Jun Do was down in the Junma’s aft hold, a steel room big enough for a table, chair, typewriter and a stack of receivers that had been pilfered from American tanks and planes in the war. The hold was lit only by the green glow of the listening equipment, which was reflected in the sheen of fish wa…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘I was dying to buy something, anything that would help my wife and children understand the profound surrealism and warped reality I’d experienced on my research trip to North Korea.’
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
‘One did not have high hopes for Gettysburg. Nor for Pennsylvania in general. Having grown up in Indiana, Diana felt she’d earned her condescension.’
Fiction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens.
‘It’s a paper bag filled with pastries. Chicken turnovers.’
An extract from Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
‘I see this everywhere. The creativity, resourcefulness and incredible talent for improvisation in Egypt.’
Wiam El-Tamami on returning to Cairo.
‘People are obsessed with authenticity – in a post-reality-TV, post-confessional-journalism world, fiction is simply not enough.’
