The Best of Brevity: A Roundtable Discussion on Flash Nonfiction
With Deesha Philyaw, Jaquira Díaz, Danielle Gellar, and Torrey Peters.
...moreWith Deesha Philyaw, Jaquira Díaz, Danielle Gellar, and Torrey Peters.
...moreIt was strange what the nudity did to us—what the nakedness undid.
...more“I wanted the thing to feel as ordinary as bread.”
...moreIt begins with a gunshot.
...moreThe house, for the first time this weekend, is quiet.
...moreLisa Lenzo discusses her new story collection, UNBLINKING.
...moreFranny Choi discusses her second collection, SOFT SCIENCE.
...moreWhen I was born I came out looking just like them.
...moreOne moment white, the next Latina, the next neither.
...moreJames Hornor discusses his new novel, VICTORIA FALLS.
...moreMy blackness, like my gender, was a sin.
...moreJulie Lythcott-Haims discusses HOW TO RAISE AN ADULT and REAL AMERICAN.
...moreStories need concrete details to help you understand, don’t they?
...moreI saw myself on the big screen—the strong black woman that I am, and the stronger black woman I aspire to become.
...moreRumaan Alam discusses his new novel, That Kind of Mother, the limits of the employer-employee relationship, and the grossness of heterosexual sex.
...moreThompson-Spires illustrate[s] the psychic traps set when myths take precedence over lived experience, when “the monstrous head deforms the face.”
...moreLeesa Cross-Smith discusses her debut novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, what it takes to return to a story after a long time away, and how her faith influences her writing.
...more“I think if you are really doing the work, you can’t write about America and not explore race and slavery, and that goes for any writer.”
...moreJasmine Guillory discusses her debut novel, The Wedding Date, finding success, writing sex, and the revolutionary act of eating.
...moreThe rules of a more even world might call into question those of us who knew that we deserved better but could not match this knowledge with unambiguous demands.
...moreI don’t tell him that just because I happen to be black and he happens to be dating me means that there’s no chance that he could be a racist. I am not a pass.
...moreMy voice begins to crack so I clear my throat. I look at each one of the girls one by one. The heat in me rises. My skin feels like the Texas pavement in July.
...moreI have become the nanny. I hope my nanny is getting some good writing done.
...more[J]ust as bad nonfiction can be written to tell a lie, good fiction can be written to tell the truth.
...moreThe sensibilities of whiteness do not want us to work, do not want us to think, do not want us to imagine outside of its bounds.
...moreI am not willing to let go of one of the only things that truly belong to my people and me. It’s a very exclusive, very tumultuous kind of privilege.
...moreMegan Stielstra discusses her new essay collection, The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, fear, privilege, and the intersection of politics and everyday life.
...moreCan one love one’s country into a better version of itself? And can that love better the self?
...more