[Digging] reflects . . . for me, rather than a resignation, an active embrace of the dirt, the mud, the worms, the fungus, the bodies. The best way out is through . . . this kind of thing.

I wanted salvation without the fall; I wanted art to save me from life.

It made sense to me that writers or artists should utilize constraint in our present world of seemingly limitless possibility.

The isolation, the fear, the breaking of actual communication, and the lack of touch draws together Camus’s worlds and our reality.

The isolation, the fear, the breaking of actual communication, and the lack of touch draws together Camus’s worlds and our reality.

In short, no fun, the having of a brother.

Without awe, how can we dream up a different reality? Without wonder, the dark matter of possibility, how do we find the courage to zoom in on our unbearable humanity?

Many of the people we encounter in the pages of this book do not identify as smugglers but as workers of various kinds.

[Digging] reflects . . . for me, rather than a resignation, an active embrace of the dirt, the mud, the worms, the fungus, the bodies. The best way out is through . . . this kind of thing.

It made sense to me that writers or artists should utilize constraint in our present world of seemingly limitless possibility.

I love gossip in poems, and I love to see friendship performed in pieces of art, so I don’t know how to create things like that without those kinds of references.

With comics, for better or worse, you can’t really hide from who you are. You’re spending so much time working on these things that you can’t keep up a persona for that long.

I wanted salvation without the fall; I wanted art to save me from life.

Messina’s writing is bleak and tender and honest and is not trying to persuade me of anything, least of all that things will work out.

To ask whether the pornographic narrative style does anything (and to value it accordingly) is to buy into the promises of virtuous consumption. It is to believe that consuming a book somehow transforms aesthetic experience into social action.

Why is cynicism so seemingly tied to whiteness?

We’re excited to announce the 2022 Full Stop Editorial Fellows: Ching-In Chen and Gillian Joseph!

The year’s best books, as selected by the editors of Full Stop.

This episode includes an interview with Keely Shinners, as well as a sound experiment between Ansgar Allen and Mike Carrao.

Any money you donate to Full Stop today will go twice as far toward ensuring the future of independent literary criticism. There has never been a better time to donate.