“Why don’t we come to an agreement then? I’ll buy the alcohol if you finally stop working.” Hassan said as he sipped his Scotch and watched her with his psychologist’s stare. She had the uneasy feeling she was a frog in his pot, and he was slowly turning up the heat.
(fiction)
“Lehman has claimed a kinship with poets of the past that exists outside time,” writes reviewer Suzanne Lummis.
(poetry reviews)
As the world began to open again, we were proud. We’d done a good job. Then you came.
(nonfiction)
Those smuggled copies of Interview and The Witching Hour that I took with me and read and reread in the suffocatingly dark and overly zealous world that was my conversion therapy experience got me from one moment to the next.
(nonfiction)
“It could be that our hearts beat in perfect alignment. Yet, it does not seem that Paul and I ever could have aligned ourselves so precisely.”
(nonfiction)
Author’s Note These pieces are part of a series of lipograms, writing that excludes one…
Meanwhile, the puppy, who, according to the book she bought, is color blind, lies in the grass and unsentimentally, methodically, stops beetles in their tracks with his paw. No ethical standards, this one. He does what he wants.
(fiction)
In New Zealand, we don’t do class warfare like the British do, although we bring it with us. Ours isn’t as refined. But it’s just as complex and many times more insidious.
(nonfiction)
I mentioned the most important aspect once we were out of the taxi and waiting for the electric-blue bus: never fall asleep. The ride’s purpose was not to get comfortable or distracted.
(nonfiction)
I’m not. I’m not going to take T, I’m not changing my pronouns or my name or anything. I’m just
getting top surgery, Mom. It’s just… it’s just a change.
(drama)
“I think that as long as you treat your characters with compassion, and you’re thoughtful and empathic and you do what you can to support their narrative and their truths,” Emily Maloney tells Barbara West.
(interview)
“I WANTED TO WATCH HER WITHOUT HER SEEING ME”
“BREAK TIME INTO PIECES”
(poetry)
We were excited to go to Ukraine
because we were promised a disco night in Donbas organized by a local Young Pioneer
group, a junior division of the Communist Party.
(nonfiction)
“Why is this so romantic to you, always? The death sentence. I get tired of hearing about it. Also, I’m actually tired. If you’re so compelled to take care of me, why are we still here? Maybe get me a chair.”
(drama)
“d. h. lawrence”
“fuck your cv”
(TCTC translations/poetry)
In a text to a friend, months after the last time I see her I say, “She still has my heart.”
“You’ll want to get that back,” he says.
(nonfiction)
Another Chicago Magazine 