Essays
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At Disney, I Cry Over the Water Buffalos
There are six of you in Animal Kingdom, in the section called “Asia,” and I joke to my American friends that I am home.
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An Itch to Scratch
I grew up speaking a different Kannada at home. In Bangalore, I have had to relearn the language all over again.
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Prince Edward Island
The gas station attendant looks at me and says, “My advice, get out of town.” There’s no snark in his voice. He’s worried.
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To Adopt a Grandparent
“In every interaction there’s someone with power and someone without. If you are the latter, your two most important virtues are patience and persistence.”
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Home is a Word Unspoken
Our grocery store. Our bank. Our beloved local coffee shop and pizza parlor. I didn’t know where I was until I saw the magnolia tree, rigid and charred.
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Pigs Rooting for Truffles
The state was good. Parents were not necessarily good. Sometimes, in order to serve the state, you had to turn your parents in.
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Deficiency
I’ve never had a cavity, but I brush too hard. A decade ago, a dentist told me I was scrubbing away my own flesh.
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On Tove Jansson’s Eccentrics and Oddballs
I saw my fears and yearnings magnified and reflected back to me in Jansson’s stories.
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A Bloody Brilliant Sentence: Erotic Linguistics in Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber”
…I had not yet read horror written by another woman with such a rich, arresting evocation of female sexuality.
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Parallel Practice: How to Break a Sentence
Which color might capture the word “would,” for example? And which stitch?
