death
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Against Everything
The mountains of Alabama are small mountains—foothills, really—but they are mine like a sports team is mine—like a football game (which I have for so long been near but have not really, really seen) is mine—as in the phrase “We…
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Broke and Broken
Saeed Jones published a book of poems, Prelude To Bruise. Over at Buzzfeed, he’ll tell you why he wrote them, too: “My mother had a fatal heart attack the night before Mother’s Day in 2011. The experience of losing her…
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Collecting John Updike’s Trash
Paul Moran began collecting John Updike’s trash in 2006, three years before the writer’s death. He found discarded photos, story drafts, and honorary degrees. The acquisition of curbside trash seems perfectly legal in Massachusetts, even if Updike and his wife…
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The New York Comics and Picture-Story Symposium: Tom Hart and Leela Corman
The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium is a weekly forum for discussing the tradition and future of text/image work. Open to the public, it meets Monday nights at 7-9 p.m. EST in New York City.
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Weekly Geekery
Examining the troubled origins of our search for technological utopia. Autocorrect is our favorite fall guy for texting errors, but it’s also the reason you can text. What is worth saving from your digital legacy? Don’t resist, just welcome our…
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Weekly Geekery
The future of the Internet should scare you. Death isn’t an end on Facebook. Really awesome revolution of information. Teeny tiny profit margin. Don’t click away! Don’t check Twitter. This is all very important.
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Crystal Eaters and Red Giants
Rumpus contributor Shane Jones‘s new novel, Crystal Eaters, is out this month from Two Dollar Radio. He’s been exchanging emails with Laura van den Berg about the new book, parenthood, and death, and the resulting interview is now out on the…
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Lost Words For A Spruce Tree
Over at The Hairpin, Isabelle Fraser interviews Ann Wroe, obituary writer for The Economist. Wroe has written obituaries for J.D. Salinger, Aaron Swartz, and the 25-year old carp that was “England’s best-loved fish”. On Marie Smith, the last person to speak Eyak, an…
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Here Everything Is Possible
My mother died suddenly at a dining room table, in the middle of a wonderful meal, surrounded by a large, extended family that loved her. One minute she was completely immersed in the world—talking, laughing, eating—and the next minute she…
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Three Things I Have Never Told Anyone
Does it seem now like I believe in God and he is a comfort to me? I don’t, and he isn’t. And yet this story is a comfort to me.
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Litany for My Mother’s Body
My mother’s body horrified me. Nine years old, I watched her dress. Her belly was rippled and sagged and scarred—a used-up bag of nothing.
