This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven
Copyright Alex Schumacher
“But it helps me to remember. I need to remember. Sometimes, there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.”
- American Beauty
“Farewell. Hello.”
- traditional Tralfamadorian greeting
The Tralfamadorians are an alien race from the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, for whom time is an endless loop. When a Tralfamadorian looks at someone, they see them as they are throughout the entire course of their life, alive at one moment, dead in the next, and then alive again. Alive somewhere and dead somewhere at the same time is pretty much what it’s like to be a literary magazine on the internet, perpetually existing but long since shuttered. Drunk Monkeys is dead. Farewell, hello.
Drunk Monkeys will live on in some form for as long as possible. This particular website and URL will eventually go away, but we will always maintain a home for it for as long as free web hosting exists. If you’ve been published here, your work will live on the internet for as long as there is a free internet. Your art was our lifeblood. We would never have survived without it. Getting to know so many of you over the years, watching your careers and lives grow and change, was a joy.
The community that we had is gone, the family we made lives on. So it goes. Below are a few words from those who made this site what it was. We love you all.
Final Words: The Drunk Monkeys Editorial Staff
Sean Woodard, Film Editor
What has made Drunk Monkeys special these past 10 years(!) to me has been my fellow editorial staff members—Matt, Kolleen, and Chris. They have become family to me, sharing life’s ups and downs with copious amounts of support and Just Friends annual Friendsgiving watch parties. And of course, Kevin the Snowman.
I first joined Drunk Monkeys back in December 2015, writing reviews for the film section. Eventually I was asked by Matt to serve as Film Editor. Not only did I gain invaluable skills from this experience, but it also introduced me to fabulous writers and artists including Gabe Ricard, Michael Seymour Blake, Alex Schumacher, Sarah Nichols and other regular contributors who helped add to Drunk Monkeys’ legacy.
Drunk Monkeys also provided me the space to hone my film criticism, allowing both “The Magic of Film Scoring” and “Finding the Sacred Among the Profane” columns to explore deep questions of film music production and representations in faith in film, respectively.
But we would be nothing without our constant readers. Without you, Drunk Monkeys would not have thrived and been the wonderful space that it was for all these years.
I will always cherish the memories Drunk Monkeys has given me. Thank you for these wonderful years.
Chris Pruitt, Managing Editor
Drunk Monkeys meant a lot of different things to me over the course of my years on the masthead.
For example, in a purely skills-based way, the Managing Editor role was a great way to practice and maintain editorial and technical talents I’d developed working on my grad school’s literary publication previously. I would eventually get the opportunity to lead an internship in online publishing for undergraduate students for a couple of quarters, and keeping a foot in this world via this publication helped give me a confidence and breadth of experience in the area that a successful educator needs.
More generally and importantly, Drunk Monkeys was an outstanding platform for new poetry, fiction, criticism, and art that I have enjoyed purely as a reader. Getting to be a part of its creation month over month has given me pride and a sense of ownership in helping build and maintain some small corner of the online literary community, even as the state of the internet became increasingly hostile to the idea of anything human-curated that isn’t an insanely monetized sub-account of an annoying swipe app. Maybe I show my age some here, but having helped carry something that looks like a real website populated entirely by artistic products of human minds to 2025 is something I’ll feel proud of for a long time, and it gave me a huge appreciation for the people and outlets that have platformed my own writing over the years.
In return, Drunk Monkeys was a lifeline that kept me tethered to my community and creative instincts during challenging times. From the encroaching demands on time and sanity of multiple jobs, family developments good and bad, and general political instability over the last decade, to the more literal isolation brought about by the pandemic, as well as natural disasters and escalating police state nonsense in our home city, it’s been difficult to maintain the energy, optimism, and sheer hours in the day necessary to devote to a good personal creative practice. Drunk Monkeys was a form of accountability that kept me engaged not just as a reader and editor, but as somebody who was aware of the greater online literary landscape that we were some small, but significant, part of. If I was struggling for the right words to say, I could at least be part of the mechanism that platformed somebody who had gotten it done. It gave me hope and made me stronger when I needed both of those things.
But selfishly, and the thing that first piqued my interest in working with Drunk Monkeys, was that it was a great opportunity to make some cool stuff with some cool people. And by God, we did that, didn’t we? I made lifelong friends on this staff. We had the pleasure of working with so many outstanding writers and artists, many of whom I follow and adore to this day. We have dozens and dozens of issues in the archive that are full of work that’s poignant, provocative, wholesome, experimental, sexy, daring, and comforting. And none of that goes away now. It’s all still there, waiting to be read. Maybe it means, or maybe it will, all kinds of different things to you too!
Plus Dr. Alan Grant read one of our pieces once. That kinda makes it all worth it to me.
Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner, Editor-in-chief
When I upended my life in 2016 and moved across the country to California, I was, in some ways, completely lost. I knew I was making the right decision, but at what cost? I had graduated from Antioch University with my MFA in poetry three years before and had fallen in love with Southern California, as well as with the man who would eventually and quickly become my husband. In Massachusetts, I had a strong literary community, having gone to Salem State and been involved with Mass Poetry as well as the Salem Writers Group and other various lit happenings. But I felt like Los Angeles would offer more in the way of a literary community. I had met Matt Guerrero, the cofounder of Drunk Monkeys, at AWP in Los Angeles in 2016; he published a poem of mine, and he had asked me if I would be open to handling the social media for the website. Of course I agreed.
Once settled in Los Angeles, Matt, myself, and Nathan Schwartz, founder of the now defunct Five 2 One, would meet often at the Burbank Barnes & Noble for coffee and food and hangouts. Not long after I had settled Matt had expressed the desire to close the journal so that he could focus on other things in his life. It had going since 2011, and he felt it was time to move on. But I had fallen in love with the magazine. I didn't want to close. So I offered to step in as an interim EIC with the caveat that if he felt he wanted to come back, I would rescind the title. I remember him posting that misogynists and time wasters needed to be on warning because I was taking over. I thought that was really funny (he was right).
I remember the first time I read that Matt thought that I had done more for the journal than he ever could. I never thought that that was true, but I appreciated it all the same. I do think that I worked harder on Drunk Monkeys than I ever have on anything else in my life. I worked on it through my pregnancy, I worked on it through several nervous breakdowns. Wait, no. WE. We worked on it through the pandemic, we worked on it through a lot of personal grief and tremendous joys. We navigated stalkers, harassers, and just plain assholes. Those were in minority, of course, but it's still worth mentioning. I'm proud of how I handled things like that, and I hope it was inspiring to other journals who put up with a lot of shit and don't want to cause any more drama by posting about it. I think these things should always be posted about.
We published a lot of people. And I mean a lot. I don't even know how many. Hundreds. And every single one of those pieces, of those writers, were hand selected by us, we're always the best of the best. We even published some books! Crazy. Something I had always wanted to do. I never regretted anything we ever published. I was so proud and grateful that people trusted us with their work, and let us showcase them in that way. I will never not be grateful.
Sometime last year, shortly after our beloved Pop Culture issue went live, something happened. I froze up. I was struggling with things in my personal life and I found myself unable to even look at our email. It was like an executive function issue on overdrive, the worst mental block. I would physically react to the thought of opening the email. I wasn't the only one shutting down. A lot of our staff is dealing with heavy things in their own lives and trying to get the journal going again was something we attempted, but never could actually execute. I'm sad for that. I beat myself up a lot over the last year about it, But now I recognize that most of us are flailing almost all the time. We can't do anything until our feet are on solid ground again. That's OK. I apologize to those who were waiting for a response from us, waiting for their pieces being published, waiting in that never-ending submittable queue. We never meant to go dark. It just happened, like so many things in life just happen.
I will say that my favorite part about running Drunk Monkeys— no, wait. Scratch that. My second favorite part about running Drunk Monkeys are the people that we published. I had always hoped that being published with us was more than just another byline for the collection, that it really meant something. And for the most part, I think it did. I have gotten messages over the years from people who have thanked us for publishing their first work, the ever insurmountable climb that often opens the floodgates (if you'll allow me a dreaded mixed metaphor). In fact, when I announced on our social media that we were closing, I received a lot of messages and comments thanking us for publishing and celebrating others' work, and how much it had meant to them. That means a lot to me. That means more to me than anyone will ever know, as I often feel like I am fucking up almost everything in my life. Up until right after that final issue, I never felt like I was fucking Drunk Monkeys up, And given my track record that's actually some sort of miracle. I am a woman who Fucks Up. I have been for 43 years and I'll die that way.
But my favorite thing about Drunk Monkeys was my staff. Matt and Chris and Sean are like brothers to me, bonus family that helped me segue into a life as an Angeleno with support and love. My poetry crew of Jeanne and Joey are dear and true friends. Ashley and Ramona on fiction always gave their all with thoughtful critique. Alex's Mr. Butterchips was always a delight, as was Gabriel's Captain Canada column. Nina was a dedicated and amazing intern. I loved One Perfect Episode, I loved It's Good, Actually, I loved it all. That we could showcase and blend and merge literary works with a genuine love of pop culture to be something, as it was said before my time, "totally original". It was one of the single genuine and beautiful loves of my life. I'm sad to see it go, and I wish the ending had been a little bit more triumphant. But isn't that how things end? With a whimper. That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise. And that's OK. It is what it is. And I have to be OK with that.
Thank you for the last 15 years, the majority of which were under my tenure. I hope we did the literary world proud. I hope to get back to it soon. I've spent the last almost two years working on a novel, and I truly don't even know what to do with that. I'm still out of the loop. Where do I send anything at all? Where do I send poetry? Where do I read it? I'll worm my way back into eventually—maybe you can even suggest some stuff to read.
Thank you for everything. I'll see you around.
P.S.: We're bringing the Logcasting pod back so at least there's that, and we're not taking the site down. Your work will not go away.
Matt Guerrero, Founding Editor
No movie unsettled me more in recent years than I Saw the TV Glow, in which the main character is offered a choice to either live authentically or deny their true identity. Because this is a horror movie, they make the second choice. In the ending, in which they slowly asphyxiate, buried alive under the weight of a scream that the rest of the world ignores, I saw an echo of the person I was before I started Drunk Monkeys. It was art that let air back into my lungs and freed me from the trauma that was suffocating me. It was the community fostered by Drunk Monkeys that healed me.
But Drunk Monkeys hasn’t been my operation for almost a decade. Our greatest success was under Kolleen. She was the one who took a litmag run by four people and transformed it into a respected literary publication that could compete with magazines funded by colleges and trust funds. She did that. We so often deny ourselves the best of our accomplishments, but I hope she owns that truth.
It's hard to care about something that much, it drains more than it fills. I hope all of you have someone in your lives who loves you as thoroughly as Kolleen loves the people that matter to her. She loved this janky website that much, and that is what kept it going for so long.
The Drunk Monkeys editorial crew long ago passed from colleagues to family—we have been a part of so many weddings now! I officiated Kolleen’s wedding to the one and only Fritz. Sean was my best man when I married Diana, the most caring partner imaginable. And I’ll never forget the glee in Chris’s eyes as he processed into his wedding to Sunjana. These people are a part of me.
It’s impossible to thank the literally hundreds of people who I came to know through Drunk Monkeys. In my editor’s letter in the tenth anniversary issue, I reminisced a bit about my time as captain of the ship, and I still hold onto those memories with love. I’m especially grateful to those friends and family who supported and guided me in the early days of the site.
I launched Drunk Monkeys with a naive enthusiasm. I tried to avoid ugliness in attitude, both in our content and our behavior toward the literary community. One of our longest-running features, created by Kolleen, was Its Good Actually, a celebration of movies other people call bad but that you love. One of my first long form pieces for the site was a non-ironic appreciation of Don’t Stop Believing. Some of my fondest memories of collaborating with our writers are live-tweeting cheesy movies like Masters of the Universe back when live-tweeting was still a thing. I was inspired by an Obama-era optimism, the New Sincerity, as Jesse Thorn coined it.
Anyway, that’s not what the world is anymore and there’s no use trying to deny it when people are being kidnapped off the streets. We’re not safe, and poetry isn’t going to change that. Maybe I’ve lost my belief in the power of art, but I hope that the younger generations haven’t, because they’re going to need it. More than ever, this is a world which buries you alive.
During our Star Wars discussion series, now ten years old, I wrote about the moment in Return of the Jedi in which Luke Skywalker is tempted to join the dark side of the Force, but makes a different choice. The person who wrote those words was filled with hope, and I want to leave Drunk Monkeys behind on that note.
What I see, with the distance of time, is that these words represent the opening stirring of religious understanding inside of me. My tradition calls this the voice of the Holy Spirit, the piece of God that animates us, calls us to action. And so I do have a hope after all, that there are things more important than power, that people can change, that there is good in everyone.
So that’s what I leave you with, from ten years ago:
In the end, Anakin Skywalker earns his redemption with one moment of choice, in not being able to stand by while his son is tortured by the same wizened creature that ruined his own life. At the end of the movie, we see Anakin again, bathed in the same blue spirit-light as Obi-Wan and Yoda. By making that one choice, he has become their equal in goodness. The blood and terror of Darth Vader are gone. Just like that.
Before Anakin’s choice, we see Luke contemplate a dark future of his own, as he stands over his wounded father, ready to aim the killing blow. It’s only when Luke notices that his father’s mechanical hand mirrors his own that he is thrown out of the dark reverie to which The Emperor has manipulated him, and he realizes that his father was once like him--a boy with the same fear and doubt. That moment of reflection gives Luke the strength to make the right choice. He is a Jedi, like his father before him. Like his father can be again.
We know, or we think we know, that the world isn’t that easy. That being good or evil isn’t just a choice. Isn’t just one moment’s decision. But what if it is? What if the choice is as easy as seeing our own damaged clockwork, the same machinery that propelled our parents into their own poor decisions, and choosing to follow another path? Then we would be beings of unimaginable strength, capable of moving x-wings with our minds and toppling empires with compassion.
It’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I sure hope it’s true.
Final Words from Past Editors and Contributors
Lawrence Von Haelstrom
I am proud to say I was one of the first contributors to Drunk Monkeys. I am proud to have been behind the scenes working with Matt in the early days. And I was thrilled to see Drunk Monkeys grow far beyond anything I could have helped with. My real name is Matt as well, but at the time Matt started Drunk Monkeys, I was in the budding stages of my own public-facing career and hid behind a ridiculous made-up name. Lawrence von Haelstrom started as a mysterious contributor of humorous essays, but later became part of the Film Department--the obnoxiously pretentious part of the department. Lawrence von Haelstrom was no longer a character, he was me and I still sometimes get confused who I am. I look back with pride on things like our long-form discussion of all six Star Wars films that matter. Sometimes when I am down, I re-read those articles. I am surprised I was so articulate and wonder what happened to my ability to write like that.
I’m sorry to see Drunk Monkeys go, but I understand. It’s simply too good for the internet. It was born at a time when the internet had potential, full of optimism and hope. Anyone could make a website, and, with a little luck and a lot of care, create something of value and build a community. One could very conceivably aspire, as Matt did, to create a literary magazine without the overhead of going to print or without the gatekeeping of something created by a university’s English department. One could create a unique site for interesting and surprising things. The internet is simply not that anymore. The internet failed Drunk Monkeys just as it has failed the world. No longer the egalitarian town square, it is a treacherous dystopia. A system designed to steal your attention, scrape your personal details, and warp your perception of the world all with the sole intent of sucking up profit for the very few. I’m sorry, internet of 2026, you just don’t deserve Drunk Monkeys. Farewell, Drunk Monkeys! I’ll see you in spirit elsewhere--far from the internet.
Gabriel Ricard
We’re going to do this in four parts, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the windup. Better people will have more to say, I suspect, and I want you to get to them as soon as possible.
But as I was also with this peerless website and literary magazine for almost 14 years:
1. Thank you, thank you, thank you Matt for taking a chance on my writing all those years ago. Thank you for letting me pitch a column. Thank you for letting me build a career on that. Thank you. Not only did I get to become a writer by working directly with you, but I just got to watch a vast talent cook. It doesn’t get any better than that. Matt Guerrero is the kind of person who just makes you want to do your best. His vision and creativity, not to mention his patience, is something I am so, so grateful to watch in real time. He deserves better than a shoddy, sanitized internet that doesn’t have room for lifechanging institutions like Drunk Monkeys. So do you.
2. The people at Drunk Monkeys made up at least 65% of the fun of working there for me. Thank you, Sean Woodard, for giving me the best conversations about film I’ve ever had with another human being. Thank you, Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner, for keeping this ship going for so, so many years. Evolving the scope and vast spiritual value of Drunk Monkeys while looking damn good doing it, with the best taste in movies of anyone I know. I sincerely and deeply love you all. We’ll all hang out again. I’ve learned that you really, really can’t say “Never.” You just can’t. Stay tuned.
3. Drunk Monkeys ain’t goin’ nowhere in the sense that the website is still standing at time of closing remarks and will be for the foreseeable future. You readers out there still with me should go through the archives. The poems. The essays. The fiction. The movie and so many other types of reviews. All of it still has profound emotional weight and entertainment value. All of it can still be shared with your cool and handsome friends. If you want to be proactive about supporting artists, then there you go.
4. Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo changed my life. Full stop. It taught me to write about films, and it is still shaping my passions and obsessions. Captain Canada isn’t retiring just yet. It’s very likely that you’ll see him back sometime in the near future.
And that’s it. I could go on, and the temptation is so immense, it makes my hands hurt a little, but I won’t. Art is still here. It’s not gone. It’s not going anywhere, despite the best efforts of some. All you can really do is keep that mind, and tell your friends, and make sure they tell their friends.
And so on. See You Space Cowboy…
Joey Gould
Drunk Monkeys first came into my life after the Pulse Nightclub terrorist attack. I wrote "Gooseflesh" as a Facebook status (lol) and Matt asked to publish it in an issue dedicated to responding to the attack. It was one of my first publications, certainly my first solicitation, & it’s still one of my most cherished “poements”. I later earned a feature as writer of the month & then joined the team as poetry editor, & I’ve been blessed to select so many necessary poems by writers I admire & believe in. For the team at DM to take me seriously & believe in my work has meant everything to me.
I love that we did all the things: we gave space to political work, pop culture slop, & also some neat li’l book reviews. We have never been a safe space for hate. We also had a lot of fun & published incredible work. I even made friends through the process. I also got to pitch issue topics: the horror special was all me even though it’s K’s whole thing?? I learned how to use Submittable to write loving marginalia for my cohort. & I learned a lot about what makes a good piece of writing tick.
I’m personally grateful to Kolleen, Matt, Sean, Jeanne, Ashley, Nate, & everyone I met through this experience. I would not be who I am without y’all.The picture of me with Jeanne at The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, which I believe was snapped by one of my favorite photographers, John Andrews, is still one of my favorite photos ever.
It has become increasingly hard to spend my spoons on editing with all that we’re going through as a nation, especially as a queer person; on the other hand, my nine affiliated years are a long time, a lot of poems, so many writers of all genres that we have platformed. Thank you!!
Jeanne Obbard
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the drunkest of monkeys, it was the soberest of monkeys, it was the age of pop culture, it was the age of think pieces, it was the epoch of out-of-control submissions queues, it was the epoch of beautifully assembled issues, it was the season of in-jokes, it was the season of political despair – in short, the period was in many ways like the life of any independent journal, but I can only receive it in the superlative, as to my eye there was and has been nothing quite like it. – apologies to Charles Dickens
One of my assignments in 10th grade English was to memorize this Dickens paragraph (the original one obviously, not the version I just mangled; sorry, Chuck), and on the day when I was supposed to recite it to the teacher, I was out sick. Genuinely and truly out sick, not trying to dodge any assignments. So when I came back to school the next day and asked to do my carefully memorized recitation, the English teacher wouldn’t let me. “You’re too late,” she said, “it was due yesterday.” And I said “But I had it memorized yesterday, I just got sick!” “Too bad.” She was unsympathetic, implacable.
Fortunately for me, reading and writing were already so much a part of me that one indifferent English teacher (I swear, you guys, she did not like me) couldn’t sour me on either one. But I do feel at this bittersweet moment a little as I did on that day – cheated somehow, through no one’s fault, but rather a victim of my own illness. I cannot blame that teacher, and I can’t blame myself or any of us here at Drunk Monkeys. Sometimes we just come to the end of the road before we are really ready.
Kolleen and Joey were kind enough to invite me onto the Drunk Monkeys staff as part of the poetry gang in 2019?ish?, and over the years I read through many of the poetry submissions. Some things I learned along the way: if the first poem in a set is a clunker, the rest will not redeem it, and the belief that I needed to read every poem in detail became almost an act of self-harm. By the same token, if a poem is good, it jumps off the page and gets you hooked immediately. Another truth: We were often behind in getting through the submissions, and many of those good poems went into other journals before we could say yes, which always gave me a rueful smile and a “good for you” whispered to that writer through the ether. But we caught some of them; indeed, they leaped into our boat like shining fish.
I was, as a poetry reader, admittedly flawed: overly easy on the very young writers, wanting to get them submitting to us again even if the work was as yet unformed. Probably overly harsh on the more experienced but unchecked egos. You know – instead of the poem reaching out a tentative hand, it kind of slaps you on the back and says “Aren’t I great?”. I was sometimes, in our little poetry quorum, “the mean one.” I can hardly explain myself; often I found that my own strong opinion was a shock to me. But I was also equally happy to be either backed up or overruled, because that’s the real gift of being part of a team: the surprises; the engagement with other people’s tastes; the whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
And I was fatigued sometimes, and I think it’s a fatigue common to people working on these independent journals, these labors of love. Sometimes we fall down. Sometimes we need other people to step over our prone exhausted body and pick up the work. I hope this admission will be read not as a sorrowful thing, but just as a truth; because to be in this writing life, to not just write but also to give back, inside that wide circle of writers who are also editors who are also parents, caregivers, partners, and day-job wielders, is a lifelong endeavor. We all need to honor our seasons. We all need to allow for fallow times.
To all our writers and submitters, thank you for sending your shining and funny and unexpected fish our way; thank you for trusting us with them whether they landed here or swam onwards.
To Kolleen, you are a more generous human and EIC than I deserved. Every time I wrote some ridiculous thing about Christmas movies, or Practical Magic, or CATS! The Movie! The Musical! The – Oh My God What WAS That?!, and mentioned it to Kolleen, she was like “send it, I’ll print it.” She gifted me – with an open hand – the opportunity to be totally ridiculous in public and I’ll forever cherish the trust she put in me.
To Joey and Kolleen both, thank you for laughing at my dumb jokes, and for tolerating my snarkiest opinions. Our comradeship does not end just because I’m not sending videos of myself saying “clear ze queue, ve must clear ze queue” in a bad German accent.
But look, my part in this was so minor. I showed up for some bits; I stuck my hand in the water as harder workers paddled along. Kolleen, Matt, Chris, and Sean sat and pulled each of these issues together over many hours and as an actual labor of love. And love does not go away, ever; it just changes form.
It was the best of times. It was the best of times.
Allan Ferguson
Of the work I’ve done for Drunk Monkeys since its early days, most of it used design and graphics skills that you would have found on my resumé, like the book designs for the third DM Anthology and the Marginalia titles. But sometimes something came along that I hadn’t done professionally, like the digital coloring over Alex Schumacher’s cartooning, which eventually led to coloring all 230-odd pages of Alex’s excellent YA graphic novel The Effects of Pickled Herring (Mango Publishing, 2024).
And there was a short stint as a TV recapper during the 5th season of Mad Men, “...probably the first and last time I’ll compare Don [Draper] to Homer Simpson.” Also I suggested that Don was somehow both the dentist and the patient in the tale of the goy’s teeth from A Serious Man. Wouldn’t you?
Thank you Matt & Kolleen for all the opportunities and all your dedication.
Donald McCarthy
I published a piece of fiction with Drunk Monkey’s back in 2012. I was a student teacher at the time. I popped back home during a free period because I’d forgotten something and decided to check my email since I had a spare moment. In my inbox sat an acceptance letter from Matt, the founder and editor of Drunk Monkeys.
I had published in a few places beforehand, but Drunk Monkeys was the place I named back then whenever someone asked me where they could find a work of mine. No, not because the story was amazing but because Drunk Monkeys was such a fun name to say.
And it turned out to be a fun place to write for.
After finishing student teaching, I decided to go for an MFA and diversify my writing. I began to publish essays at Drunk Monkeys and thanks to a shared interest in comics, Star Wars, and HBO dramas, Matt and I became fast friends, still messaging each other every day now in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-five.
I edited the non-fiction section for a while, which was quite a learning experience. As someone used to being on the other end, I found it interesting to see what an editor gets inundated with and how editorial decisions aren’t as simple as saying something is good or bad.
At the same time, I published plenty of essays with Drunk Monkeys, too. Some political in nature, some about pop culture. In 2015, in the lead up to the wretched The Force Awakens, we did a six-month special on what consisted of the Star Wars saga back then, and I was given the chance to argue for the merits of George Lucas’ masterful prequel trilogy, an opinion viewed largely as ludicrous then and somewhat still now (one need not worry: heroes like myself are so rarely appreciated in their day…). Debating the merits of the films with fellow well-read fans was a blast, nothing like the flame wars you sometimes see. Instead, it was a hell of a time.
I did a search on the site to see some of what I’d written, much of it a decade ago, and came across ones I’d forgotten. I was especially interested in an essay on The X-Files, one which I at first had no memory of but gradually came back to me as I read it. Since it’s ten years old, there’s plenty of it I’d do differently, but many of my thoughts on it remain the same. One major correction did come to mind, however: the chance to write about one of my favorite shows at length is one I shall never again take for granted.
While I still write a lot, I have largely foregone essays now and so hadn’t written for Drunk Monkeys in ages. Yet, the idea of it being around has always been comforting. It will be odd to know it’s no longer running. Sad, yes, but for an online literary magazine, it’s a long run, one to be proud of. So many places came and went during Drunk Monkeys’ fourteen year reign; in the era of the internet, fourteen years may as well be a century, and that’s something worth smiling about, no?
Nathan Alan Schwartz
I was so proud to very briefly work side by side with, and for, a magazine that made the lit world awesome and truly impacted the lives of our readers by sharing the wonderful talents of literature and pop culture. Kolleen, Matt, and all those magnificent editors knocked the socks off those readers.
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella
Just heeding the call and sharing some nice words upon the news of the Drunk Monkeys end times.
There is no publication that took better care of their contributors than Drunk Monkeys. You've been a cornerstone of integrity, equity, and originality in the lit mag world, I am beyond grateful that you included some of my pieces in DMs. I can't imagine the enormity of effort it took to stand on business with as much frequency as y'all did, and consistently put out really good work.
Whatever any of y'all do next, I'll champion with enthusiasm.
In the spirit of your pop culture issues, for which I was always endlessly enthusiastic about, lemme paraphrase two of my favs in your honor:
Drunk Monkeys is the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be - Bret Hart
Smell ya later, Drunk Monkeys, smell ya later forever - Ralph Wiggum
Love and rockets,
Janie
William Lessard
Drunk Monkeys is one of the few magazines that live up to their claim of supporting independent writers and artists. Many claim to, then publish the same few people from the same elite MFA programs. DM has been one of the warmest champions of people like myself. I hope the team, past and present, feels proud of what they accomplished.
Michael Dean Clark
Kolleen (and the crew),
A note of appreciation. Drunk Monkeys holds a unique space in my literary imagination. The journal—zine culture in the best of senses—allowed for the polarities of my work to reside on the same pages. Pop culture musings on CHiPs, Psych, The Fresh Prince, and, of all things, Sunset Park found equal footing with a fragmentary and experimental exploration of my insomnia through the lens of drought. The latter essay was pivotal in the process of cementing my voice in essays, something I am deeply appreciative of.
Larger, though, it has been the people of DM that made me proud to have my work there. The dogged advocacy for expression paired with the emphasis on relationships I know went on behind the scenes is a model for other publications. It's why I encouraged students to intern there. It's also why I typically list DM first in my author bio. I think that's what I'll grieve most as the digital door shuts for the last time here.
Simply put, thank you. Your efforts on our behalf mattered.
Derrick R. Lafayette
Say it aint so,
I'm forever indebted to DM for publishing my first short story, The Gauntlet, years ago. I also had a chance to be on the Literary Whip podcast, the DM movie podcast, and contribute to the 100-word movie reviews. Awesome publication, thanks for the opportunity.
Ashley Elizabeth
THANK YOU for existing and taking up space in this wild lit world of ours. I appreciate literally everything you have done to champion my work and work of other writers.
Drunk Monkeys also felt like a safe place to land so Thank YOUUU
Sarah Bovold
“Drunk Monkeys is the first literary magazine who has said yes to my work. Just being honest, before then, I didn’t even know the small rectangle icon on my Submittable page would turn green after the work got accepted,” - I wrote when I shared the news about my publication on Facebook back in June 2021. Although my Facebook account is long gone now, I still remember how excited I was and I liked and replied to each of the “Congrats” under the post. At the time, I was working on my thesis for grad school, getting used to my brand-new last name (newlywed), setting up a tea table in my apartment, preparing for my first ever full-time job, and being obsessed with the idea of things will get better. In 2022, the Editor-in-Chief of Drunk Monkeys announced the start of Cherry Dress Chapbooks, which was something the EIC desired to do for a long time, as I read the announcement. Was that so great? Things indeed got better, didn't they? I couldn’t remember if the idea of [someday, I will submit to Cherry Dress] once flashed in my mind when I saw the news.
From late of the year 2022 through early 2025, I faced many difficulties including relocations, health issues (dental issue specifically), a not-so-ideal financial situation, and a mom living on another continent was hospitalized twice, but I was always fascinated by those posts from Drunk Monkeys popping up whenever I logged into my Instagram account. How many film titles did I get to know from Drunk Monkeys’ instagram posts? Well, I definitely need to watch more films.Those posts, issues, and the editor’s real talk made me recognize that life is not only about difficulties and struggling, we still have words, arts, and films, etc, etc. More importantly, Drunk Monkeys is always there, and fascinates you.
I want to say Thank you, Drunk Monkeys for what you have offered me and many others.
Today, December 3rd, 2025, after I read the update titled Drunk Monkeys Is Dead (very straightforward, as always), I started drafting this letter to say bye. I paused a few times because I hesitated. I hesitated to accept the fact that it is coming to an end. I feel like once I complete and send out this letter to the email address shown on the announcement, it means I acknowledge the end of Drunk Monkeys and confirm I received the notice of its closure. It truly makes me sad. But after re-reading the words by the editor from last year, I want to say I understand. I believe you all have done all you can do to keep this magazine, this community alive. But sometimes, things just didn’t work out in the way we expected.
Thank you again for working so hard to stay around since 2011. Thank you for making me believe that my writing, my work is acceptable - as someone who tends to reject herself, it meant a lot.
“Drunk Monkeys is over,” as the announcement says, but writing continues.
Elaina Parsons
I am so sad to see you go. You made me believe so hard in lit mags when I was starting off as a memoir essayist—you published two of my pieces. Made me crush harder on the lit mag world. What a beautiful space you created for so many writers.
RC Hopgood
I miss hanging out at Drunk Monkeys. Drunk Monkeys was a celebration oasis amidst the dry desert sands of literary pretentions. I felt right at home in the Drunk Monkeys lounge. In this lounge, the high and low brow mixed and mingled. Contemporary poetry and short stories sat side by side with the Power Rangers and Buffy drinking Boulevardiers and PBRs. Everything made perfect sense at Drunk Monkeys, because it makes perfect sense. I could sit in that lounge, kick back and discuss the depths of Matt Berry and the silliness of Dostoyevski in the same breath, and Drunk Monkeys would smile, nod and wink. But now Drunk Monkeys is gone and the world goes back to being a senseless battle of the high vs the low, the serious vs the entertaining, the fluffy vs the heavy, and life will not be the same. I miss Drunk Monkeys. Long live Drunk Monkeys.
Sarah Ghoshal
Always the best and most entertaining content! Thank you for publishing my work. I always felt you understood it.
Brodie Hubbard
When I moved out of Los Angeles ten years ago, I knew I had screwed up my life something awful, and my punishment was returning to the home state I had escaped. But I took comfort in the fact that the love of my life was giving me the chance to walk the straight and narrow, we had a beautiful baby I was ready to finally be a decent and present father for, and that for however uncool I thought Phoenix was, I could write from anywhere in the world. I did go back a few times for my master’s program in Culver City, but I was otherwise stuck in Arizona.
So then a few funny things happened. I fell in with a new crowd via our graduate school connections, namely Jane-Rebecca Cannarella who I played a role in launching MEOW MEOW POW POW with, and Kolleen Carney Hoepfner and Chris Pruitt, who were running DRUNK MONKEYS and hosting a TWIN PEAKS podcast.
I was still recovering from some terrible life decisions and transitioning into a more mature and sober man faithful to my values and the family I was trying to be a better husband and father for. I had shared some heartfelt goodbyes (and burned some bridges) with the Southern California zine community, but kept in touch with enough fine folks to bring a bunch of them out to the first PHX Zine Fest that I put on with founder and still current champion Charissa Lucille (who has been a fearless leader every year of the event’s existence, and counted on me for a few contributions after my COVID era exit from organizing). However, I was not ready to claim my space or assert my presence, not my face or my government name.
I did a lot of pop culture writing, some stuff I’m still really proud of, but after Charissa wrote me one day addressing me as “Hub,” I just stuck with that moniker. Or, sometimes the pen name “h.” Any photo of me that went up was me in shadows or my face otherwise obscured. I was officially “Hub Unofficial,” just a messenger giving you reviews, interviews, and musings. I was so relieved that when I appeared on TWIN PEAKS LOGCASTING with Chris, Kolleen, and Matt Guerrero, it was audio only.
The work, though! My favorite articles… the definitive ROMPER STOMPER retrospective, which would later be cited during an interesting week in professional wrestling when AEW World Champion Jon Moxley quoted the movie in a promo… a One Perfect Episode about ALIEN NATION that series stars Eric Pierpoint and the late Gary Graham would both tweet about… and another One Perfect Episode about DAYBREAK that series writer and alum of THE STATE Michael Patrick Jann would respond to as well. I was acknowledging underappreciated work, and my work was being appreciated not only by the people I wrote about, but my wonderful editors.
You know, I’m going to credit my retrospective on DEAD AT 21 and interview with series creator Jon Sherman as “definitive,” too. I did my research, but even aside from that, I knew my shit. At some point as I became entrenched in the greater Phoenix area horror fandom community (yes, that’s a real thing), I was told I was in my “professor era” (that might have had to do just as much with needing reading glasses as it does my academic ramblings about slashers).
The point is, I found my voice again, I felt comfortable in my skin again, and I was willing to stand tall on my corner and say “my name is my name” (that’s a reference to THE WIRE, have you watched it yet?). I showed my face in a brave new world under a desert sun whose warmth I was ready to accept.
Because home is where the heart is, and my heart is with DRUNK MONKEYS and the lit community that allowed me to pontificate on pop culture. Being a part of this website deepened friendships and opened new opportunities. My only regret is that I didn’t give more! I had a really promising DENNIS THE MENACE article premise and Jay North’s home telephone number…
Kolleen and I talk a lot about horror. There’s some trash we both adore. And so one of my favorite features was IT’S GOOD, ACTUALLY. Celebrating things not everyone appreciates. This site is closing and the announcement came a full year and a half after the last thing it published. That really snuck out and away from us, didn’t it? It felt like a new Pop Culture Spectacular was due any day now.
But I promise DRUNK MONKEYS was loved, appreciated, not overlooked. It wasn’t just good. It was great, actually. And I’m better for having been a drunk monkey from time to time, too. It’s what made me human again. I mean that, or my name isn’t Brodie Hubbard.
Chris, Matt, and Kolleen in 2018