Features & Reviews
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Brandon Kilbourne’s “Natural History” is a Meticulously Crafted Diorama
Natural History opens with a section called “The Curious Institution”, in conversation with the centuries-old euphemism for slavery, “the peculiar institution”. This sets the stage for the rest of the text, which never lets the marvelous curiosity of the natural…
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Stories that Reveal Something True: A Conversation with Corey Rosen
“Stories make information stick. They give our experiences shape, emotion, and meaning. That’s why I wanted this book to be practical, so anyone can take the tools of storytelling and use them in real life, at work, in school, and…
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“Adolescence as Hallucination” and Eschewing Autofiction: A Conversation with Chris Kraus
“I’ve never seen my novels as being about me. Catt is my avatar but I’m writing about the things, people, themes, and histories that are close and important to me, the things I know most intimately. I really can’t write…
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To the Letter: A Conversation with Virgina Evans
“ I wanted the story to be a tight ball of yarn even though there were a million strands. It had to be tight to keep a reader’s interest, so there was an element of looping back almost like a…
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Embracing Constraint through the Expansion of Going Deeper: A Conversation with Tayyba Kanwal
“I think “escape” does work in that we all need to escape our constraints. How we escape them is the question. Do you escape by breaking down the structures? Or do you escape control by finding ways to accomplish what…
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Procrastistitching and Learning Who You Are
This little collection of essays made me want to sew. And knit. And do a bit of embroidery. It made me want to slow down, and create the world I want to live in.
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Confronting Fear with Poetry: A Conversation with Tracy K. Smith
“Poems allow me to work toward momentary clarity or to see a problem through a metaphor that makes it something I can work upon or live with in a way that always feels like a blessing or some kind of…
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Welcome To The Party: A Conversation With Saeed Jones
“So I have deep empathy for people who are shook, whether because they’re young or they just haven’t been especially into politics until fairly recently. I get that, I really do. But it’s important to channel that initial shocked panic.…
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Reimagining the American Road Trip Novel: A Conversation with Winnie M. Li
“Previously, I found there was so much anxiety, like, “I’ve written this entire thing. Am I gonna get a book deal or is all that effort just going to go down the toilet?” Because I knew the book was going…
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The First Book: Addie E. Citchens
This book took around 6 months of actual writing time and about 13 years of living and maturing.”
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Gaar Adams’ “ Guest Privileges Deconstructs” “Isn’t it Harder There?” for LGBTQ+ People in the Gulf
To witness the bureaucracy and legalities that don’t stop queer and trans people from simply existing is a witnessing worth entering into.
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The Unkindness of Time: Elaine Sexton’s “Site Specific: New and Selected Poems”
One minute we are on a coastal road; the next we share quiet thoughts in a country house, while looking at an old screen door which conjures up temporal family memories. At another moment we are watching a jet trail