Every semester I get the same email from my program’s artistic director: “Hey Creative Writing Instructors! Introduce yourself to your students!” The survey requests my favorite quotes about writing. (Chekov: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”) It invites me to share practical advice. (“If there’s […]
Culture
Gender Neutral
Family Romance, LLC and How to Make a Family
by Marie Johnson
“Maybe it was my other daughter.” Turning toward the bathroom, I realized what my mom had already noticed: The garbage can was overturned. I emptied the trash and forgot to put it back in its original position. In a flurry of chores, I was not consciously trying to leave it awry. Maybe this “other daughter” […]
Sons of The Confederacy 2.0: Not Just a Few Bad Apples
by Laketa Smith
Finally, after one of the most suspenseful and unnerving elections of my lifetime, the United States Congress was poised on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, to certify Electoral College votes, a long-held ceremonial element of every incoming presidential cabinet. Instead, mayhem descended on the capital city, and Congress itself, as a mob of Trump supporters laid […]
Unmaking Whiteness
by Erin Monahan
The toxic, masculine white power displayed from the nation’s Capitol for the world to see started from a young age, within their families. Our homes are breeding grounds for this kind of white entitlement and violence. White people must investigate our complicity. Those who stormed the Capitol are regular, everyday, white people we greet on […]
Re-defining Drag Transformation: An Interview with Maxi Glamour
by Robin Gow
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity Robin Gow: It’s so nice to get to chat with you! I’m really grateful for this opportunity to delve into your work. I guess I want to start by asking where your drag name “Maxi Glamour” came from? Maxi Glamour: I created it when I […]
Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
Reviewed by Sophia Kaufman
At the end of Ziwe Fumudoh’s Instagram Live shows this summer—in which she quizzed her guests on civil rights leaders, asked them whether they’d ever worn blackface, what they qualitatively like about Black people, how many Black friends they have, and whether they would commit to reparations, among other rapid-fire prompts often tailored to her […]
Juno Was Always a Trans Movie
by Robin Gow
I watched Juno with my partner two winters ago, on her laptop in the living room of my first grad school apartment. This wasn’t the first time I had seen it, but it was the first time I’d watched it since I had come out publicly as a transgender. My partner, also trans, and I […]
The Homosexual Romcom
by Diana Hamilton
I am grateful to Clea DuVall for affording me the chance to imagine watchable versions of Happiest Season, if not the opportunity to watch the one actually streaming on Hulu. Setting aside the obvious event all good Seasons ought to share—Aubrey Plaza and Kristen Stewart collaborating to bring the rating up to at least R—I’ve […]
(Still) Separate and Unequal in Boston Schools
by Shirley Jones-Luke
For African American and Latinos, there are two pandemics. One, viral. The other, academic. In communities of color, students are being attacked on two fronts. Just as African American and Latino populations are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 as compared to Whites and Asians, the former set lacks sustained support and advocacy in reading […]
Bury Your Destiels
by Kate Hochswender
November 5th, 2020: the anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ plot to blow up Parliament, votes still being counted in the U.S. presidential election, COVID-19 keeping the world in quarantine, tabloids spreading rumors that Vladimir Putin might step down. Yet amid the constant flood of tweets that week about global uncertainty, a dark horse entered the competition […]
