This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...moreA weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...moreThis may be a reclamation story.
...moreTo exist solely now on land is to live always waiting to reenter the water—to feel soothed even by the sound of it falling. To live a life on land is to feel the loss of our former lives within our very faces.
...moreIf we want to talk about desire, a gnawing ache for something we don’t yet have, or for something we’ve lost, we can say that we yearn for the transformation that the satisfaction of our desire will bring.
...moreIf I understood the difference between good and great in that moment, it would be years before I came to accept it.
...moreI was four years old when my mother taught me to lie. There were certain instances, she explained, when lying was acceptable, when it wasn’t even lying, really.
...moreNo touching unless he touches you. No touching where people can see. No touching unless dared to touch. Brad makes the rules, but never says them aloud.
...moreAmy Shearn writes about swimming and prayer in Forward: I like swimming though I suspect I’m not very good at it; pool visits involve removing my glasses and I’m so nearsighted that I’ve never actually seen anyone else swim, so I’m not sure how you’re even supposed to be doing it. Pools are dreamy, unfocused […]
...moreI had come in search of the meaning of synchronized swimming in modern America. Over the course of a week, I had gotten bored with the human body’s physical excellence. Maybe that was because, despite the spectacle at this level, even flawlessness becomes mundane. Without the threat of failure, watching people perfectly execute the seemingly […]
...moreWhen you’re a diver, you’re only a tourist of the air.
...moreRebecca Makkai talks about ghosts, teaching, chronology in writing, and her new novel, The Hundred-Year House.
...moreRichard Bausch can take your head off with a plain sentence. He’s direct, no frills, no pirouettes. A writer who says what he means and not a word more.
...moreIn Japanese martial arts, the uke is the ‘receiver’ of the technique, the one who attempts to attack their sparring partner, the tori. The tori defends against the attack of the uke, who usually winds up on the floor after getting flipped, swept, thrown, punched, or kicked.
...moreThere was a lightness to the way the waves batted me around on the stones, the lightness of a cat playing with a mouse it was about to kill.
...moreThis week, Rumpus books has published reviews of a novel and two short story collections.
...moreThe heroine of Nicola Keegan’s debut novel is an Olympic athlete who tries to swim against the current of her tragic family life.
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