Notes from a Hypochondriac
The age of COVID-19 has a way of heightening our anxieties, though that doesn’t mean they’re new.
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Beth Alvarado: Grieving in Dreams
Two writers discuss the “apocalyptic imagination,” finding connection through loss, and the liminality and fragility of the borderlands.
https://www.guernicamag.com/beth-alvarado-grieving-in-dreams/
A Country on the Cusp of Change
Hwang Sok-yong’s fictions delve into Korean class dynamics.
https://www.guernicamag.com/a-country-on-the-cusp-of-change/
The Optimist’s Apocalypse
What if the world can “end,” as your life has many times—and then begin again?
Your Name Means Garden
What does it mean to graduate / your way through the world?
No-Signal Area
By the time the war spilled over into the third country after a year, Oleg, like everyone else, was already inured to the gruesome news.
Apparition
Walt Whitman’s boundless self persists, even 128 years after his death.
Medusa and the Invention of Spells
A spell is most effective when you want something and can remember a time it already existed.
https://www.guernicamag.com/medusa-and-the-invention-of-spells/
Faery Land
“Don’t take chances,” he said. “Given your history.” But chances, not history, are what we’re given.
Mark Bibbins and Paul Lisicky: Sooner or Later
The two writers and friends discuss the uses and abuses of nostalgia, cynicism, and trauma porn—and how their new books reflect their experiences of the AIDS crisis.
https://www.guernicamag.com/mark-bibbins-and-paul-lisicky-sooner-or-later/
Good Bones
I was unpacking dishes when it came back to me. It was so vivid in my mind and it stunned me so much that I lost my grip and dropped a plate.
Every Inch of Earth
Sebastian Meyer and Kamaran Najm co-founded a photo agency in Iraq and teamed up to document a new era in Kurdistan, a region with a long history of suffering. Until Kamaran was captured by ISIS.
From Environmental Crisis to Pandemic, Waging a War with Nature
What the 19th century American pragmatist William James can teach us in the age of coronavirus.
https://www.guernicamag.com/from-environmental-crisis-to-pandemic-waging-a-war-with-nature/
Out of Sight
Hope sustains the migrants living in a camp in Matamoros, Mexico, but everything is tainted by despair.
Meaghan Winter: Progressives Can’t Give Up on the States
The political journalist on the timidity of liberal foundations, the peril of ignoring local reporting, and whether organizers have succeeded where party politics has failed.
https://www.guernicamag.com/meaghan-winter-progressives-cant-give-up-on-the-states/
When All Is “Temporary,” Nothing to Hold Onto
Hilary Leichter’s destabilizing debut novel imagines a productivity-centric dystopia, not far off.
https://www.guernicamag.com/when-all-is-temporary-nothing-to-hold-onto/
Hurricanes with the Names of My Friends
We are disappearing into / the map’s folds. Small birds. Smaller ones.
https://www.guernicamag.com/hurricanes-with-the-names-of-my-friends/
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: “It is not possible to decolonize the museum without decolonizing the world.”
The political theorist argues that those whose worlds have been destroyed by five centuries of imperialism have the right to live near the objects that have been plundered from their culture.
https://www.guernicamag.com/miscellaneous-files-ariella-aisha-azoulay/
Ruff Reckoning
A look back at Kirsten Bakis’s 1997 novel Lives of the Monster Dogs
Mira Jacob: I’m Not Going to Hold It for You
The acclaimed writer and graphic novelist on the importance of owning your shame.
https://www.guernicamag.com/mira-jacob-im-not-going-to-hold-it-for-you/
Schrödinger’s Dog
The doctor talked about the operation: “Major surgery, but the techniques are well understood.” He spelled out the risks: 80 percent success rate.
The Cover of My Face
A trans author reflects on the fraught history of trans women’s memoir covers, and why she didn’t want her likeness on her own.
Pigs in Shit
Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s Animalia, and naturalism after nature.
Keith Prime
Despite the warning not to get attached, I confess that I do have a favorite Keith.
Jenny Offill: The Doomy Bits
The author of Weather talks about confronting dread, navigating hope, and how to not write a bad book about climate change.
The Terrarium
The flat earth community has been on a fast, upward climb.
In the “Low”
In Jeet Thayil’s newest novel, the Narcopolis narrator returns to a transformed Bombay, in search of oblivion.
Darcey Steinke: How to Be in a Body
The writer embraces menopause, matriarchy, and the language of the body.
https://www.guernicamag.com/darcey-steinke-how-to-be-in-a-body/
Recognizing Blackness in Chile
How the rise of the #Chiledespertó movement has created space to discuss the country’s whitewashed constitution.
[You button this coat as if one sleeve]
making room for the night sky / the dead try on
https://www.guernicamag.com/you-button-this-coat-as-if-one-sleeve/
Theater of Shadows
Beneath or beyond the performances lay the fascination of the shadow-world itself, with its hiddenness, its refusal of color, its indifference to familiar effects of visual precision and detail.
Enemies of the Public
Amid chaos, repression, and violence, one woman flees Boko Haram; another seeks it out.
Back Draft: Emily Wilson
The translator on being drawn to Homer, and the timelessness of toxic masculinity.
Emma Eisenberg: Holding Contradiction
The author of The Third Rainbow Girl on internalizing shame, creating healing, and scrambling gender in a place where “the earth loves you and also wants to kill you.”
https://www.guernicamag.com/emma-eisenberg-holding-contradiction/
Beasts of the Fields
Family heartache on the northern New York border, and the creatures that bore witness to it.
Katherine Rowland: The Force of Women’s Longing
The public-health researcher and author of The Pleasure Gap on the medicalization of women’s sexuality, the politics of “faking it,” and why female desire “inspires panic and fascination.”
https://www.guernicamag.com/katherine-rowland-the-force-of-womens-longing/
Under a Microscope
Baggage and beauty in Brandon Taylor’s novel Real Life
Blank Notes
How about adopting a fully grown girl? Says a broken-headed doll.
Notes from a Nothing
Here I am at graduation, lifting a leg under the white gown of purity, to show off a new pump.
What About Your Grandmother, Jeanine?
The author of American Dirt has begun to claim her Puerto Rican heritage. But when the island needed her, she was busy writing an exploitative tale about Mexico.
https://www.guernicamag.com/what-about-your-grandmother-jeanine/
Hanif Abdurraqib and the Performance of Grief
On the particular braiding of grief and nostalgia that animates the poet-slash-critic’s work.
https://www.guernicamag.com/hanif-abdurraqib-and-the-performance-of-grief/
Opportunity Costs
On work, idealism, and Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley.
Mapping the End of the World
A polar scientist and a heavy-metal band depict global climatic dystopia.
Ball and Chain
When Major League Soccer pretends everything is fine, everyone loses.
A Cold, White Sport in a Warming World
In the battle for hockey’s future, it’s a question of #grit vs. Gritty.
https://www.guernicamag.com/a-cold-white-sport-in-a-warming-world/
Can’t Win
Loyalty, loss, and local fandom, from New Orleans to New York City.
Thirteen
The real reason every one of them backed away, scared shitless, was because of her hard, black nipples. Her nipples were more terrifying than the curses her mouth spewed or the fire in her eyes.
The Impertinence of Counterculture
A review of Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed by Curtis White
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-impertinence-of-counterculture/
The Dogs
Emilio looked prophetic for a moment. He held up his forefinger like he was shushing me and I thought he was pointing to the sky to tell me, God will provide. But then he just shrugged and scratched his scalp. “Soy is pretty nutritious,” he told me.
Morning
there’s so much of it, this night
Everywhere You Don’t Belong
And my life went on like that: people coming and going, valuable things left in a hurry.
With Jazz on the Turntable and a Drink in His Hand
In the dark nights after long days, the music gave our fathers something to cling to.
https://www.guernicamag.com/with-jazz-on-the-turntable-and-a-drink-in-his-hand/
Namwali Serpell: “I almost always find my errors productive.”
Using archival photos, excerpts from language courses, and eBay finds, the author and critic explains how she mines mistakes for discoveries.
https://www.guernicamag.com/miscellaneous-files-namwali-serpell/
World Without End
Lately, I’ve found the language of apocalypse creeping up in my own life for the first time, and with increasing frequency.
Born Slippy
Much later, after everything that happened, Frank no longer found much pleasure in the Great Books—he suspected they mocked him, that they, in a way, had written his own downfall, his own eventual exile.
Just After the Wave
Perrine and Noah are hungry. But they don’t know how to wring a chicken’s neck, how to empty out its innards and pluck it.
The Empty City
I went to the doctor and found out / there is an empty city inside me.
Little Gods
Who have I been? I am an ordinary man, but would my past, put down on paper, make me look cruel?
We Need to Talk
The phrase needn’t always conjure fear.
These Bad Things
One night, when he was seven or eight, she read her son a story from a book called These Bad Things. It was surprisingly scary, and she knew she should stop, but they were so far in. She wanted to see how it ended.
Milk Teeth
I lean my open neck against yours. / The miracle always returns with a hunger.
Carmen Maria Machado: “I speak into the Silence”
The writer on intimate partner violence and the forces that made it a hard story to tell.
https://www.guernicamag.com/carmen-maria-machado-i-speak-into-the-silence/
The Ways We Take Ourselves Apart
While I am texting the man who is not my husband, bacteria is growing inside the bodies of my daughter and her best friend.
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-ways-we-take-ourselves-apart/
I and Thou: A Bigfoot Encounter
It’s possible, even likely, that somehow all of us, even those among us who pay close attention, have missed something.
The Problem with My Dachshund
I shouldn’t leave her alone in the trailer with the dachshund when she’s just threatened to kill him, but I can’t stay; I just can’t. I push past her, out the door, keys still in hand, and start to drive.
Anatomy of a Successful Campus Talk
The real threat to free speech on campus isn’t what you think.
https://www.guernicamag.com/anatomy-of-a-successful-campus-talk/
What the Doctor Ordered
Caring for a dying patient, a pediatrician wrestles with questions of suffering and salvation.
Portrait of a Boy with Grief
you will open your wounds / and make them a garden
Everything Hiding the Secret of Its Taste
Marie NDiaye’s new novel, The Cheffe, is an ode to wasted love.
https://www.guernicamag.com/everything-hiding-the-secret-of-its-taste/
Lilly Dancyger: There Are So Many Different Ways to Be Angry
The editor of Burn It Down talks about the stabilizing benefits of women’s anger, the slow pace of change, and why it’s important to take up space on the subway.
https://www.guernicamag.com/lilly-dancyger-there-are-so-many-different-ways-to-be-angry/
Coming into Bloom
Finding love and making peace with impermanence, with a little help from some sunflowers.
Robert Gipe: A Cure for Despair
The author and activist on gallows humor, the need to tell stories, and helping communities thrive.
Snow Hare
you know how to pull down a tree / with only your teeth
Shannon Pufahl: Queering the Western
A slow-burning epic, On Swift Horses paints a new picture of our American mythology.
https://www.guernicamag.com/shannon-pufahl-queering-the-western/
Gah Men
The Gah Men were from the island. They were at once of the people, but not the people. The Gah Men used their Oxbridge training on one hand, earnest rabble-rousing speeches on the other, to broker a deal with the Ang Mohs.
Artist in Residence
What I learned—and didn’t—from living with a jazz legend.
Rene Denfeld: What Happens After the Trauma
The novelist on writing as activism, mislabeling monsters, and the healing power of imagination.
https://www.guernicamag.com/rene-denfeld-what-happens-after-the-trauma/
Ben Fama: “Life begins once its valorization ends.”
The poet talks about his latest book, the economic forces at work behind social media, and the stuffed animals in his life.
Turning, Unfolding, Passing Through
“Past their prime,” my mother says, shaking her head at pears forgotten on the kitchen counter, turning to rot.
https://www.guernicamag.com/turning-unfolding-passing-through/
Dagstuhl
She must have fallen asleep after all, in these first weeks, and the boy was gone. The baby in the car was an imposter. Like she was.
Diana Marie Delgado: The Germ of Someone
The poet on growing up around storytellers, understanding the charming trickster, and acknowledging women’s trauma.
https://www.guernicamag.com/diana-marie-delgado-the-germ-of-someone/
No Country
In an excerpt from his new book of essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, Andre Perry discusses race, identity, moving around the US, and the Midwest.
from 13th Balloon
Since you died a thousand birds / have daily flown through me
Heavier Than Air
Colombian artist Ruby Rumié confronts domestic violence.
The Border Merchant
On the remote border between Afghanistan and Iran, an enigmatic smuggler makes a living selling hope.
Dina Nayeri: The Craft of Writing the Truth about Refugees
The writer discusses the complexity of migrants’ lives in a world that demands their simplicity.
https://www.guernicamag.com/dina-nayeri-the-craft-of-writing-the-truth-about-refugees/
The Living Days
The wind was rushing past the tower so hard they were sure it would fall. That’s the fate of all towers, after all, to fall.
Lust for Science
What could gender, sex toys, rodents, and climate change possibly have in common?
The Book
The book said “Let’s talk about your new-found liberation” and I wrote “Fuck men” and the book said “Elaborate please” so I wrote “My whole life I’ve been shaping myself around boys and men” and then the book said “Show your work” so I did.
Translation and the Family of Things
A young writer discovers her grandmother’s literary secret.
https://www.guernicamag.com/translation-and-the-family-of-things/
Mira Ptacin: What Does It Feel Like to Have a Ghost in the Room?
In her new book, Ptacin goes deep with mediums and clairvoyants, and embraces the unknown.
https://www.guernicamag.com/mira-ptacin-what-does-it-feel-like-to-have-a-ghost-in-the-room/
The Trouble with Trauma
The discourse around the #MeToo movement doesn’t always reflect the realities of living with trauma.
I Would Steal a Car for You
I may be sixty-two, but I wish I could steal a car for you.
Kimberly King Parsons: Humor is an Antidote to Dread
Parsons’ short fiction debut Black Light isn’t afraid of the dark.
https://www.guernicamag.com/kimberly-king-parsons-humor-is-an-antidote-to-dread/
After the Storm
How Hurricane Katrina and the murder of Emmett Till shaped one woman’s commitment to climate justice
Back Draft: John Murillo
The poet discusses chasing butterflies, and the perpetual relevance of political verse.
The Girl Gangs of Pacific Avenue
I was out in the front garden weeding between the about-to-bloom tiger lilies the first time I saw them. Four girls in bathing suits and flip-flops, their mouths popsicle red and Italian-ice blue.
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-girl-gangs-of-pacific-avenue/
Four Storytellers Tackle Climate Change
Experts in art, writing, journalism, and policy discuss why climate change is the biggest story of our time.
https://www.guernicamag.com/four-storytellers-tackle-climate-change/
Victor LaValle: Imagine Downton Abbey, but with Smells
The award-winning writer on editing his first anthology, horror versus sci-fi, and the American tradition of voter suppression.
https://www.guernicamag.com/victor-lavalle-imagine-downton-abbey-but-with-smells/
The Space Between Us
My daughter was five days old when I realized the love I had for her would fall short.