Prosebuds (Issue 9: Mar. 2026)

Joy, Play, Community + Prosebud Darrel Alejandro Holnes!

Note: 🎧 For accessibility, I provide a reading of every Prosebuds issue audiobook-style. Listen by clicking the play button on the above “Article Voiceover” tab.

My favorite photo taken during our recent 2026 NYC blizzard. A view of the snow-packed walkway between my house and our neighbor’s leading to the snow-covered gate. Every crevice is lined with snow!

Hey, ‘buds,

February is the shortest and longest month, it seems! Here we are at the start of March, and as much as I marveled at the epic NYC snowscape last week, I cannot wait for those sweet blossoms to pop out of the leftover blizzard slush and bring us into a new season. Alas, it’s still the first week of March, and I shouldn’t get ahead of myself—patience has never been my virtue—but Spring in my little corner of Brooklyn is something to behold. (Stay tuned for photo evidence in April and May issues!)

Right now, I’m looking for joy everywhere; working that “delight muscle,” as Ross Gay so eloquently puts it, however I can everyday. Often in the darkest times, the joys shine all the brighter. Where are you finding joy? To quote Gay: “my delight grows—much like love and joy—when I share it.” I love to bring this little icebreaker into workshops: What was one moment of delight from your day so far?

Take a second and think of some small, beautiful part of your morning, afternoon, or evening— a sweet encounter with a stranger, a patch of warm sun, an especially delicious coffee. (Please, share your joys and delights in the comments!) In the profound words of the dear Pooya Mohseni, Iranian American actor, writer, filmmaker and trans activist, during an interview for Joyful Joyfriends, a verbatim play commissioned by Life Jacket Theatre Company (that I hope will someday see the light of day): “Joy is the ocean, delight is a wave.” Let’s make an ocean, y’all.

On the left, an image of author Ross Gay, a laughing Black man with a goatee and hair in two high pigtail buns, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans with his hand resting at his cheek. On the right is the white cover of his now well-known book of essays The Book of Delights. (Image via Literary Hub)

I’d like to shout out a few low (or no) cost opportunities for joy, play, and community that I’ve taken part in these past few weeks. I hope there’s something in here for you, or maybe this list will spark something! (Feel free to also share your own ideas/events in the comments, too, if you’d like.)

• I completed the New York Trash Academy! If you have any interest in learning more about the incredible systems at work via the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) and beyond, I highly recommend the virtual, asynchronous (pay-what-you-will/by donation) class. You don’t even have to be a New Yorker to take part! I’ll be honest that my own interest goes deeper than pure trash-nerd status and, of course, has something to do with a project, but I learned so much regardless—including ways to get involved in the future, like the Rain Garden Stewardship program. (Did you know our DSNY trucks are white as an homage to the OG white street sweeper uniforms established by Col. George Waring in the late 1800s when he revolutionized the city’s sanitation efforts?)

My certificate of completion for the Sanitation Foundation’s NYC Trash Academy.

• I spent a cozy evening in Boerum Hill with the fabulous playwright-screenwriter-author—and upcoming prosebud—Gina Femia for a little nights “Drink ‘N Draft” event, one of many sessions hosted by the lovely writer and writing coach Josh Krigman. Such a fabulous no-pressure excuse to free your mind and write in community with a very come-one-come-all, no-experience-necessary vibe. It only cost me $10 to join and I felt like I was back at a College of Santa Fe living room art party! If you’re based in New York and looking to get out of your head and onto the page (they host drawing, movement, and storytelling events, too), visit their website for more info—or, if you’re not in NYC, and even if you are, consider hosting something similar in your own hometown, or even your living room!

The “little nights” logo, featuring a black slice of moon with the inset yellow words on the remaining circle in blue.

• Despite my lacking hand sewing skills, I attended “Doodle Stitching” class with a friend at recess grove in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a place with the motto “move slow and make things.” There’s a calendar full of (very reasonably priced) classes and events, but the spot also welcomes walk-ins to come hang out, create, and connect. While I probably won’t be stitching anything for anyone in the future (you’re welcome), I had a great time learning something new and playing a little.

A view of some of the recess grove space, including long tables with art supplies center and at the ready plus a bar, courtesy of the recess grove website.

As always, thanks for tuning in, friends. Here’s to joy, play, and community into March and beyond—

xCQ

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CQ Serialized Fiction | Falling From the Inside

In light of some massive, exciting writing deadlines/achievements the last couple of months (a new draft of my novel Farewell, Fanta Se off to my agent, as well as a major revision of Rosie, a screenplay project I’m co-writing with Nikhil Mehta, a gifted director I’ve known since our grad school days at Columbia), I’m pausing on the Falling from the Inside serialized story for this issue, but plan to return in April with an exciting new installment—maybe a two parter due to the hiatus! Stay tuned.

Will you be at the AWP Conference this year? An exciting hack for those who don’t want to/can’t afford to/or don’t have an employer to pay the entry fee is the Work-Exchange Program (though you have to sign up well in advance of the conference). I’ll be volunteering on Saturday, and If you’d like to hear a short excerpt from the new novel-in-progress (Farewell, Fanta Se) as well as some other rad folks’ writing, I’ll be reading at the Transvengence x Lambda Literary off-site event this Thursday night, March 5th, at The Compound in Baltimore. See you there!

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Featured Prosebud | Darrel Alejandro Holnes

I first met Darrel as a poet, taken by his fierce lines in celebration of Blackness and queerness on the page and stage. If a “play is a poem standing up,” to quote Federico Garcia Lorca—as I often do—then Darrel’s work as playwright and musical theatre writer makes all the more sense! In addition to his visceral writing across genres, as well as his academic work, Holnes co-founded Candela, a truly special week-long fellowship program built for Latine playwrights and musical-theatre writers. I had the pleasure of serving on faculty for the first two years of Candela here in New York City, and it was such an abundant, supportive space of makers. I’m so grateful for Darrel’s work in the world—and the way he lifts up his community, too. I hope you’ll pick up one of Darrel’s books, search out his beautiful poems online, and look out for the next reading or production of his plays and musical projects.

In a headshot by Beowulf Sheehan, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, a Black/Afro-Panamanian man with a goatee, stands in a long-sleeved yellow collared shirt with a black oval repeating pattern, his arms crossed and his right hand against his right shoulder. He wears a bright turquoise beaded necklace and a matching ring on his middle finger.

Darrel Alejandro Holnes is a poet, playwright, and performer. His poetry collections include Stepmotherland (winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize) and Migrant Psalms. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and American Poetry Review. He is the composer and librettist of Bayano, a bilingual musical, and founder of the Candela Playwrights Summer Fellowship. He serves as Executive Director of the Caribbean Research Center and Associate Professor at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. For more information, check out darrelholnes.com

The cover of Holnes’ debut poetry collection, Stepmotherland (Notre Dame Press, 2022), features an inset red rectangle over a black title border with one Black male figure holding another—one man’s skin patterned with stars, and the other, palm fronds.

(ROSE) What’s something that’s going particularly great with your writing and/or writing process right now?

DAH: I’m working across multiple forms right now—poetry, film, and musical theater—and they’re all feeding each other in unexpected ways. The research I’ve been doing for my films is sharpening my poetry, and the poetry is finding its way into the libretti. There’s a generative momentum I haven’t felt before.

(THORN) What’s something that’s especially shitty about your writing and/or writing process right now?

DAH: Time. I’m running a research center, teaching, writing grants, and trying to protect space for the creative work that matters most to me. Some days the administrative demands win, and I have to trust that the poems and plays will still be there when I get back to them. That trust is harder than it sounds.

(STEM) Name a writer/artist/work that changed your life or sustains you.

DAH: Audre Lorde. Her insistence that poetry is not a luxury but a vital necessity—that our feelings are a guide to analysis and action—keeps me writing through exhaustion and doubt. She modeled how to hold multiple identities without apology and make art that serves the community. I return to her constantly.

(Prosebuds Theme Song Tag: “Here in the Garden” by Megan Bagala, performed by CQ Quintana)