Thoughts in Waiting
by Ró Stack
I check my phone for the umpteenth time. As each hour passes I think I’m probably not sick at all and shouldn’t have brought this situation upon myself. I make a plan to go to the shop, then remember that I cannot go to the shop. Within a day or so, the lady said, as I recovered from the sensation of having a new part of my skull tickled, my left eye watering, the sensation of an almost-sneeze looming.
In our morning reading: new writing by Akwaeke Emezi, an interview with Chelsea G. Summers, and more.
In our afternoon reading: exploring the works of John Keene, new music from Beauty Pill, and more.
In our morning reading: exploring the book “These Savage Shores,” a playlist by Bethany Ball, and more.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on a new anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, Ty Segall’s musical recommendations, and more.
In our morning reading: interviews with Tiphanie Yanique and Keith Ridgway, when books become movies become comics, and more.
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Walter Mosley, a new literary shortlist, and more.
In the Summer of 2020, I was hospitalized for almost a month and reached out via text to a limited number of writer-friends to let them know what was going on with me. Of that small number, Josh Russell has stayed in touch with me daily, in a manner that has improved my health, deepened our friendship, and, I hope, aided each other during a period in which there have been many days where both of us wondered if there was any reason to write fiction, particularly the kind of fiction each of us have chosen to pursue.
During that time, we’ve seen too how both of us, survivors of the eighties, midwesterners who’ve lived most of our adult lives in the south, married to southerners, who’ve navigated through a number of different universities—nine have seen fit to employ the two of us—have more in common than not. And I will say it unhesitatingly: I have no other correspondent whom I look forward to hearing from more.