The Long Apprenticeship: On Creative Development

Here’s why: due to a family tradition of just fucking impeccable timing, I recently put a cap on two projects, both of which took an inordinately long time. One is a still-pretty-secret translation project, alluded to elsewhere, which consumed my every free hour for eighteen months, as well as much of my brain power the rest of the time. The other is ten years in the making: a novella, entitled The Horn, the Pencil, and the Ace of Diamonds, forthcoming from us. Is that tacky? Yes. But I promise I’m going somewhere this.

"Do You Consider Yourself Anti-Capitalist?": On Making Political Art

My parents are renovating the house I grew up in, and their kitchen has been unusable for some time. As Edgar can attest, one of my primary means of showing affection is making food for people: for me, nothing shows care quite so much as sharing a home-made meal, so I brought them dinner (vegetarian chili, with a small container of browned beef alongside it, in case they didn’t want to have it vegetarian.)

While there, I spoke to my mother about the ongoing loneliness epidemic that has been on my mind lately: I’m an adjunct instructor, and I’ve recently gotten a crop of so-called “Generation Z” students. These young people are (according to experts,) the most isolated generation in recorded history, and who have the most precarious mental health situation of any living generation, succumbing in record numbers to anxiety and depression. I am I feel, not improperly, worried about them.