Brandon Amico
@amico
NEA fellow • MTG articles @ EDHREC • Events guy for @gamershaunt.bsky.social • Author, DISAPPEARING, INC. www.brandonamico.com
Holding the bittersweetest thing in my hands—the final issue of @theflreview.bsky.social for which I helped curate the poetry. Will forever be grateful to Jamie Poissant, the talented readers at TFR, everyone who sent us poems to consider, and to @rochellehurt.bsky.social for editing alongside me.
Q: Did I need another MTG playmat? A: Nope Q: Was there any chance I was going to miss out on this beauty from @rhysticstudies.bsky.social, @ropearrow.bsky.social, and @stitcherssupply.bsky.social? A: No freakin way
Easy lock for top 5 most gorgeous cards Magic has printed in recent memory, and probably pretty high on that list—Otherworldly Gaze by @mollymendoza.bsky.social
BREAKING: Johnny and Junebug have withdrawn from the great American “state fair”
Grateful to Julie Benbassat for this hand-drawn Icarus that mirrors the reaching Moonshadow in this MTG artist proof of Julie’s work. Gorgeous stuff!
Asheville friends: Please vote Gamers’ Haunt for Best Game Store in Mountain Xpress’s Best of WNC! We have been working our tails off to make our space and community the best around. Give us a vote when you have a few mins! (And voting closes soon too, so don’t wait!) mountainx.com/bestofwnc/
Yes! The lifegain/bats package has been carrying me almost unchanged since BLB, usually going to Diamond/Mythic on arena just grinding daily quests. My list is quite close to yours (though I never got around to Passages), a slightly more aggressive build Haliya was such a good pickup for this deck.
A quote on “seriousness” in individuals from an old lecture by John Cleese. Feels especialy apt lately—
Honored to have two poems from my pandemic crown of sonnets in the latest South Dakota Review along with several friends and writers I admire. Thank you to @artichokeheart.bsky.social for including me in this storied journal.
Look, it’s not my fault we were both raised in proper households that taught us that ODY/ONS basics are the best. These are the basics of my Grumgully deck:
Time for my monthly check in of ONE of my student loan bills from 2017 to see if it’s tipped over to me paying more principal than interest yet…nope! So close. Eight years later. $55,000 paid in and only $19,500 to principal—and I still owe $68,000 on this loan alone.
If there’s one piece of art that perfectly encapsulates the millennial experience of a life placed squarely at the intersection of a country’s promise and its broken pieces that we’ll be left with, it’s Kentucky Route Zero. Hauntingly beautiful, human and bleak.
Yesterday I didn’t know this card existed but today it’s one of my new favorites. Sometimes you need to deploy a midair lion
The mailman today finally brought me something other than warnings about my untimely death delivered in Pig Latin—the @nightvaleradio.bsky.social Roleplaying Game! Love the world that @planetoffinks.bsky.social & @happierman.bsky.social created, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with friends.
And it got some flavor text from you at Vegas in 2023 for this project! commandersherald.com/project-gore...
A thank you to Mergoat Mag for including my haiku in this, their last issue, focused on Appalachia, Catastrophe, and Helene.
A hard but grateful message: the Fall 2025 issue of The Florida Review will be the last with me as Poetry Editor. Nothing but love for my time there, and I’m excited for whatever the next steps for my life look like. ❤️ @rochellehurt.bsky.social @theflreview.bsky.social
Jealous. I literally was in the queue in less than 4 seconds (I had someone time me!) and I’m about a third of the way through as of an hour in now…
How about we just f*cking don’t? Keep AI away from art, whether it’s the Poetry Foundation or a small journal. This desire some have to feed every bit of humanity into the gaping maw of bloodless tech is ghoulish.
File under “projects that absolutely, definitely will get made, for real, we mean it this time, why are you looking at us like that”