On Professionalism
Literary adulting, Service, diplomacy.
I keep thinking I’ll transition this Substack to a quarterly (?) so I can focus on writing and reading more fiction, but for now, I’m stuck in a doom loop with “discourse,” teaching, etc. before moving onto new projects. Grrrr.
Before moving onto the central topic of concern — “professionalism”— or literary adulting, I thought I would share some random Summer updates: Last week, I spoke with the artist Tamar Ettun for the exhibition opening Revolving at Dreamsong gallery in NE Minneapolis. During our discussion, Tamar and I spoke at length about the roles interdisciplinary collaboration and happenstance plays in her creative process—the show is up through June, so be sure to check it out. Speaking of collaboration: a new poem (!?) “M/A/G/I/C S-P-E-L-L” is now live as part of artist Rosamunde Bordo’s exhibition, Magic Show, at Western Front, in Vancouver, on view through July. And in more art-related happenings: at the Bulgari Pavilion as part of the Venice Biennale is the artist Lotus L. Kang’s The Only Face of Desire is Loss. The title is inspired from a line from my second book, THRESHOLES. Kang: “It’s about how to speak the unspeakable.” Lotus and I sat down to discuss her artistic practice, Kim Hyesoon, and more for the summer issue of BOMB, out later this month.
I also finished a 6-week session of Publicity School with Leah Paulos. The fun never ends :-} but I learned so much!— highly recommend.
Recent mail: I ordered via Asterism some books by UK publishing project Bricks from the Kiln: Working through Objects; These are Addressed to You; and vol. 7 of magazine. I also received the recent Interspecies issue of Elastic, a magazine of psychedelic art and literature, which features two new poems plus writings by Daisy Hildyard, Fernando A. Flores, CA Conrad, Brandon Shimoda, Bhanu Kapil, Dorothea Lasky, and more.
In the classroom: I shared a writing / ideating fiction prompt that involved “The Macarena.” Doing the Lord’s work.
#currentlylistening: this Deftones cover of the Cocteau Twins’ “Wax and Wane” 👄
…Now onto literary adulting!