Curated links.

Favorite Essays I Read This Week:

Afros, Braids, Cornrows: Embracing the ABC of my Kinky Hair, Iris Leona Marie Cross

Mourning the Loss of My Dad — and His Jeep (Via The Cut)

Favorite Flash Fiction I Read This Week:

Unnecessary Things, Tatyana Tolstaya

Favorite Writing Advice I Read This Week:

17 Steps to Accelerate Your Writing Life, Bethany Jarmul

Favorite Sentence I Read This Week:

“I had learned to simply live each day I was given.” A Good Path, Misty Watson

Favorite Paragraph I Read This Week:

“We can’t control the currents and trends of the industry, the business decisions of agents and editors and publicists, the nature of capitalism, the habits of readers. We can’t control book sales or who gets picked for what prize or fellowship or grant or residency. But we can write beautifully, meaningfully, interestingly, completely. Either you believe that what you’re doing is art—and is worthy of being treated as such, by you—or you don’t. That decision is yours, entirely.” —Carmen Maria Machado, On Writing and the Business of Writing

Etcetera

7 Novels that use Mystery to Examine Race (Via Electric Lit)

The Best Way to Wash Your Face Is Actually a 200-Year-Old Method

The Comfort Zone Is Where Work Gets Done, Niklas Göke

Did You Know?

Ethiopians wear “netela”—handmade scarf-like two-layered cloth made of cotton—upside down at funerals.