POOL PARTY, A READING SERIES AND ONLINE JOURNAL DESIGNED TO EVOKE nostalgia, the uncanny, and to amplify our collective and inherent strangeness, was founded by RYAN-ASHLEY ANDERSON AND KEVIN MALONEY in 2024. for pool party proper, they look for well-crafted stories, essays, and poetry that interrogate desire, shame, and the human condition. for the deep end, the journal’s precocious older sibling, they prioritize critical think pieces, reviews, and interviews.

Everything’s Okay, Nothing’s Bad Here: Patrick Wensink in Conversation with Kevin Maloney and Ryan-Ashley Anderson Maloney

by Kevin & Ryan-Ashley Maloney
 | The Deep End
Unlike the dinosaurs, whose extinction was the result of a single cataclysmic event, humans are courting...
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I May Leave

by Alicia Gee
 | Essays
Mum says that Don’s womanizing killed him, along with the smoking and the drinking. Fucking is good cardio, I tell her. I have a soft spot for infidelity. Dad tells the story of a family Christmas Eve party he attended when he was a child. My grandfather Don...
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The Pool Pit

by Guy Cramer
 | Fiction
I’d gotten a call a few days before my birthday, this was back when I was just tall enough to punch my dad in the belly button. I was in my room chewing a whole packet of gum when the phone rang, ten times. On the eleventh time Mom yelled “Oh let...
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Equitable Access and Meaningful Support for The Arts

by Ryan-Ashley (Anderson) Maloney
 | The Deep End
Since moving to Portland, I have seen art organizations close, arts funding diminish, and a focus on equitable access to creative opportunities, recede in favor of individual fundraising efforts. Beyond Portland, I have seen beloved literary...
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SCRATCHING BOTH ITCHES: JAIME FOUNTAINE IN CONVERSATION WITH SOSO CAPALDI

by Jaime Fountaine
 | The Deep End
As I helped with the load-out after the closing of their most recent show, “Entity Cramming” with Eric Anthony Berdis at Grizzly Grizzly in Philadelphia, it struck me that, even though Soso Capaldi and I...
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TBA:25 Dailies / Freddie Robins

by Ryan-Ashley (Anderson) Maloney
 | Include on Home Page
There’s nothing like looking at art your partner would love to soften the edges of a disagreement and diminish the importance of reaching a clear resolution—a resolution which, in my case, would include my husband telling me that I was right. 
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Two Poems

by Ewen Glass
 | Poems
I'm ashamed of my body but I put it on the page where it buzzes like a phone that should be silent. I sometimes wish to be on a beach and just so precisely in the moment that I feel the sand and the sea and the vibrations of a low mood in which I...
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Conjuring a Life

by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
 | Essays
Maybe when kids like Jessie and John grew up they wanted to be firefighters or teachers or someone that excavates dinosaurs, but you never really knew what you wanted to be because you always had this inexplicable notion you’d be dead. 
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News + Upcoming

NEW POETRY EDITOR

We are thrilled to announce that Brian Stephen Ellis is joining Pool Party as our poetry editor! You can submit your poems to them at [email protected] and learn more about them here.

Pool Party EOY Bash

by admin
 | Events
Come party with your pool pals to celebrate a phenomenal first year. We could have drowned. We almost drowned. But we didn't. And now we're publishing books! So plan to join us on Dec. 7, from 7-10p at Coffee Beer for a fun-and-casual flash open mic (four mins max per person!), door prizes, and some other fun thangs. Plus, of course, all the coffee and beer you can drink (and wine and hot dogs and cocktails--ask for the Ray-Ray-No-No).

Back to where we started: A Valentine Reading

by admin
 | Events
Join us for a milestone (pun intended) reading at Grand Gesture Books, where we hosted our very first event just a year prior! The theme is ‘beginnings & returnings’ and we anticipate hearing all about blood oaths, first glances, and second chances Lineup TBD, so stay tuned for that and mark your calendars for Tuesday, February 10th at 6p.
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