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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 […]

Full Stop

I want to have sex with someone, a person. It could be a man or it could be a woman or it could be a man who was once a woman or a woman who was once a man or someone who is both all the time and every day. The person could be ugly […]