Guest Contributor

All I knew about Amy Pence, when I asked her to participate in this interview, was what I’d gathered from reading and reviewing her most recent book, [It] Incandescent. My…

I remember being in a large white, paneled, cafeteria. There were about twenty vertical lunch tables for recipients to sit firmly while they waited for their names to be called.…

Nancy Au: I have such an appreciation for how you describe the human condition in Hungry Ghost Theater, as in this “meta” instance (page 59): In a moment, Piers, no…

WOVEN is an Entropy series and dedicated safe space for essays by persons who engage with #MeToo, sexual assault and harassment, and #DomesticViolence, as well as their intersections with mental…

Vanishing Twins: A Marriage by Leah Dieterich Soft Skull Press, 2018 304 pages / Soft Skull   To choose freedom against coupling is an unpopular preference, one not the least celebrated in…

In May 2018 I was invited to give a keynote speech at a symposium held at the Literarisches Colloquium in Berlin. The broader symposium focused on the realities of African…

Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border by Porter Fox W. W. Norton, 2018 272 pages / Norton   When I was 10 or 12 my cousin and I would accompany…

Jellico King once lived in the city. He worked for the Chrysler Electronics plant—first, on the line, welding together distributor parts, and then as an assistant supervisor. Bitsy, his wife,…

In the 2015 New York Times article “Please Stop Making That Noise,” Barron H. Lerner calls misophonia, literally hatred of sound, a “selective sound sensitivity syndrome.” It can be triggered…

Wednesdays, I stare into the Abyss, i.e. staring into a mirror until my face doesn’t look like a face anymore but rather a swirling concoction of lumpy flesh, and then…

Summer lightning streaks the skies over central Florida, and I want to paint myself with electricity. It’s a familiar feeling—and I need a good jolt after all these years. I…

My Girl’s Green Jacket by Mary Meriam Headmistress Press, 2018 108 pages / Headmistress   Every time one attempts to categorize or pigeonhole Mary Meriam’s poetry, one comes up against “it…

David Carlin and I, after walking along a beach in Melbourne, decrying the eroding beach, decided we would write essays in parallel, one for each letter in the alphabet. Essays…

What strikes me most about the stories in Genevieve Hudson’s new collection, Pretend We Live Here (Future Tense Press, July 2018), is what I think could be described as either a willingness…