Zona Motel is an online literary space for conversation, community, and independent literature.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Freemium | Publishes | Daily |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 584 | Founded | 2 years ago | Last Issue | 38 hours ago |
| Active | |||||
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zonamotel.substack.comLatest Issues
MEET ME IN THE MOTEL LOBBY: Zona Motel 3000 Subscribers Milestone AMA
Mesha Maren, Juliet Escoria, Lucy K Shaw, and Ivan Genc answer your questions!
Welcome to Meet Me in the Motel Lobby, our column of informal posts from Zona Motel’s editors for our paid subscribers.
REVIEW: Freak Lip: Essays of the Unsaid by Julia Cohen
When I was an adolescent girl, nothing felt as simultaneously urgent and unachievable as learning how to deal with the monthly ritual linguistically reduced to “getting my period.” I’d managed to live in the mystical ignorance of childhood...
ESSAY: “From Cape to Cairo, Africa is #NotWaiting…,” Part II
You can read part 1 here.
In the first essay, I explained what the pro-Africa advocacy organization Africa No Filter was and how its #NotWaiting art movement was intended to generate fine, culturally strong works from participating artists...
ESSAY: The Play’s the Thing
In a run-down Western Massachusetts movie theater, one of the last to screen movies on a 35mm film projector, three workers sweep popcorn from the aisles and mop spilled soda. They bicker, debate favorite movies, admit crushes on each other...
REVIEW: The Walk Book by Sean Thor Conroe
I think it was a year ago, maybe two, when I heard an Audible feature segment on The Paris Review (still available on their website) with writer Sean Thor Conroe’s dictations that he made during his 2014 trek. He had set out to walk across...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
Zona Motel is a brotherhood and web space that exists to support good literature.
Gossip Columnist at Zona Motel
Nikki Volpicelli is writer, reader, and contributing editor @ Zona Motel.
Charlene Elsby wrote Hexis, Affect, Psychros, Agyny, Musos, Letters to Jenny Just After She Died, and Bedlam. Her essays have appeared in Bustle Books and the LA Review of Books.
Florida Apologist. Red Bull Fiend.
Head of Support at Substack. Author of the novel LOG OFF (Shabby Doll House, 2024). Interviews Editor at Zona Motel.
M. Randal O'Wain is the author of Meander Belt and Hallelujah Station. He is co-editor of Hub City Shorts: anthologies of stories from each state in the south. He teaches at UNC Chapel Hill.
Books and audio recordings of writing released by Bread & Roses Press, Three One G, and the Numero Group.
Co-editor-in-chief of Zona Motel and Hub City Shorts. I also write novels and other things
Poet. Author of the books Path of Totality and Dead Horse. Contributing editor (Reviews) for Zona Motel.
is from Michigan. He is the author of the chapbooks Colossal (2025), Plantain (2018), and the Latin translation project We, Romans (2015). joshboardman.com
M. Randal O’Wain is the author of Meander Belt: family, loss, and coming of age in the working class and the short story collection Hallelujah Station. He teaches creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill.
i don’t feel like being bored so i court disaster —nila northSun
Writing and things
Erin Dorney is the author of "Yes I Am Human I Know You Were Wondering" (Autofocus Books, 2025) and many zines.
\ud83c\udf38 2 hawt new books: The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker, Semiotext(e). — Myth Lab: Theories of Plastic Love, Far West press. On Instagram I’m HelterSkelley . Band is Lawndale \ud83c\udf38
NEW DARK coming Fall 2026 from Shabby Doll House.
hello my name is juliet escoria and I am an Editor-in-Chief at Zona Motel! I also wrote these books: You Are the Snake (Soft Skull, 2024), Witch Hunt & Black Cloud (CLASH, 2023), and Juliet the Maniac (Melville House, 2019).
i already apologized
Greater Prairie-Chicken
Author of five books, most recently the novel IN THE SIGHT.
writer <3
Gene Kwak is the author of Go Home, Ricky! and he currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University.
THE ONLY LIVING GIRL IN CHICAGO• Editor-in-Chief @MaudlinHouse \ud83d\udcda • Person who talks about music @PodHealing \ud83c\udfa7 • Horror movies @horrorpod666 \ud83c\udfa5
Shane Jesse Christmass is the author of METH-DTF, The Sex Shops of Sherman Oaks, Latex, Texas, Xerox Over Manhattan and other books. He makes music with Snake Milker. Writing, art, noise: linktr.ee/sjxsjc
Founding editor of Shabby Doll House and managing editor of Zona Motel. I also wrote some books.
Emma Burger is the founder of the indie press, Gold Coast Editions. She is the author of two novels, Little Rich Kids (2025) and Spaghetti for Starving Girls (2021). She is an essays editor at Zona Motel and the interviews editor at Hobart.
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