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Doing the Work

Emily Berry

‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’

Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.

My Spiritual Evolution

Tao Lin

‘I came to feel that I was hiding here in the physical world, like a child who hides in a computer game to escape a more consequential reality.’

Tao Lin on his spiritual awakening, via psychedelics and the literature of near-death experiences.

Notes on Craft

Sigrid Rausing

‘I think I stayed with the text for as long as I needed to give meaning to my grief, crying not in Johanna’s absence but with her.’

Sigrid Rausing on transcribing, translating and editing Johanna Ekström’s final notebooks.

Doing the Work

Sandra Newman

‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’

Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.

Podcast | Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst

‘I settled in, decades ago, to the idea that I was just going to write from a gay position, without explanation or excuse.’

Alan Hollinghurst on writing from the outsider’s perspective and cataloguing queer life.

Doing the Work

A. K. Blakemore

‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’

A.K. Blakemore on working nights.

In Conversation

Daisy Lafarge & Amber Husain

‘Being parasitised usually comes part and parcel with being a parasite yourself.’

Daisy Lafarge and Amber Husain on parasites and institutions.

Silas Lucas

Garth Risk Hallberg

‘Thinking back to that summer of Silas Lucas, I can see my father trying to invent for me the place where the actual and the possible meet to make something new.’

Garth Risk Hallberg on the borderline business of telling stories.

Perfection

Vincenzo Latronico

‘They couldn’t put their finger on exactly what it was they craved, but they knew it was very different to what they had.’

Fiction by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes.

Doing the Work

Camilla Grudova

‘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.

Something Happened

Madeline Cash

‘She is thorough in a way that is off putting to people. It makes for a good secretary, not a good conversationalist.’

Fiction by Madeline Cash.

Interview

Brea Souders & Alice Zoo

‘How would I feel if I had messaged for years with someone that I later found out was an AI?’

Brea Souders speaks to Alice Zoo about chatbots, interconnection and the dialogue between photography and text in her work.

Chicken Crazy

Thom Sliwowski

‘Patterns in my love life, things I read, my dreams and distant memories together wove plush carpets of significance.’

An essay by Thom Sliwowski on chicken, abstinence and polyamory.

Podcast | Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner

‘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.