Zona Motel is an online literary space for conversation, community, and independent literature.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Freemium | Publishes | Daily |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 599 | Founded | 2 years ago | Last Issue | 7 days ago |
| Active | |||||
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zonamotel.substack.comLatest Issues
CONVERSATION: Susana Sevilla Aho on her lyrical hybrid memoir, Turn to the Stars
It’s a Shabby Doll House autumn, marked by an exciting lineup of three releases: Jeni Pirtle’s Hotliners, Matthew Bookin’s New Dark, and ’s debut lyrical memoir, Turn to the Stars. Susana’s book centers on the discovery of Horóscopo, a ten-...
REVIEW: Burnside by Devyn Defoe
When the 2017 Thomas Fires subsumed my hometown in Southern California, fire officials classified it as the largest wildfire in Californian history at the time. Nine years later, it’s now the ninth largest—but the calamity was incalculable...
COLUMN: Judging a Book by Its Cover (The Book-Object #8)
The widely used original Europa Editions covers of the Neapolitan Quartet
Hello! This is The Book-Object, a column where I look at the materiality of books and consider their physical reality in our lives rather than only their content. My...
REVIEW: The Furrow by Valérie Manteau (tr. Claire Foster)
The three novels of ex-Charlie Hebdo columnist Valérie Manteau—Calme et tranquille (Le Tripode, 2016); Le Sillon (Le Tripode, 2018); Entre chiens et loups (Éditions Stock, 2025)—are too impressionistic and stylized in their choice of detail...
COLUMN: MALLCORE w/ Jillian Luft
The mall was never just a place—it was a world. A stage. A sanctuary. A crucible for identity, capitalism, yearning. In Mallcore, guests revisit the fluorescent-lit past and present of their lives through the lens of food courts, fitting ro...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
Zona Motel is a brotherhood and web space that exists to support good literature.
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
Head of Support at Substack. Author of the novel LOG OFF (Shabby Doll House, 2024). Interviews Editor at Zona Motel.
American poet in Paris, author of 3 poetry books. Allow me to escort you into my peripatetic world of being a digital nomad, living abroad, searching for love around the world, and supporting myself through writing.
arts writer, essayist (retired), & poet mfa-ing @ columbia
I'm the host of Book Stuff podcast, a creative writer, and an award-winning search professional. Check out my website tuckerlegerski.com
Aren’t I a human being? Don’t I yearn and ache and shop? Don’t I deserve love and jewellery? | Reviews at Sad & Famous | Contributing Editor & historical gossip columnist at Zona Motel | Aesthetic Services at House Cravt
As a member of an old Nigerian family, I write extensively on African traditional culture and the titled upper classes that preceded our modern government.
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'm just some guy—running socials for ZONA MOTEL! \ud83d\udc10 Catch us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zona.motel/
Fiction and Essays / Zona Motel Interview Editor
Founding editor of Shabby Doll House and managing editor of Zona Motel. I also wrote some books.
Erin Dorney is the author of "Yes I Am Human I Know You Were Wondering" (Autofocus Books, 2025) and many zines.
author of FREELANCE: A NOVEL (Rejection Letters, 2025)
Only comes out at night
Co-editor-in-chief of Zona Motel and Hub City Shorts. I also write novels and other things
Hi there! I'm a writer, critic, and artist. I write about white American evangelicalism and the female experience, and I serve as the executive editor for sneaker wave magazine.
Gossip Columnist at Zona Motel
Author of JT LeRoy NEW EDITIONS "SARAH" & "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" from Harper Perennial (US)/Little Brown Book Group (UK) IG: @laura_albert / Twitter: @lauraalbert / https://buymeacoffee.com/lauraalbert
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.
Florida Apologist. Red Bull Fiend.
Essayist. Museum editor. Playlister.
likes tacos, paintings of churches, rushing water
Claire Hopple is the author of seven books and a fiction editor at XRAY. Her stories have appeared in Southwest Review, Forever Mag, Wigleaf, Little Engines, Cleveland Review of Books, and others. More at clairehopple.com.
Greater Prairie-Chicken
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