Curated reading lists.

Favorite Essays I Read in the Past Two Weeks:

The Man with the Golden Airline Ticket, Narratively

The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser

The Things We Do for Love, Roxane Gay. The pictures in this essay are breathtaking. While reading Roxane’s words, I felt I was in Antarctica with Roxane and her wife, Debbie Millman.

Favorite Short Fictions I Read in the Past Two Weeks:

Returning by Ling Ma

A Love That Will Bury Me Alive, Patricia Enge

Aida, Patricia Engel

Favorite Articles on Writing I Read in the Past Two Weeks:

We Need To Talk About Professional Jealousy, Benjamin Schaefer (Via Electric Literature)

How to Become a Professional Writer, Carlos Greaves

A Book I Am Reading:

Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo

So far I have read only two chapters of this book. But I know this book is going to be my favorite book of the year. An epic American story not much known. A true story of an enslaved couple’s journey from slavery to freedom that happened in the last years of the 1840s. This book grabs you with its pacing, the suspense—and such unexpected beauty in the lovely sentences.

Favorite Good Sentence I Read in the Past Two Weeks:

“You weep again because again is the only way to keep that time alive.” To Tell a Story Is To Tell It Again, to Carry Another Time, Matthew Salesses

Every time I read an essay from Matthew Salesses I am surprised by his words—which are not just smart but thoughtful, surprising, AND MOVING. You want to reread his carefully chosen words as soon as you have finished.

Etcetera

• Three things to know about Black History Month
• Black joy is propelling a rural racial justice movement
• Black Americans are 40% more likely to have asthma than white Americans
• Moving from ally to accomplice in the anti-racist fight: an Afrozilla resource list
• 10 Afro-Latina writers you should read right now (via Electric Literature)