‘She was a prisoner-of-war mother, banging on the bars of her cell all her life.’
I became a writer thanks to a mother who was unhappy being a mother. She was a prisoner-of-war mother, banging on the bars of her cell all her life. Unhappy women do this. She searched for escape routes from her prison and found them in museums, public concerts and the public library.
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘Life is not worth living / without salami.’
A poem by Sandra Cisneros.
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘My instinct often is to swerve, to try to commit to some kind of reversal on received logics and see how far I can go with it.’
Rachel Kushner on the mystery of prehistory and the true depth of a cave.
