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By Angelos Apallas  “More and more I begin to feel that the whole world is conscious” (Lockwood 207). These are some of the concluding words of Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel No One Is Talking about This, an abysmal trip into the cyber-world, documenting the foundation of being as it surfaces through lifelike glimpses of socialContinue reading “What is even real anymore?”

By Evelien Vermeulen Mark Doty’s poem “Lost in the Stars” provides an elegiac retelling of a musical evening in 1992, at the height of the AIDS crisis. In it, the speaker reflects on the idea of memory, and what it means to remember loved ones who have passed. Leontia Flynn’s “Letter to Friends” explores differentContinue reading “Memory in the Poetry of Leontia Flynn and Mark Doty”

By Shaila Kumaradas Slip off your shoes and dip your toes in the water. Can you feel the faint ocean breeze and the droplets splashing against your cheeks as the sound of four surfboards hitting the water echoes in the distance? If you can, you’ve found the home of the Riva siblings. I hope youContinue reading “‘Malibu Rising’: A Steady Cocktail of Booze, Surfing, and Family Tragedy”

By Sven Verouden It smells like gasoline in the mall. I’m sitting in a tightly packed coffee chain, reading the book I’m currently devouring, ignoring the scent of possible danger. I’m thinking that my last day in the city might very well be my last day in my body too. There’s a certain poetry inContinue reading “‘Butterflies’”

By Acacia Caven The National Theatre’s most recent adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood blends old with new in an emotional navigation through the town of Llareggub (try it backwards) and its inhabitants. Repackaged by Siân Owen, Thomas’ (arguably over-adapted) 1954 text is given new life through the addition of a framing story thatContinue reading “Dylan Thomas’ Classic ‘Play for Voices’ has a New Sheen: ‘Under Milk Wood’ Review”

By Sara van der Woude Fiona Mozley’s second novel, Hot Stew (2021), opens with a snail escaping its unlucky fate as escargot-to-be, subsequently tracing an almost mythical origin story of Soho, London. We hear the trampling of the deer that used to be hunted on the former moor, the stapling of bricks as the terrainContinue reading “Clashes and Connections of the City: A Review of Fiona Mozley’s ‘Hot Stew’”

By Yara Cloudt I’m stuck in my den for the next couple of days.  And weeks.  And years, probably.  Decades, perhaps, if all goes well. I live on Titan, Jupiter’s moon, in a world that you Earthlings might call a Dystopia, but I prefer the term Utopia. It is the nature of my species toContinue reading “‘Utopia of Isolation’”

By Naomi Tidball In the last few years, there has been a surge of musicians sharing their personal stories, framed, of course, as heroic journeys in the documentary form. For instance, the new Britney Spears documentary was released, or rock documentaries like, It Might Get Loud (Guggenheim, 2008). But musicians setting their stories to paper are fewer and far between, so it came asContinue reading “Food for Thought, Identity, and Culture: A feature on Michelle Zauner’s ‘Crying in H Mart’”

By Isabel Cramer Welcome to a future, perhaps even parallel, Earth. Highly sophisticated artificial intelligence is a part of everyday life in Kazuo Ishiguro’s compelling Klara and the Sun. Ishiguro asks all the big questions in his latest novel: What does it mean to be human? Can science transcend death? Is parenthood truly selfless? TheContinue reading “Fake Friends in ‘Klara and the Sun’: How Kazuo Ishiguro’s lifeless robots can give us a new perspective on life”

By Kaixuan Yao I am trying to write differently, now, as I sit by the windows with blinds raised. Views of neoclassicist facades come through, spread in front of me like linen sheets under the sun. I dropped into a long sleep last night, like a dog’s muzzle that sniffed so attentively at the soilContinue reading “‘Veronika’”