The Best Thing I've Ever Written Comes Immediately / Timothy Gager

Usually, when I finish something it's the best thing I've ever written. I want to submit it immediately because editors can't wait to see the best thing I've ever written. There's this new thing, Poverty House, that I can post it to. Immediately. Why wait? It's so fucking good.

I just finished the best thing I've ever written, but I'm not putting it here. No way. I've become smarter as I've become more seasoned. I know enough to wait, even though I have a platform not to. Tomorrow, when I wake up, the best thing I've ever written will look like the same old shit I always write. Does that ever happen to you?

But maybe, just maybe, I'll wake up, read it, and think, you know, this is full of things to fix, but I think I can make it pretty decent.

And, I'll be happy.

/

TIMOTHY GAGER has published 18 books of fiction and poetry, which includes his latest novel, Joe the Salamander. He hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, MA from 2001 to 2018, and started a weekly virtual series in 2020. He has had over 1000 works of fiction and poetry published, 17 nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology and has been read on National Public Radio. In 2023, Big Table Publishing published an anthology of twenty years of his selected work, with 150 pages of new material: The Best of Timothy Gager. He was the Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House Literary Review, and the founding co-editor of The Heat City Literary Review. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Timothy lives in Dedham, Massachusetts.