Daily, I remind myself: the future is not dependent on your inability to describe your undoing. 〇 In the red notebook I carry always: a blank twenty-five-cent postcard of Silver Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon; a small black-and-white photograph of a cattle crossing taken from behind the dashboard of a car facing the oncoming cattle caravan; […]
Dictionary under Quarantine/Alphabet for a Pandemic
Unprecedented times call for new forms, which is why I suggested to Greek writer Amanda Michalopoulou that we format our “interview” as a “dictionary.” I learned this from the writer Hilary Plum a decade ago when she interviewed me in this form. I supplied the words, Michalopoulou filled in the definitions. My hope was to […]
“The Sunlight Almost Touched Me”: Tactile Horrors in E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops
He touched me, so I live to know That such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast. —Emily Dickinson[1] One of the first texts I had assigned for my 2020 spring environmental literarture course, Climate Emergencies, was E.M. Forster’s shocking visionary tale “The Machine Stops.” The story is set on a future […]
The Whale
Jennifer Croft in conversation with Nataliya Deleva
Jennifer Croft’s Homesick (Unnamed Press) is a coming-of-age story of a girl named Amy (based closely on Croft) growing up in Oklahoma, homeschooled, and whose childhood is branded by her sister’s diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus. Combining text and photographs, the book might also be described as a sort of photo album tracing the sisters’ […]
Conversation between Lesle Lewis & Emily Pettit
EP: You mentioned to me recently that you were thinking about circles and squares. I’m also thinking about circles. And I think I’d like to think about squares. Can you talk to me a little about what you’ve been thinking about circles and squares? LL: When I wrote to you about my thinking about […]
EXCERPT: BLACKFISHING THE IUD
This week SeaWorld announced that it will phase out the orca shows at its San Diego theme park within two years and attempt to rebrand as an animal conservation rather than an entertainment company. It’s a move that comes in response to mounting protests against the holding of orca, and to efforts by California lawmakers […]
Literature, Capital, Catapult, and the Kochs: A Dialogue
HP: The independent literary press Catapult publishes books and an online magazine, offers creative writing workshops, and hosts an online community forum. It was founded in 2015, and in 2016 it merged with Counterpoint Press, including the Soft Skull imprint, which “effectively brought Counterpoint and Soft Skull under… [its] auspices,” as Publishers Weekly put it. Catapult was funded and […]
What the Butler Saw
John Lahr’s Prick Up Your Ears is a biography of the Northern English playwright Joe Orton that has been sitting at my bedside for years. As one of the most dramatic biographies I’ve ever read, it’s a pleasure to read. As a re-telling of one of the most horrifying true crime stories I’ve ever heard, […]
Defacing the Monument (excerpt)
1. 2. The word “economic” does not appear in the text of the Department of Homeland Security’s webpage entitled “Obtaining Asylum in the United States” is not uttered into the court record. The word “economic” remains in my mouth at the back of the courtroom where I sit scribbling on a legal pad, dangling like […]
