Sarah Weir’s Punisher

In the year and a half prior to November 2020, when Sarah Weir submitted the manuscript of PUNISHER to Cryptid Editions, she had been working on an MFA at OCAD University. Her thesis was on the performance of sincerity in digital spaces, a theme which began to occupy a less theoretical space in her life with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Weir spent almost all her time online, trawling Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, CollarSpace, Wattpad, Medium (, et c.) for data. In June, after discovering Phoebe Bridgers’ album, Punisher, Weir began writing a letter to Bridgers to express how her work had affected her. The e-mail grew longer and longer and, by Weir’s report, less coherent, finally finding itself migrating from her inbox to her desktop, growing stronger roots in the cool darkness of that container.

Josh Glasman received the manuscript of PUNISHER in November of 2020, soon after Andrew Murphy’s initial dismissal from the role of editor. Glasman was enthusiastic about the work and began a prolific exchange with Weir that would last until his death in 2021. It was the last successful act of editorship that Glasman would perform prior to his suicide, as EXTRAS was left unfinished.

PUNISHER is still available through our shop. There are limited hard-copies left of the text, but PDFs are also available.