I promised you an account of the town’s musical life. Well, I have met the town’s musical life–his name is Monsieur Grenier. Have you heard of Grenier? I suppose not. He had his flash of fame some twenty years ago, and then the flame went out. He has lived here ever since. His music is thought…
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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.
‘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 turn to O’Connor’s music when I get tired of lying to myself. Her songs are allegorical free-falls. Spiritual chiaroscuros, even.’
Momtaza Mehri on Sinéad O’Connor.
‘The people she longed to be understood by, the ones at whom her anxious hope was pinned, were her parents.’
Fiction by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund.
‘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.
Sonia Faleiro on marginalized narratives, her time as a reporter and how gender influences her work.
