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Five Things Right Now: Katy Simpson Smith

Katy Simpson Smith

Katy Simpson Smith shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.

Torn Silk and Garlands of Garlic

Teffi

Teffi remembers the Armenian refugees in Novorossiisk during the Russian Revolution.

In the Third Person

Daniel Poppick

‘Over an exit, and deeply dreaming / A guard brutally splayed’

Civilization Spurns the Leopard

Solmaz Sharif

‘To step out of my door and hope to see something like a life, something passably me.’

Possible

Wendell Steavenson

‘I don’t know how to think about this. How to stretch compassion for one person into a million.’ Wendell Steavenson on Europe’s migrant-refugee crisis.

The Conveyor Belt

Louise Stern

‘Tall men that looked like insects crept out of cracks in the stones.’

The Fencing Master

David Treuer

David Treuer on learning to fence with Maître Michel Sebastiani and learning to write with Toni Morrison.

Introduction: No Man’s Land

Sigrid Rausing

‘We tangle and project, in exile; we make it up as we go along.’

Propagandalands

Peter Pomerantsev

From 2016: Peter Pomerantsev reports from Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Force Visibility

Solmaz Sharif

‘Full or empty / was impossible to see.’

A Play on Mothering

David Rakoff

‘His hands are a jewel box and I lean forward and peer in.’

Last Day on Earth

Eric Puchner

‘Despite my efforts at denial the new reality of our lives was beginning to sink in.’

Then

Mark Slouka

‘It was in January, I think. That weekend, more than any other, the thought of her leaving seemed impossible.’

Cat

Katy Simpson Smith

‘I didn’t dream because I had no memories.’