The Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors short story initiative hosts a climate fiction competition that encourages writers from across the globe to envision the next 180 years of climate progress. Read More
In 2019, CJ Hauser called off their wedding –– ten days later, they went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. This is the setup of “The Crane Wife,” a 2019 Paris Review essay that quickly attracted over a million views. Later, it became the title essay for Hauser’s memoir-in-essays, “The Crane Wife,” published in 2022. “The Crane Wife” looks at the stories about love passed down from generation to generation, questioning our assumptions and challenging our beliefs. It’s an honest look into the “self-erasing” that Hauser experienced in many of their relationships –– and, judging by how the piece was received, with which many of us can identify. Read More
Ashley Robin Franklin speaks with Erasmo Guerra about her debut YA graphic novel "The Hills of Estrella Roja" (Harper Collins/Clarion, 2023), which is a spooky adventure story about two young women who team up to uncover the mysteries of the rural outpost of Estrella Roja. Read More
Justin Torres’ stunningly ambitious sophomore outing Blackouts does the tricky work of functioning as more than a novel. The book is an artifact documenting the life and work of queer activist Jan Gay, whose research from the 1930s became the basis of Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns—though, for reasons revealed as the story progresses, her name never graces the cover, nor is it attached to the finished work at all. We learn her true story through the fictional narrative of Juan Gay, a gay Puerto Rican man who, as he lies dying in a space between life and death called the Palace, shares his story and his connection to Jan with the story’s unnamed narrator, a young queer man of Puerto Rican ancestry who first connected with Juan ten years prior in a mental institution. Read More
Joy David interviews Matt Mitchell on all things poetry, intersexual awareness, and his new book, "Vampire Burrito." Read More
Dior Stephens' CRUEL/CRUEL is a meticulously arranged series of poems that contrasts playful lightness with the heavy weight of racial conflict and tension in a form that is both startling and familiar in its restrained mix of anger and hope. Each poem's eye is turned inward with an intensity that burns through the self, revealing a brilliant mirror reflecting the world through the Black body. To watch Stephens perform is an ecstatic delight, and I was fortunate enough to speak with them after their initial tour.
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Every day, it seems, there is a new con, a new scanner worming their way into the limelight. We live in a country where a bankrupt businessman can lie his way to the presidency, mega-corporations steal billions of dollars from workers in unpaid wages, and PR firms launder the reputations of executives who lie about trying to cure cancer. Amid all this highly institutionalized scam artistry, Rafael Frumkin’s Confidence offers readers a chance to laugh at the absurdity of these structures. Read More
MariNaomi (they/them) is the award-winning author and illustrator celebrating publishing their latest book, I Thought You Loved Me. Told in prose, collage, and sequential art, the narrative explores queer culture, feminism, race, class, sex work, and the flawed nature of memory. In this Gen-X Graphic memoir, MariNaomi works to uncover a long-lost best friend she can no longer remember but can't let go. Read More
How does one write of a self that is fundamentally displaced? Are our bodies really our own? Who on Earth understands what we are here for? What does it mean to be a body of movement and slippery definitions in a world that runs on categorization, separation, and the exhausting desire to know? What can we learn from the gestures of fish, from water, if we dare to listen and invite them to baptize us? Read More
