Interviewed by Ari Blatt, August 2026. When Tethered Literary first read Cassund Olivier’s work for our second issue, our editors were struck by the risks “General Biology for Girls” took in exploring the narrators’ experience with a relapse in disordered eating, and the way its experiments with form unearthed the roots of the condition in familial sexual abuse and homophobia, “...you can still hear great-grandmother, babies crying in the background, as she tells herself and

Dead Dad Jokes by Ollie Schminkey is a killer collection of poetry that explores hardship with radical honesty, humility, and humor. As a queer writer it is a source of inspiration I return to when considering how to put my truth on the page with a balance of empowerment and kindness. The Wildnerness That Bears Your Name by James A. Pearson captures the wonders of nature in ways that widen the human experience; it's a collection I return to regularly for my own processing of