FEBRUARY 2024
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges trans. by Andrew Hurley | 4.8 out of 5
"For some fifty years, in intriguing and ingenious fictions that reimagined the very form of the short story--from his 1935 debut with A Universal History of Iniquity through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, the enigmatic prose poems of The Maker, up to his final work in the 1980s, Shakespeare's Memory--Jorge Luis Borges returned again and again to his celebrated themes: dreams, duels, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gauchos, knife fighters, tigers, and the elusive nature of identity itself. Playfully experimenting with ostensibly subliterary genres, he took the detective story and turned it into metaphysics; he took fantasy writing and made it, with its questioning and reinventing of everyday reality, central to the craft of fiction; he took the literary essay and put it to use reviewing wholly imaginary books.
Bringing together for the first time in English all of Borges's magical stories, and all of them newly rendered into English in brilliant translations by Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions is the perfect one-volume compendium for all who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master's work for all who have yet to discover this singular genius."
Everybody has to self-promote now. Nobody wants to. by Rebecca Jennings | 4 out of 5
NOTE: this article doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do — from 9-to-5 middle managers to astronauts to housecleaners — you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand. For some, it looks like updating your LinkedIn connections whenever you get promoted; for others, it’s asking customers to give you five stars on Google Reviews; for still more, it’s crafting an engaging-but-authentic persona on Instagram. And for people who hope to publish a bestseller or release a hit record, it’s “building a platform” so that execs can use your existing audience to justify the costs of signing a new artist."
Mad Studies by [sarah] Cavar | 5 out of 5
NOTE: this short story doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"Their name is T. Their father had bad cancer. Their mother was a painter until she died, too. With father, the cause––the pancreas––was clear. With mother, the afflicted organ was the organ of dreams. They-everybody tried to figure out what it was but came up blank. The three of family also had four cats: two adults, two kittens."
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim | 5 out of 5
NOTE: this short story doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"So they broke into the hole in the ground, and they killed the kid, and all the lights went out in Omelas: click, click, click. And the pipes burst and there was a sewage leak and the newscasters said there was a typhoon on the way, so they (a different “they,” these were the “they” in charge, the “they” who lived in the nice houses in Omelas [okay, every house in Omelas was a nice house, but these were Nice Houses]) got another kid and put it in the hole."
The False Sister by Briar Ripley Page | 5 out of 5
"It’s 1994, and Jesse Greer’s troubled older sister, Crys, has run away from home. Shy, socially awkward Jesse assumes that she has returned to her old haunts in the big city — until he discovers Crys’ remains in the woods behind his family’s house. Traumatised, Jesse runs to his parents for help, only to find that Crys has returned home, alive."
"Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by Israel. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation.
Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment."
Outside Influence by Alyssa K | 5 out of 5
"Aster is a lifestyle influencer with a picture-perfect life–but he isn’t all he seems. He’s a werewolf who grew up in a strict separatist pack, and while he escaped his old pack years ago, the trauma from his upbringing came with. When Aster learns a wildlife photographer is poking around the pack’s territory, Aster has to go home again after swearing he’d never go back–or risk an outsider learning too much for his own good.
Laurence isn’t good with people. He just wants to take wildlife photography and keep to himself. When Laurence runs into a gorgeous lifestyle influencer with zero wilderness survival skills deep in the woods, he doesn’t know what to do or how to act. It turns out the two of them have a lot in common–except the small issue that Aster can turn into a wolf. Suddenly Laurence finds himself immersed in a world he knows nothing about, where mistakes come with a steep cost–and he’s already made a few."
AI is fueling a data center boom. It must be stopped. by Paris Marx | 5 out of 5
"Silicon Valley believes more computation is essential for progress. But they ignore the resource burden and don’t care if the benefits materialize."
I AM NOT AFRAID OF TRANSSEXUALS by John Elizabeth Stintzi | 5 out of 5
NOTE: this poem doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"As a new emergency law goes into effect, a step toward making my existence illegal, I walk into a sporting goods store in Liberty, Missouri and buy a semi-automatic target pistol."
The Languages of the Tower of Babel by Lillie E. Franks | 5 out of 5
NOTE: this story doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"The language of the Tower has room for only one truth: The Tower of Babel must rise even higher."
Orpheus by Muhammed Olowonjoyin | 4.8 out of 5
NOTE: this poem doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"First, a cry. Or first, a language, or first, you break your mind into dreams and wishes and hope before returning to gather the shards and rubbles everything you had became."
NOTE: this poem doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"all i said was what if you wanted to relax / your back and shoulder muscles but god said / the body keeps the score?"
Scabby the Inflatable Rat and I are Getting Married! by Mordecai Martin | 5 out of 5
NOTE: this story doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"I seduce him with stories of long ago labor movements. My great-grandpa was a tailor, my great-grandma a seamstress. Were they political, he asks, his voice a gaseous whisper. Who can say? I shrug, and I allow a deep sadness to overcome me, as though it is too painful to discuss these ghosts that I myself brought up, as if Scabby’s gaze is a blazing, uncouth light that scatters the shadows of the past. Scabby is suitably chastened and deeply impressed with my depth of feeling."
NOTE: this article doesn't have a description so i'll use a quote from it
"This research is dedicated to all girls, including transgender girls, and young women, including trans women who do what they have to do to survive every day. The world may call us victims- but we know differently- we know we are our own heroines. This work is personal to us- it is about our lives."