I am sure that by now you’ve heard about the possibly, maybe, probably AI-generated story that was published by Granta in May. I skimmed the piece with a friend, and the two of us took turns reading aloud the worst lines in theatrical voices. These lines, and the...
“I remember my mother saying that when she was pregnant with me, she would blow bubbles in our small backyard pool to help my sister learn to swim. ‘You were born disabled,’ she would tell me, ‘because the military put bad chemicals in that water.’ For years, as a...
“If I wanted a different life for myself, if I wanted financial security, or if I ever wanted to own a home, or retire, or even easily afford my existence in the world, then I would need a miracle. John, and the opportunity he presented to sell my body to him,...
Creative nonfiction is a tricky genre in that it typically starts out as processing a lived experience rife with complexity. Many of us come to the genre as keepers of journals, chronic processors, habitual seekers, and adamant sense-makers. We record everything and...
My best friend and I have taken to calling each other “weirdos.” In our world, calling someone a weirdo is the highest strata in the hierarchy of love and understanding. I’ve often heard that the impulse to write feels like a creature clawing at your throat and...
I’ve been thinking about how to begin this little letter for a few weeks now, mostly because, well, who am I to tell you what makes a good story? As far as I’m aware, nobody died and made me President of Fiction, unless the letter informing me of my promotion got lost...
