We staged the debut party for the second issue, a frenetic sprint if there ever was one, at Scrublands, a bookstore-gallery-wine bar tucked in the French Cleat District. Thanks to the ties of everyone on the masthead except me, we managed to assemble a striking crowd. In the dimly lit room I spotted a constellation of luminaries from the literary orbit—Hunter Duncan Harrison, Fan Hsu, Nadine Soud—along with voices from fashion, visual art, and music. Quentin Roseman of the Haldols lingered near the table of vintage paperbacks, chatting with Veronica Vector, the director. Anele’s housemates from the squat gathered by the shelf of feminist and Marxist theory, Manda and David were spinning bleak house tunes from behind the checkout, and a handful of fresh hires whose names I hadn’t yet learned browsed quietly through the new releases section.
The room hummed with energy as Lungs maneuvered around in an electric wheelchair festooned with feather boas and strings of Christmas lights, deftly sidestepping any serious questions about whether his conveyance was a tasteful prop or a medical necessity. Even seated, he stole the show.
I hung by the bar, surveilling the scene with Gregory Neyerwitz, one of my three new intern roommates. The other two, Molly Dogwood and Taylor Mosco, circulated with ease among the fashionable and naturally sociable guests.
“Oh my God, is that Ashley Braumaire chatting with Richard Ngele by the modern classics in translation?” Gregory whispered, elbowing me with a spot that was already sore from hours of such nudges. “I heard she despised his book and planned a takedown for Nu Jerusalem, but then her editor said Valerie Hales was blurbling it and she flipped completely. Now look at them, behaving like old friends. I wonder if he even remembers?”
Gregory possessed an almost annoyingly thorough grasp of lit-world gossip, catalogued in his never-ending agenda of readings and soirées and launches. Much of what he compiled from these outings felt trivial beyond belief, and I wondered how he justified the time, let alone the mental space spent cataloging who whispered what about whom at someone’s birthday toast.
And yet, I’d, on occasion, found utility in the juicy scraps he supplied, using them to worm my way into circles connected to the magazine—top contributors, editors at rival publications. I inwardly scolded myself for exploiting him, but in my guts I continued to denigrate him as an opportunist and a climber, more hanger-on than genuine talent.
“Haven’t read him, have you?” I asked, signaling Ngele.
“Horsehair Fantasia is genius, pure genius,” Gregory replied. “Everything else is terrible, absolutely terrible.”
His critical stance ran on ruthless binaries, offered without nuance. He’d written a capsule review for issue two asserting the collapse of community and human connection amid merciless technological advance. While his prose was sleek and flawless, something inherently off-putting sat just beneath the surface. I bent the language of our other writers until it clicked in my ear. Gregory’s words, though, I left relatively unedited, as if wishing them to stand or fall on their own.
The bells above the door rang as Camper entered with his colleagues Tim and Mike.
“No way,” Gregory murmured, nodding toward them. “I think that’s Lenny Dovekind there with those two nerdy guys.”
Camper’s beard did, in fact, evoke Lenny Dovekind, a California poet famed for writing from the vantage points of rocks and plants.
“He’s a good friend of mine,” I told Gregory. “I’m going to go say hello.”
Tim and Mike had never seen me operate outside the byzantine conventions of Pelt & Musket, so watching me move in a more natural element must have surprised them.
“Do you think we’re cool enough to be here?” Mike asked.
“What are you talking about?” I replied. “You two are incredibly cool. Trying to save the planet? That’s certainly more impressive than scribbling for some tiny magazine.”
“$3,500 a copy?” Tim asked, hovering a hand over a stack of issues as if they might bite him. “That seems steep. Am I missing something?”
“That price is for show,” I replied. “In reality we hand out generous discounts. Here, take a few for free.”
Even with my insistence, Camper and his colleagues were reluctant to accept issue two of The Horn.
“Seriously,” I pressed, practically shoving the magazine into their grasp. “No charge. They’re yours.”
The trio of city workers fumbled through the issue with earnest seriousness, struggling to read in the din and darkness of the party.
“It’s lovely,” Camper said. “Beautifully crafted.”
He rolled his copy into a tube like a spyglass, sighting for the bar. With a boisterous stride, he took Tim and Mike’s orders and hurried off.
Tim pointed at the opening spread of Clara Forst’s feature about heavy drug use and nearly drowning in a pool in Thailand.
“Wasn’t this writer dead last year?” he asked.
“Yes, it was a tragedy,” I conceded.
“Is this some sort of tribute?” Mike wondered.
“No, she’s our posthumous editor,” I explained. “We publish a new piece of hers in every issue.”
Tim and Mike didn’t quite grasp the mechanism.
“Okay,” Tim pressed. “And you don’t run into any issues with that?”
“Her close friend and literary executor manages her contributions,” I claimed. “You may know her name. Anele Natkin? Hey, Anele!”
I called Anele across the room and gestured for her to come over, but she was in the midst of a grave squat meeting and acknowledged me with a shake of the head from afar.
“So you’re publishing her unpublished writing, you mean?” Tim pressed.
“More or less,” I said.
“And what happens once you’ve published it all?” Mike followed up. “Sorry if these are blunt questions; I’m curious how this runs.”
Just then Anele appeared at my side, as if she’d decided to answer my summons after all.
“Anele,” I said. “I was just explaining to these gentlemen how you select and edit Clara’s prose.”
“I really can’t discuss that,” Anele replied. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need the managing editor for a moment.”
She pulled me away from Tim and Mike into the storeroom where the staff had stored their bags and coats.
“Why are you sharing state secrets with those STEM types?” she demanded.
“Those are my friends,” I said. “They’re conservationists.”
She shot a cautious glance in their direction.
“Okay, but I won’t humiliate the Clara arrangement for the general public. In any case, that’s not what I wanted to discuss.”
She rummaged through our coworkers’ bags until she uncovered, buried at the bottom, a bundle of issues tied with yellow twine.
“What I need you to do,” she instructed, handing me the bundle, “is swap the top row of magazines on that table by the door with these instead.”
The cover lines betrayed the truth: these were second editions. I had assumed, for reasons of the stated secrecy, that we wouldn’t distribute them at the launch—the Lungs production through and through. Yet that plan now seemed to be unraveling.
“Won’t people notice?” I asked.
“Use your imagination,” she urged. “Spill a drink. Claim you’re delivering the ones out there to a VIP.”
“Why can’t you handle it?” I asked.
“Because if I did, people would definitely get suspicious,” she said. “You’re the managing editor. No one will question you. You’re basically invisible.”
She was right. I had felt invisible for most of the evening, and to have that invisibility recognized only underscored it. At least now I could wield it for practical purpose.
“You’re a saint,” she remarked. “And since I’ve got you, have you prepared for our production meetings tomorrow?”
“Meetings?” I asked. “More than one?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Flagship at ten and second edition at noon. Weren’t you included on the chain I sent?”
This was the first I’d heard of a separate production meeting for the second edition, which in the past had simply absorbed content meant for the main issue—a process requiring nothing more than Anele, the mastermind, and yours truly as her hapless servant. But with the uptick in staff, it wasn’t enough to appropriate existing pieces. We would have to spread the dirty laundry around.
Wearily, I confirmed I would attend. Anele saluted me and returned to her squatmates. After a discreet pause, I followed with the stack of incriminating magazines. Halfway to the target table, Gilda intercepted me.
“Nice running into you here,” she said with a snicker.
The wine-glass twisting in her fingers explained the extra flicker to her mood.
“Hi, Gilda,” I said. “I’m actually in the middle of…”
“Relax, I only need a quick moment,” she cut in. “At the production meeting tomorrow, you know not to mention my story, like, at all, for the reasons we’ve already discussed.”
Gilda’s illegal-dumping piece had originally been slated for issue two, but it had grown into something larger as new, damning information surfaced. It was now in the late stages of fact-checking and would be ready for my first read soon. Despite the secrecy, she maintained it was a strong candidate for issue three’s cover. She believed I could discreetly slip it into the mix and still secure top billing, which flatteringly suggested my appetite for deception; still, it seemed to overestimate my willingness to mislead. I did promise to do my best anyway.
“No problem,” I said. “I’m looking forward to reading it.”
“Those bastards won’t know what hit them,” she said. “It’ll be like when Mommy brought down Charles Hess and all those corporate raiders had to pay restitution.”
Her eyes fell on the bundle of magazines in my hands.
“What are those about?” she asked.
“Just a few copies to display,” I said smoothly.
“But there are already plenty of issues everywhere,” she pressed.
“Yes,” I conceded. “It’s simply in case we run low.”
“Yet people aren’t really touching them,” she noted.
“It’s nothing,” I brushed off. “Anele asked me to, so I figured—why not.”
“Did she slip explosives into them?” Gilda teased. “Just kidding. Here, let me grab a few.”
She reached for the magazines and I recoiled.
“Ah, I see,” she said. “Well, I won’t press for details. When you’re done running errands for our colleague, come and find me.”
She headed off for a slice of pizza around the corner, leaving me with a clear path to the display table, where only a single reader stood, thumbing through the issue with heated intensity.
“Pardon me,” I said cheerfully. “I just need to rearrange a couple of things here.”
The reader lowered the magazine to reveal a tense countenance, his jaw tight beneath a slender black beard and mustache.
“Excuse me, do you work here?” he demanded, with the brusqueness of an irate customer.
“I’m the managing editor,” I replied.
“Perfect, you can help me then,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
I admitted I did not.
“That’s odd,” he insisted, “since you published something under my name in your magazine.”
I was mortified. This was the kind of incident bound to happen sooner or later.
“I’m truly sorry,” I stammered. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting before, but I appreciate your contribution to the issue.”
“See, this is what I’m trying to figure out,” the man pressed. “As far as I know I didn’t contribute anything to your issue. I certainly wasn’t paid for a submission. And looking at it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t write the piece either.”
More apologies, I worried, would not suffice here. If this writer was telling the truth, we would need to find a remedy. Carlson and the suits might have to get involved. Not only were there legal and reputational risks, but there was also the question of how many other unsuspecting writers might be in the same boat merely waiting to be surprised.
“I’m as perplexed as you are,” I confessed. “I don’t know how this happened. Could someone have submitted on your behalf? We occasionally receive pieces from agents, assistants, or others…”
“My agent has no idea who you are,” he replied. “I have no idea who you are. I’m utterly shocked when a friend calls to ask why my name appears in this tiny unknown journal he’s never heard of, that costs $3,500 an issue. I had to come down and see this for myself.”
“Well, thank you for making the effort to look us up,” I said. “Here—take a few issues. We can mail them to you if you’d rather.”
“I don’t want your magazine at all,” he snapped. “What I want is my name out of your publication.”
He flipped through the issue feverishly.
“Here, I’ll do it myself,” he declared.
He ripped a handful of pages from the middle of the book and flung them into the air like confetti.
“Please, I hope we can resolve this without violence,” I soothed.
He ignored me and knocked over the display table.
“Con artists,” he shouted. “Frauds. You’ll pay for this. You’ll never publish again.”
The room fell silent, all eyes fixed on the man dismantling every issue he could reach. Exhausted and disheveled, he spat at me and stormed out of the venue.
A whirr to my left pulled me from the spell. Lungs glided up beside me and handed me a silk handkerchief embroidered with his initials, LUK.
“Angry writers, oh boy,” he quipped. “What was his problem? Did we reject his story with a curt e-mail?”
“He said we published a piece under his name that he didn’t write,” I admitted.
Lungs bit his lip, weighing whether this was a win or a loss for us.
“Did you happen to catch his name before he tore off?” he asked.
I hadn’t. The man had proven difficult to coax into a calm exchange.
“Probably a harmless misunderstanding,” said Lungs. “This happens in publishing. The literary ego is delicate. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation and he’s merely venting. A clerical error. A molehill, not a mountain. It’s only a teensy-weensy magazine, after all.”
I would have liked to pick Lungs’ brain about preventing future incidents, but he was already drawn toward some shiny object in the crowd.
“Good luck with the production meeting tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder as wheels rolled over the pages the man had hurled to the floor. “I won’t be able to attend, but you’ll do fine steering the new hires. Toot-toot! Full speed ahead.”
No one from the magazine helped tidy the mess, but Camper and Tim and Mike, who had been huddled by the Golden Age of SF section, sprang into action. Their conservationist instincts took over as they knelt to gather the torn pages, triaging the scattered issues by damage severity.
“Are you all right?” Camper asked. “That guy looked furious.”
“I’m fine,” I answered. “There was a small miscommunication. It’ll be sorted out. Thanks for lending a hand.”
Gregory Neyerwitz appeared out of nowhere.
“I can’t believe he showed up,” he gasped. “That temper is legendary, so don’t take it personally. My friend at Millridge swears it’s all an act.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“Come on, you must know,” Gregory teased.
“I truly don’t,” I admitted.
“That was Adner Ross,” he revealed. “Prelude to the Guards. American Pig. Thirty under 30. Twenty under 45. The man is an institution. He might be the lone aggressive white-male author with any contemporary resonance. What did he say to you?”
“He told me we’d never publish again,” I replied.
Though I hadn’t recognized him, I knew who Adner Ross was. The emblem of literary machismo—unapproachable, prone to outbursts, with a blunt, laconic voice somewhere between Hemingway and Portis. He wrote as if the world belonged to rough, non-innocent men who bore no interior life—cowboys, soldiers, minor-league ballplayers, farmers, drifters, stevedores, heroin addicts. I’d never managed to get past the first pages of any of his novels, but landing him for The Horn would still be a coup. The only regrettable outcome would be a retraction.
“It’s pretty neat how Lenny Dovekind is helping you tidy up,” Gregory remarked. “He always came off as genuinely grounded.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “He’s a good guy.”
“Are you still drowning in work here?” Gregory pressed. “I want you to meet some friends of mine from and Shrew Skull Press.”
I shot a pleading look toward Camper.
“Do you mind?” I asked. “I’ll be quick.”
“No problem,” Camper replied. “Do whatever you need.”
Before long I was pulled into a whirlwind of publishing personalities. One conversation rolled into another, a mechanical cascade of introductions and talking points. I clasped hands with rising essayists, incisive critics, podcast hosts, tech-lecture gurus. The evening expanded to embrace both the up-and-coming and those already towering over the scene.
Camper, Tim, and Mike remained in the back of my mind, tangled with the mess I’d left in their care. I kept intending to loop them back into my rounds, but whenever I turned to check they were still at their stations, I found they’d vanished. A hollow relief settled in; the guilt of mismanaging friends can be a familiar shadow when one finally tastes success, or so I imagined.
The party wore on until 2 a.m., then dissolved as Manda and David shifted the music to a 1930s Western swing. In moments Scrublands stood empty except for me and the interns. We tidied, bagged bottles, flushed wounded pride down the bathroom sink. The security deposit was under my name, a tangible motive to ensure the bookstore sparkled before we left.
On the way out I pilfered a copy of Josephine K. Wray’s Crone Envy from the feminist critical theory shelf, a little trophy for a strenuous evening. I accompanied my interns—my protégés, really—back to the subway. They had other parties to chase: underground shows in far-flung boroughs, boyfriends’ apartments, new exploits. They had keys and would let themselves in when they made it home, or so I expected.
“Don’t forget our production meeting tomorrow,” I reminded them as we parted. “I’m counting on you to bring your best.”
Truth be told, I wasn’t quite certain of that myself, but it seemed the right thing to say. The lies came easy by then, like ice crystals thawing on the roof of my mind as power warmed the room.
It felt good to be in charge.
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From Magazine by Ben Lasman. Used with permission of the publisher, Parade Ground. Copyright © 2026.
