Writ in Water: Yellow Not Mellow
A sight now common across California: the yellow toilet bowl. Conscientiously curated, it’s a light shade of daffodil, lemon, banana; this is early in the lifespan, the visitors before you healthy and drinking plenty of water.
Feminism by Way of Tragic Misogyny in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
In social justice activism, offensive rhetoric is considered a form of toxic pollution. Language shapes our culture, society, and schema for thinking about different groups, and so can never be considered harmless.
When He Was King: The Words and Wisdom of Muhammad Ali
Standing in line at the grocery store the other day, I counted four magazines the published special issues to commemorate the remarkable life of Muhammad Ali, who died on June 3 at 74 years old.
Living Between Languages: Notes on Language and Loss
I was seventeen years old when I started working at the front desk of a beach resort in my coastal city in Brazil and began to teach myself my first sentences in English. In the tourism industry, English was currency, and as such I wanted to earn it.
Round-Up: Chicago Public Library Giveaway, the 2016 PEN Pinter Prize, and Gregory Rabassa
From the Chicago Public Library's children's book giveaway to the passing of a central figure in Latin American writing, here's some of last week's most important literary news: Writer and activist Margaret Atwood was awarded with the 2016 PEN Pinter prize.
The Cost of the Academic Job: A Personal Narrative
A few years ago, a small university invited me on an MLA interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position teaching publishing and creative writing. The hiring committee assumed I would be attending the conference and so told me when and where to be.
Mexican Indigeneous
It might be considered anathema to our neighbors south of the Rio Grande but Phoneme Media is having a veritable publishing celebration of indigenous Mexican poetry. This small, indie publisher with one of the coolest catalogues of world lit understands what Anthony Seidman wrote recently in World Literature Today.
Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries VII, VIII, and IX
Author: Kiki Petrosino | Categories: Critical Essays, Nonfiction, Poetry, Series, Writing, Writing Advice No comments
In these three queries, Jefferson attempts to distill the complex meteorological, demographic, and military features of Virginia into a series of data points. His prose—supplemented by graphical tables tracking everything from rainfall to carriage wheels—draws a fine grid over the natural and human activities of the Commonwealth.
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Float,” by Reginald McKnight
An encounter with the unexplainable can evoke awe, terror, confusion, denial—a whole spectrum of emotions. In “Float” (The Georgia Review), Reginald McKnight explores how a young narrator deals with encountering the unexplainable in his own home, and what ramifications that has for our society at large.
On Compromise and Character
In The Bay of Angels, author Anita Brookner examines female relationships with unflinching scrutiny. Sometimes I felt like a bug trapped under a hand lens on the pavement, squirming with discomfort, somewhat scorched by the proximity of her fictional approximations and truth.