At the Creative Independent, Tanaïs discusses their expansive memoir, In Sensorium: Notes for My People, in which they examine alternate histories and universes of memories and scent. “I think that community building is really important and I think it’s also equally as important to distinguish your own voice and your own mind from that community,” they say. “I think there’s a lot of emphasis placed on literary citizenship, which is in the most simple definition, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ You give and you take and you offer help and you pick other people up; you’re just in an ecosystem. This book is questioning what it even means to be a citizen or to belong to anything. I belong to many things and I feel like what I started to become very aware of is how other minds and other writers’ opinions, and the way that I would feel my energy was being drawn from me was actually affecting my own work.”
Constantly Questioning with Tanaïs
The Middlesteins On a Budget
You can treat yourself to The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg for the low price of $2.99. As readers of the book will find out: it’s hard to resist treats…
Favorite Debuts
Tin House assembles a panel to name its favorite debut novels and collections of the year. Swamplandia! and We the Animals get tapped, but some lesser known titles also make the cut.
Heavy Feather Review’s Call for Submissions
As they begin preparation work on “Vacancies,” a special double-issue of their magazine, the folks at Heavy Feather Review have issued a call for writing that explores “the dimly lit corners of the unoccupied, unassuming, or idle.” For inspiration, look toward Philip Levine’s poem, “An Abandoned Factory, Detroit.”
Getting Directions from Jack Kerouac
Want to retrace Sal and Dean’s On the Road journey? The Placing Literature app lets you explore with your favorite characters by mapping scenes from novels. There are 1,500 destinations currently, but you can add your favorite novels or your own work.
Rereading
“I’ve come to understand that I’ll rarely experience that first rush of discovery again, and perhaps that’s the problem with re-reading. It reminds us both of where we’ve been and where we can’t go again.” Sarah Seltzer wonders why do we reread books as children but not as adults? Pair with Lisa Levy‘s essay on “The Pleasures and Perils of Rereading.”