In our morning reading: an excerpt from Eva Baltasar’s new book, checking in with Robert Caro, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Jami Attenberg on Writing, BASIC’s Debut, Kristopher Jansma on Epigraphs, and More
In our afternoon reading: Jami Attenberg on writing, new nonfiction from Ann Hood, and more.
Two Excerpts From Eugen Bacon’s Collection “A Place Between Waking and Forgetting”
Today, we’re pleased to present an excerpt from Eugen Bacon’s new collection A Place Between Waking and Forgetting, set to be published later this month. Its publisher, Raw Dog Screaming Press, describes it as “dark speculative fiction, an Afro-Irreal collection in which transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, unlimited futures, collisions of worlds, mythology, and more, inhabit.”
Morning Bites: Meg Pokrass’s Fiction, Grace Loh Prasad’s Memoir, Weak Signal’s Album, and More
In our morning reading: thoughts on Meg Pokrass’s new collection, revisiting Dorothy Carter’s music, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Krautrock History, Brian Evenson Fiction, Revisiting “Seatch and Destroy,” and More
In our afternoon reading: a playlist from Christoph Dallach, fiction by Brian Evenson, and more.
Literary Ghosts of Old Brooklyn: An Interview With Ian S. Maloney
The past looms large in Ian Maloney’s novel South Brooklyn Exterminating — both through the novel’s setting in the recent past and the ways in which it invokes the rich literary history of New York City. It follows several years in the life of its protagonist, from his childhood assisting his father in the field of pest control to his gradual awareness of unsettling truths about their family. I spoke with Maloney about the novel’s genesis, its evolution, and writing about a part of Brooklyn that isn’t always in the spotlight.
Morning Bites: Revisiting “Bright Lights, Big City,” Tony Tulathimutte on Writing, Seefeel’s Latest, and More
In our morning reading: revisiting 80s fiction, Will Hermes on The Pogues, and more.
Sunday Stories: “In Giron”
In Giron
by Melanie Pappadis Faranello
I wake at 5:15 am for the Fiesta de Torros, the festival of the bulls—an annual sacrifice in Giron, Ecuador, about an hour’s bus ride south of Cuenca. The moon is still out, and the night dogs are fighting over garbage in the street. A drunk man stumbles on the cobblestone as I make my way toward the bus station. The rising sun casts an orange glow off the station’s tin roof. My gringa friends are easy to spot—a silver-haired woman from New Mexico wearing a fanny pack and her zoom lens camera; a twenty-two-year-old blonde from Iowa who is taking a semester to learn Spanish; and a lively red-head, the most fluent of us, who has been in Cuenca the longest and works in the hostel.