From 2017: it’s the most wonderful time of the year

From 2017: for any and all autumnal celebrations of the dark and mysterious.

In Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime, Alex Espinoza traces the etymology, cultural origins, and contemporary history of this particular form of gay exhibitionism.

The authors of this collaboration, Heart X-rays: A Modern Epic Poem, are not new to the apparent insanity of the early 21st century.

Like all good memoirs, Rerun Era reflects on how slippery, even duplicitous, the act of remembering itself can be.

In My Big Little Break, we ask authors to talk about the first piece they ever had published, how it felt to finally break through, and what they’ve learned since then. This week we’re pleased to be speaking with one of the featured authors at our upcoming conference in Pittsburgh on October 26, Monica Prince.



That’s what this book does best: it provides hope. Hope that we can preserve what’s left.

It was in that narrative 180-degree turn that I realized: Holy shit, I’ve read this before.

EXTRATRANSMISSION did not leave me breathless. It violently pumped me full of air and brought oxygen back to my brain — almost too much.

In Mishima’s world, an outpouring of sincerity is only good once, and the value of a moment correlates with its proximity to beauty or death.

Some books you reread because you want to get another hit of dopamine. I reread Intrusive Beauty because I wanted a second round with it, to go back for a rematch.

In all of the stories, the complexities of the female experience are laid bare, interlaced with themes of race, class, gender, and adultery.

With intelligent musicality, Chazaro takes us back and forth over the Bay Bridge, into the diverse neighborhoods where he learned his own language for poetry and art.

I realized that it had likely been over fifteen years since I’d lived in a world without Jennifer Aniston on the cover of some magazine.

Zink’s novels take care of everybody; they cosset all the players in her imagined communities.

We don’t braid each other’s hair. Can’t stand the yank tug of the brush, the drag of bristles over scalp. Warm breath on the backs of our necks.