Devika Rege begins her timely, layered, and inquisitive debut novel Quarterlife with an epigraph by Kabir, a 15th century Indian poet. The inscription carries urgency, especially in Hindi. At a literal level, Kabir describes a lover’s red as so intense that the narrator sees the color wherever they look, and in the narrator’s search for redness, they take on the hue. Visually, the verses impart images of sweeping, suffusive scarlet, foreshadowing Quarterlife’s experimental, ever-expanding structure. Thematically, Kabir’s lines convey Rege’s rigor as she reckons with democracy.
Morning Bites: Interviewing Scaachi Koul, Nathan Ballingrud Fiction, Doug Shaw’s Music, and More
In our morning reading: interviews with Scaachi Koul and Dan Bejar, fiction from Nathan Ballingrud, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Vivian Blaxell’s Nonfiction, Revisiting W.G. Sebald, Earth on Tour, and More
In our afternoon reading: an excerpt from Vivian Blaxell’s new book, Earth’s very literary tour, and more.
AWP Day 3: The Party
I once heard someone describe being a writer is essentially being someone who didn’t get invited to the party. And I’ve always resonated with that. There was actually a time in middle school when everyone in my class was invited to one girl’s birthday party, except me. I had no idea why. And what made it worse was my teacher, Mrs. Brookman, noticed this and spoke to the girl’s mom, and then that girl’s mother made her invite me. And I was embarrassed the whole time I was there. This is my life in a nutshell.
Morning Bites: Stephen Graham Jones’s New Novel, Interviewing Neko Case, Folkloric Fiction, and More
In our morning reading: thoughts on Stephen Graham Jones’s new novel, an interview with Neko Case, and more.
Sunday Stories: “The Sickness That Healed Me”
The Sickness That Healed Me
by Rola Elnaggar
I was three years old, white as a sheet, heart racing in my ears and hiding between two twin beds, all alone in the apartment with the only source of light coming from the mute TV, when the front door creaked open, and two pairs of footsteps pattered against the carpet—instilling more fear into my frail toddler heart—and stepped into my childhood room. It was my grandma and my uncle. I was relieved it was them and not a stranger coming to kidnap me, but it was so short-lived because the clock was ticking on my days as an only child.
AWP Day 2: Witches, Impressions, & a Fight at a Reading
At the Rose Books table on Thursday Chelsea Hodson let me know of a reading Archway Editions was holding on Friday night. And I’ve wanted to see Geoff Rickly read.
Google Maps has its shit together today. I went up Crenshaw then left, then up, then left, then up, did that six more times like tacking a sailboat to Sepulveda. And on to 110, to the 10, another vortex, then Sunset Boulevard.
Weekend Bites: Joni Murphy’s Playlist, Tanith Lee’s Bibliography, Revisiting John Langan, and More
In our weekend reading: a playlist from Joni Murphy, an interview with Lucy Sante, and more.