Today at Longreads, Caylin Capra-Thomas writes about Sublime and the sublime, Bradley Nowell and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, addiction and loss and recovery, what we yearn for and what limits we touch https://longreads.com/2025/05/22/sublime-nowell-coleridge-addiction/
"Our plan was to drive across the country, living off the grid as much as possible, with the goal of finding ourselves. How we would accomplish this—or even what it meant—neither of us was entirely sure." —James Wade for Texas Highways Magazine
https://texashighways.com/culture/essays/a-traveler-embraces-change-in-big-bend/
"I didn’t know the term 'obsessive-compulsive' then, but I certainly knew I was doing something deranged and embarrassing, so I tried to avoid being caught at my work. If I crept back to bed quietly enough, I wouldn’t have to explain to my parents the urgency of my nightly patrol, the necessity of gathering my temporary facts, the final ritual of reciting them to myself in the dark." —Miriam Fried for The Rumpus
"She tends to the structure, repairing damage, devoting energy to producing both the silk and the pattern for her web. In turn, the web feeds her."
I enjoyed this hybrid piece about ghosts. It's a short and fascinating read. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/09/16/all-you-have-to-do-is-die/ #GhostStories #ShortStory #PersonalEssay #HybridWriting #ghosts
"You are translating another funeral scene. There is sadness, yes, but there is also merriment, storytelling, music, and a kinetic energy that leaves the mourners rapt by the wonderment of life and the soul’s transition from this realm to the next." Nathan H. Dize for Words Without Borders
https://longreads.com/2025/01/16/translators-notes/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
"His hands moved quickly, the left switching between frets, the right strumming. He played several chords one after the other, weaving them together like strips of color in a cloth. Red, yellow, orange—major and primary and bright—and even a couple more lines—green and blue and minor—to create depth."
https://longreads.com/2025/01/16/the-charango/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
"The braid over my left shoulder filigreed with frost. Inside my mitten, water collected at my fingertips. Ravens flew dark against the sky." —Jessie Kindig for Orion Magazine
https://longreads.com/2025/01/15/object-relations/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
My essay "The Anxious Writer" just dropped at Breath and Shadow Magazine.
https://www.abilitymaine.org/bs2024fall/%22the-anxious-writer%22
“You are the public face of the company, a sentient billboard-cum-cash register, and your studied unspecialness—your ability to cede, to blend, to empty—is, in fact, your greatest strength.” —Emily Mester for Electric Literature
https://longreads.com/2024/11/27/kickers-journalism-writing-craft/
Jonah Walters on our attraction to disaster:
"We want to experience a big, cataclysmic, comprehensive change—a rip in the world—but we don’t want to be the reason for it. We can handle the challenge. What we can’t handle is the blame."
"A forensic scientist could take samples from my shoes and tell me how far I live from the coastline and what sort of lead laces the soil beneath my house. Like snails, we carry our homes with us."
For The Common Reader, Jeannette Cooperman writes about "home":
https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/there-is-no-place-like-home-whatever-that-is/
"Finally she asks, her voice trembling, 'Is he okay?' I tell her that it seems like he is. He’s writing under a tree. He’s wandering in Rome. We both cry a little."
For Jewish Currents, Palestinian artist Fargo Nissim Tbakhi recounts a Zoom session with a medium: https://jewishcurrents.org/what-it-means-to-speak-with-the-dead
"I felt animated by delivering library access to incarcerated people, who are among the most marginalized. My intuition and empathy were assets here. My research training transferred, and I felt magical when I could quickly locate just what someone needed. A good book provided distraction; information, a lifeline." —Kasey Butcher Santana for Split Lip Magazine
https://splitlipthemag.com/memoir/0924/kasey-butcher-santana
"The trouble starts when we forget about our participation in the creation of harmony, of meaning. . . . We don’t lend our voices to harmony. We buy our harmonies pre-sung in tidy plastic packages."
A beautiful #essay in Atmos by Jarod K. Anderson about reconnecting and harmonizing with #nature and #wildlife in a time of #depression: https://atmos.earth/my-harmony-with-the-heron/
"Although I never indulged in such rich foods at home, here I shed a few pounds — probably from all that walking weighted by groceries, but also because I had to eat less to feel satisfied. Each bite was so enjoyable, I didn’t need many of them. Deliciousness, I discovered, was more filling than deprivation." —Judith Sanders for Panorama Journal
https://panoramajournal.org/issues/issue-12-cities/cities-food-shopping-in-rome/
"But their real vocation appeared to be religion. My nonna and my babcia were so devout that they seemed like witches." —Victor Lodato for The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/05/my-mother-the-gambler
"I’m less in touch with my animal self than I once was. The wildness I lived around in my 20s, and the wildness I found within, at some point started to scare me." —Diana Saverin
A quick read. Sorry about the paywall. "My Immortal Lifecycle":
https://daisybrain.medium.com/my-immortal-lifecycle-47f9129bd803
"I also had secrets that felt scary to say out loud. The fear of death was not the reason I couldn’t tell you about my sexuality, though at times it felt like the end of the world." For @longreads, Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen recounts coming out to her dad and growing up Vietnamese American.
https://longreads.com/2024/06/11/coming-out-vietnamese-american-jennifer-thuy-vi-nguyen/
#Longreads #PersonalEssay #Pride #FathersDay VietnameseAmerican
