Borrowed Tongues: Writing From Another Country
Choosing to write primarily in a language other than one’s native tongue can be liberatory and also a means by which to practice (in)visibility, to varied degrees of intelligibility, mediated by aspects beyond linguistic proficiency.
“Before the Fuckers Catch Us”: transMad Poetics and Epistemic Flight
It is in these cracks, in the margins and the alleyways and “cripistemic” backwoods, and in moments stolen from and apposite to the Institution, that transMad projects event themselves…
Content’s Discontents: Heterotopic Literature in the Age of Distraction
The encounters that these heterotopic settings enable . . . are ones whose value is all but illegible within the larger hegemonic framework of techno-capitalist logic . . . offline, unprofitable, and almost aggressively niche.
The Sublime Surreal Nonsense of Jason Heroux
Like all the best nonsense, from Edward Lear to John Ashbery, Heroux’s poetry makes you feel like nothing will ever make sense again.
Little Pink Book as Literary Fanfiction
Traditionally, Western concepts of originality in art are not equipped to consider whether creativity is possible under conditions of continual reproduction; it presupposes an authentic source of spontaneous genius.
“Homicide: Life on the Street” and the Perverse Pleasures of Copaganda
How do we come to terms with the undeniable pleasures of this blatantly ideological genre?
Printing Out the Internet: On Madeline Cash’s “Lost Lambs”
As our attention spans dwindle and our phones loom over our everyday experiences, we are increasingly demanding that novels capture our attention in the same way.
Hearts, Chainsaws, and Poetry: On Elizabeth R. McClellan’s “Is My Chainsaw a Heart: 13 Centos”
Who keeps us safe all those nights? We do, by the stories we tell and the stories we cut apart, with chainsaws and with hearts.
Resurrecting the Dead in Confessional True Crime Memoirs
In both memoirs, evidence serves less to solve a crime than to reconstruct a self—both the dead family member and the writer grappling with their loss.
Boring Starvation: On Finding the Eating Disorder Book I Needed
For a while . . . I thought that no one should write about eating disorders at all because there was no way to do so without somehow glamorizing them.