Good day friend,
We here at Sentenced are HARD AT WORK!
This is SENTENCED’s FIFTH weekly newsletter. Thank you for signing up! You will not be disappointed.
If you’re not signed up, and you’re reading this on our website, go ahead and join us on our website’s “join” page.
Statement from Sentenced Lit
As many are aware, our publication, Sentenced Lit, is confronting significant publication challenges after our devastating live show in January 2026. But don’t worry. Currently, our publication is under 24/7 care and is completely unable to fall off.
Since this live show, we have been entirely absorbed in Sentenced’s inner workings, solely responsible for it and its social media platforms. Sentenced doesn’t have any kind of public relations assistance. For this reason, only now have we been able to announce the first work of non-fiction on our website. Look out for a fantastic article by Jocelyn Boulding that will re-contextualize for you the Internet’s beginnings. That’s later this week.
In January, our initial public response to inquiries about the recorded and edited version of the live show failed to adequately acknowledge the gravity of the effort it would require to edit it and the enduring pain of the audience, primarily because we took it as obvious that it would take time. However, a firm and explicit stance on such matters is always required.
It was deeply disturbing for us to realize we are a publication which has presented itself as a helpful friend but led a hidden life of procrastination, laziness, and un-seriousness.
I hope this retrospectively clarifies and explains our interactions with you. We recognize the gravity of our crimes and the profound suffering of our readers. Nothing in this statement is intended to minimize that suffering, and we express our unrestricted solidarity with our readership.
February 17, 2026.
Sentenced Lit
Film Review — #1
We have a new film correspondent! Her name is Jerielle Lutz, and she has offered us a review of a film that we’d like to share here with our subscribers today.
Jerielle is a VERY smart young woman at the age of just eleven, and she’s going by the name of Lutz Camera Action! Take it away!
The Fault in Our Stars
The Fault in Our Stars is a film created by the mind of John Green. John Green is an American YouTuber who is credited with creating the Vlogbrothers with his brother Hank Green. I have seen this movie and his other movie which is called “Turtles All the Way Down.” Both movies were interesting movies which have taught me a lot about health disorders.
I did not know about the existence of cancer before watching this film. Through watching this movie I learned that cancer is a disease which can kill innocent people of any age. Cancer is often created through radiation but can happen sometimes for no reason. The movie taught me something valuable about what can happen to young kids like myself.
I have asked my mother to take me to get screened for cancer, because it can happen to people of any age and it can kill them. My mother does not let me do this and I am very upset. If I were to have cancer, I might die of it.
The film brought to my attention the fact that life can end at any moment due to getting cancer. I rate this movie a 4.5/5 due to its spectacle and writing about situations involving cancer.
Wow! Thank you to Lutz Camera Action for the review!
And of course, for clarification, “Jerielle” is a pseudonym she has invented for herself. Her father does not want his daughter’s real name to be associated with us on the Internet.
Update from Fluke Dimsworth
Readers will be glad to hear that our Private Eye Fluke Dimsworth has made some progress on the murder of our late mascot, Mx. Period.
Thankfully, he’s managed to do something other than go to a bar this week! Let’s find out what kind of clues he discovered.
Not My First Shakedown
The Sentenced newsletter went out on Tuesday, and at the same time, I sat in my IFS shrink’s office, spilling my guts out. She’s the only person who’d ever listened to me, probably. Only one speaking to me like I can change. Damn near no one’s done that in my life— certainly not my mother, certainly not my father… no, I’m in the car, staking out my trauma’s apartment building, the firefighters and managers in me trailing a suspect I’d never find.
After the clock struck on the hour, her leaving me in shambles after a half-assed breakthrough, a I went on a stakeout of a less metaphoric kind. Yes, “Short”/”Crazy-Eyed” Jake Buckingham was waiting in his apartment, and just the same, I was waiting on him. What we were waiting for, whatever causal source there was, I didn’t know, but I found out soon.
The scumbag comes out of his front door and hugs a goon in a ski mask; a kiss on both cheeks, a pat on the back, a secret handshake with the kind of movements I hadn’t seen since the second grade— the fake explosion, the shake and bake, and those damn cuttlefish fingers. I filmed the whole affair (on digital, so I wouldn’t need a film lab like in the old days) and learned the steps on my own. It’s its own kind of fingerprint lock, a handshake. The kind of thing that makes you an “insider.”
I trailed the two to the poorest neighborhood in America, and watched as they shattered the windows of a house and climbed through the frame; I heard gunshot after gunshot, and saw blood splatter out through the glass on the edges of what used to be a pane, seeping into the dead grass. When they were done with one house, they’d abscond with the crumbs these people ate and the potato-sacks they wore around their naked form, move right on to the next one to slaughter and steal.
Finally, a problem the authorities could really deal with— but when I called the police, they just laughed.
“Who’s talking?” A cop asked, just within the range of the microphone.
“Some idealistic kid,” the main cop said. Addressing me again: “You oughta un-alive yourself, goofy ahh.” The line went dead, a flat tone wavering.
If the cops wouldn’t do anything, it was clear I’d need to. I took my revolver out of the glove compartment and drove up slow, loading bullet after bullet into the cylinder, stopping when I’d reached the customary six.
I’d made sure to keep track of which of the robbers was Short Jake. I could tell which one was Jake because the other one had the slightest limp— I figured I could take advantage of that.
I hopped out of the car, leaving it moving, slowly, in the center of the street. While it moved ever so slightly forward, I moved perpendicular, with the kind of physical tact that’d rival the verbal one Sicilians called “Omerta.” They didn’t expect anything. Like a moth, sitting on my wall in the middle of the night, the moon trapped behind blackout curtains, I took the man with the limp down in one kick to the knee, and another to the head when he was helpless on the ground. Then, I tackled Short Jake with my gun pressed to his temple.
I only had one question… unfortunately, he saw fit to withhold the answer. I took him in the car and tossed him down on the cool leather, binding his hands behind his back and chaining him to the headrest. He screamed all kinds of words I’d never dare to repeat, but he couldn’t do much else.
Now I have him in the interrogation room. That’s been the last week. It’s not inhumane, he’s not being tortured, and he’s not in solitary— he’s got me for company. I feed him three meals a day, better than most prisoners get. Wake up every morning and ask him the question I need the answer to, and then again, and again, and again.
I suppose I “Sentenced” him to this. And there was that word again, and the memories of that stupid-ass, piece of shit publication… Wish I could get it all out of my head and ignore it, drop the case; then there’d be no Short Jake in my basement, screaming stark raving mad. But I rolled those die already, and if it’s those two little periods, right smack dab in the middle of the die, it doesn’t matter if I already cut the grass. No matter what I do, the teeth’ll clamp down on the vein.
Next week, I should have something.
Thanks, Fluke!
At the behest of Mx. Period’s sister, Ms. Comma, I’m announcing a $50,000 dollar cash reward to anyone who can offer us information that leads to the apprehension of Mx. Period’s killer. We will pay this ourselves with our own personal money.
Submissions are STILL OPEN!
Submissions for our web and print outlets are STILL OPEN!
Please submit visual art, short comics, and writing ranging from 1 – 4,000 words.
Send your work on over to sentencedlit@gmail.com !
And please buy our zine. Thank you.
Sentenced Forever.
See you in a week,
Sentenced Lit
sentencedlit.org
