Writing | Lex E. Santi | Writing, Poetry & Creativity by Lex Enrico Santí

Writing

Connection is where meaning begins.

Writing is how I listen.
How I make sense.
How I stay connected.

88 pieces · nearly twenty-five years · essays, reviews, dispatches & the road to The Song of the Midnight Rider

The Newsletter · on Substack

A Key to Something

Short dispatches in your inbox — the full essays live here, in the archive below.

Query Letters, Rejection, and the Midnight Rider

A Field Guide to Agents, Queries, and Other Creative Punishments Lex E. Santi, LCSW, MFA At one point in its life, Song of the Midnight...

Lex Santí

The Proposal Isn’t the Problem—The Problem Is Everything Around It

Lex E Santí, LCSW, MFA – Founder, A Key Therapy LCSW, PLLC Every few years, the federal government finds a new way to remind us that the “helping professions” aren’t actually meant to be helped. The newest example is the U.S. Department of Education’s proposal to reclassify certain master’s programs — education, nursing, public health, social work — so that they are no longer considered “professional degrees” for federal student loan purposes. The Department of Education insi

Lex Santí

Nov 27, 20254 min read

Fifteen Books That Made Me

Lex Enrico Santí, LCSW, MFA Books have been my most loyal companions. I’ve been reading since I was old enough to understand that the world was bigger than my family, bigger than the town where I grew up, bigger even than the United States. Books were my way out and my way in. They taught me how to live, how to argue, how to be tender. They’ve never once ghosted me, though I’ve been guilty of ignoring them. Below are fifteen that shaped me. Not in some linear list, not as a c

Lex Santí

Nov 24, 20256 min read

Literature Review: Acceptance and Motivation Inquiry

Literature Review Acceptance / Motivation Inquiry (AMI) Lex E Santí, LCSW, MFA Introduction Client engagement in psychotherapy is a...

Lex Santí

Sep 19, 202517 min read

Remembering Greg Eells, Six Years On

Reflection on Mourning in the Shadow of a Giant at Cornell By Lex Enrico Santí, LCSW, MFA On September 9, 2019, the Cornell community...

Lex Santí

Sep 8, 20253 min read

Query Letters, Rejection, and the Midnight Rider

A Field Guide to Agents, Queries, and Other Creative Punishments Lex E. Santi, LCSW, MFA At one point in its life, Song of the Midnight...

Lex Santí

Sep 3, 20254 min read

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From the Road

Some essays begin as photographs.

Phnom Penh, 2011 — from the self-funded documentary on human trafficking. The camera came first; the writing followed.

Lex E. Santí

Lex E. Santí is a novelist, poet, and essayist — the son of Cuban refugees, raised in Ithaca, New York, and shaped by years abroad: Peace Corps service in Romania, seasons in Spain and Seoul, a documentary in Cambodia. He founded Our Stories Literary Journal, which he edited for sixteen years, and holds an MFA in fiction from George Mason University. His debut novel, The Song of the Midnight Rider, arrived in 2026, after four collections of poetry and the story collection Homer’s Last Line. He lives in Trumansburg, New York, where he writes — and practices as a psychotherapist.