into this House with us. Warm your hands on the fire. We’ve been waiting for you for so long.

From the Editor, Announcements, Literature, Music, GatheringsTopaz WintersDecember 18, 2019Sammie Downing

"Memory is fantasy; what we carry with us has little to do with fact, everything to do with feeling." (Sammie Downing on The Family That Carried Their House on Their Backs)

There is magic in the dissonance.

Literature, Music, Personal EssayGuestDecember 14, 2019Sammie Downing

"I wanted this novella to feel like a story passed down for generations until the truth of what happened begins to feel like myth." (An Interview With Sammie Downing)

Some of the first sounds we hear are our parents’ voices, our family’s songs, and even years later their music can carry us home.

This Woman's Work

A tear falls down his cheek and the tear becomes a single drop of blood hitting the ground. They’re in the bedroom now, kissing.

Film, Music, Literature, PoliticsHana WidermanNovember 20, 2019Kate Bush, John Hughes, Margaret Atwood

Introducing The Family That Carried Their House on Their Backs

We hope you’ll join us in stepping into a new fairytale. Welcome to the clearing—to the wildness—to The Family.

Literature, Music, AnnouncementsTopaz WintersOctober 18, 2019Sammie Downing

Announcing Half Mystic's Nominees for the 2020 Pushcart Prize

Thank goodness for art & thank goodness for you.

Shining Out in the Wild Silence: Writing in the Space Between Poetry and Music

I find myself now more and more prolonging these moments of genrelessness: a few breaths in, filling my lungs with clarity.