In The High Desert: black. punk. nowhere., James Spooner details growing up as a Black kid in Apple Valley, California, and being into punk rock. He details the liminality he felt, being seen as not Black enough by his Black classmates or as nonwhite by his white punk friends. When…

On December 28, 1977, Audre Lorde delivered “The Transformation of Silence Into Language” at the Lesbian and Literature panel at the annual Modern Language Association conference. Later, the speech appeared in The Cancer Journals, a book where Lorde details her experience with breast cancer and her mastectomy. It’s a book…

Over the past few months, I constantly walked by Kristen Ghodsee’s Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence on the shelf at my library. I would pick it up, periodically, and flip through it, telling myself I’d check it out one day and read…

The first memory I can recall, or at least the first one I wish to recall, occurred when I was about two years old. I see my reflection staring back at me. I don’t know when the event happened. I think it may have been Halloween. I’m wearing all white…

Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House is a book that speaks into the silence surrounding queer domestic abuse. As well, her memoir details, through Machado’s stylistic choices, the cyclic nature of domestic abuse and the feelings of being trapped within an abusive relationship. Machado achieves this feeling in various…

Last year, Jaydn DeWald introduced me to Carmen Maria Machado’s work, specifically her short story “The Husband Stitch” and her graphic novel with Dani The Low, Low Woods. He had taught her short stories as well as her memoir, In the Dream House, in various classes. Machado’s memoir focuses on…

Since its debut earlier this year, I have really enjoyed Szymon Kudrański’s Something Epic. Specifically, I enjoy Kudrański’s exploration of the creation and role of art in lives, the ways that art informs us and tells us more about the world we inhabit. I’ve written multiple posts about Kudrański’s series…

When Jim Kelly goes with Marcus to his grandmother’s house in Baton Rouge at the start of Ernest Gaines’ Of Love and Dust, Julie Rand talks with Jim about the plantation and the community after her departure. At one point, she brings up the relationship between Pauline and Bonbon, stares…

A few months ago, I received an email from a colleague and mentor. In the email, he did as he always does, asked how I was doing and putting me first. He was reaching out to see if I had a copy or information about an image that he planned…