a multi-part writing prompt for you today, involving the performance of a hair transplant on a piece of writing, in response to this lovely novel by Gunnhild Øyehaug, on my Substack, which is not paywalled 😁
If you didn’t know, I love Marie NDiaye and, as I explain here, this is mainly because of the “vibes”
I started a Substack where you will find a writing prompt I wrote in response to her latest book to be translated into English. I will continue to share books and writing prompts there, because reading and coming up with little assignments is what I was born to do. It’s not gunna be paywalled. The link is in my bio
I also reviewed this book, as well as Léonora Miano‘a Stardust and Miklavž Komelj‘a Night Is More Abstract, for this month’s Asymptote blog, where you can read all sorts of exciting news :)
In 2025 I want no more content!!! Silence, boredom, a big empty sky. This year was for me a spiritual wreck and I don’t think I can keep doing whatever it is I’m doing. I probably won’t go a single day without seeing an advertisement until I’m dead but all I want is to never see one again. I do not know how to be, there are only wrong answers. I want the sharks to eat through the internet cable. I want time to stop for a while to give us a chance to catch up and correct things. Somehow at the same time I have never loved the world more
On rare occasions I will encounter a book that feels like it contains all the necessary ingredients for fixing this fucked up world. This book is like that for me, & it was such a gift to sit with it for this review, which is out in issue 4 of @antiphonyajournal . Grateful to Phoebe Giannisi for putting this brilliant text into the world, to Brian Sneeden for the beautiful translation of a seemingly untranslatable book& to Ann Pedone for her editorial eye & work putting together this journal, where conversation about visionary work like Chimera is right at home.
Really glad to have this reality collage (the name for my preferred essay form is the paean, I learned) in the latest issue of Annulet, which is out today. This piece holds particular weight for me & I truly can’t imagine a better home for it, especially in this issue, alongside (literally) some of my favorite writers! It was written during a really strange recent trip to Greece that I spent mostly alone with my parents’ dog. Scroll to see him investigating a goat on one of our many walks
I learned today that the stone in my wedding ring which I thought was blue tourmaline is actually a sapphire. I am trying to figure out what it means. I googled “sapphires symbolism” and then I remembered this short story I read many years ago by Melissa Goodrich. I have been an insomniac all my life or at least since puberty. I am about to start reading Marie Darrieusecq’s book on this topic. Lmk if you have any thoughts or suggestions
Rereading Alexis Almeida for work on eclipse day and it’s making me cry! Last week I dreamt that my blue tourmaline ring turned pink and I think this was an eclipse dream
