Hello, dear friends,
I wanted to start by sharing this compendium of resources for ways to support folks in Minnesota enduring federal occupation right now. (Thanks to cavar, who shared this in their newsletter last week as well, which is where I heard of it.) If your heart is breaking, find ways to transform that into action—supporting folks on the ground in Minnesota, finding organizations in your city doing good work, connecting with your neighbors. No one is coming to help us but us.
In this issue
The Imaginary Novelist Writes
My current novella-turned-novel project is, in part, about the question of how to hold both the mundane reality of ordinary life—with its attendant joys and sorrows—and the brutal reality of the oppressive systems that shape that ordinary life. It’s a question I’ve long wrestled with in life, and in poetry, but not before in fiction. So I’m working it out now via a group of characters who are doing their best to hold it all, and sometimes failing. Just like me, just like my loved ones.
I don’t write fiction to find answers to my questions, though that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Rather, I write fiction to find questions that reflect and bounce off each other and take me a little closer to the center—in my worldview, a little closer to god. This novel is doing that for me in a way that none of the six other novels I’ve drafted have. I wrote in a letter to a friend that it’s my first religious novel, but not because the narrator is a religious person, and not because I’m a more religious person than I used to be. I think I call it that because it’s my first novel in which I’m trying to make room between the words for divinity.
The Imaginary Novelist Reads
I have been reading with intention lately. Here’s what has most caught my eye:
Books
Exhibit, by R.O. Kwon: I read the first ten pages of this book and had to set it down. It was like eating a flourless chocolate cake: so intense, so rich, so delicious, that you feel overwhelmed. This book is hyped up for good reason—it is just that good.
Trans Formations, by Alex Clare-Young: I’ll admit that I found this by going to bookshop.org and just searching trans theology. I bought it based on that alone, but the ways that the author treats trans experience as holy text has been, well, transformational for my understanding of Christian theology.
Poems
“Hadal Zone,” by Emily Adams-Aucoin, in Palette Poetry: I love any poem about recursion. “I don’t own my soul, / but I have temporary / custody of it and provide / sufficient stewardship.”
“Root,” by HG Gruebmeyer, in Poetry Online: this poem seemed to tumble down the screen as I read it—or was I tumbling down the poem? Either way, it gripped me and made me achingly sad and joyously happy.
Prose
“Death Drive,” by Quinn Broussard, in X-R-A-Y: this short story deals with the interplay of sex and romance and power and fear, all through slim interiority, and I was hooked.
“Holy Appetites,” by Beth Ward, in Southeast Review: an essay about womanhood, hunger, desire, repression, denial, pain, and, of course, Catholicism.
The Imaginary Novelist Publishes
I’ve got a few things coming down the pike—some vague publishing news that may or may not turn into something very exciting—but I also published my first piece of the year on the fifth wheel press blog, a flash fiction called “Beauty.” It’s short, it’s trans, it’s angry. You can read it here.
The Imaginary Novelist Celebrates a Friend Named JAKE
As you may have heard, beloved home of the literary weird JAKE is going on indefinite hiatus. I owe a lot to JAKE and I want to make some space to celebrate everything they’ve done over the last ~5 years—for indie lit, and for me.
One of my earliest published pieces of fiction was on JAKE, in November of 2022, a weird little flash called “Exorcise Regime” (I found this very clever). You can read it here. The acceptance email JAKE sent me was funny and strange and I felt so warmly welcomed by the editors and the readership. I’d started submitting work earlier that year, had been facing (as we all do) lots of rejection, and I was so excited to be able to work with editors who were excited to publish out-there stuff.
And then, in 2023, I joined JAKE as a flash fiction editor—my first editorial role. I loved working with that team, and I count my time at JAKE as among the most formative literary experiences I’ve had. It can’t be said enough that working on the other side of a magazine helps you understand the process, and also helps you understand your own tastes. We had so much fun, and helping to make selections for JAKE’s first run of chapbooks was one of my favorite things I’ve done in the lit world.
Even after I had to bow out as editor due to time constraints, I loved reading whatever JAKE put out there, and I especially loved how community minded they were. Even in the announcement of their hiatus, I can see how much they care about their readers, their authors, and everyone who’s been a part of the literary weird.
Cheers to JAKE, and the many wonderful editors who have made their mark during JAKE’s run. Til next we meet.
Thanks for reading this far! I’m excited to see where this newsletter takes me; feel free to share with a friend, reply if you’d like, and let me know what you think!