Latest writing
Acceptance Speech for the Joy J. MacSee Award
Ace Boggess · Satire · July 2026
Distinguished guests and trustees of the MacSee Foundation: First, let me extend my apol…
Sadly, financial issues preclude the cross-country trip to Utah.
While this is, shall we say, a unique award, the ten-dollar honorarium does not cover th…
Sadly, financial issues preclude the cross-country trip to Utah.
While this is, shall we say, a unique award, the ten-dollar honorarium does not cover th…
From iExile Press
Bulă, or How We Invented Quantum
Jaia Papitz
A literary satire about laughter, bureaucracy, and the small cosmic errors that keep reality from sealing itself shut.
eases down the page as the book ages
Recent Pieces
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Poetry
To Secure a Share of Equanimity, Hide Behind a Skull
Robert Witmer
Death empowers others.
— Elias Canetti The rain comes down both sides of a camel, but only one flank of the mou…
Spirit falls from the summit into a moment of thought.
— Elias Canetti The rain comes down both sides of a camel, but only one flank of the mou…
Spirit falls from the summit into a moment of thought.
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Poetry
The Afterworld
Robert Witmer
A metaphysical music plays chess with Death.
No one remembers their last move.
Lost in thegreater glory of the next.
No one remembers their last move.
Lost in thegreater glory of the next.
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Poetry
Stuck in the Middle with You
Robert Witmer
I tried to explain to Charon all the good that Prometheus had done for humankind.
But he really couldn’t do anything about it, being simply a boatman.
When I finally got across the river and met my titanic progenitor, he was doing the limb…
But he really couldn’t do anything about it, being simply a boatman.
When I finally got across the river and met my titanic progenitor, he was doing the limb…
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Poetry
The Despot
Robert Witmer
The one who, after every announcement of someone’s death, eats more.— Elias Canetti A ve…
He.
Healone.
He.
Healone.
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Poetry
No Map for This
KB Ballentine
She called to say the doctors found a lump.
Hours away, universe dark above us.
Coming home from dinner, what could we say to our daughter, traveling through the night?
Hours away, universe dark above us.
Coming home from dinner, what could we say to our daughter, traveling through the night?
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The pulse of language in its most unruly form.
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Translation
The world in another tongue.
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Satire
Sharp laughter. Serious intent.
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Essay
Ideas, interrogations, and personal maps.
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Creative Nonfiction
Truth, braided with form and fire.
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Fragment
Pieces of a larger, unresolved thing.
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Hybrid, experimental, without borders.
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Plays
Voices for the stage and beyond.
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From the archive
Jaia Papitz · 2011 · Poetry
A recovered text from the first iExile body — returned to circulation, not as nostalgia, but because it still burns.
Returned to circulation
2009 — Quest
Recovered text
2012 — Symbolics
Recovered text
2014 — Of Else
Recovered text