This week: Coronavirus is everywhere — now what? / Sharing secrets with a stranger / The beauty of bread / Black queer people join the literature / Writing as the world burns up
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1. So What Should I Do About Coronavirus Now?
By Josh Barro | Intelligencer :: New York Magazine | February 2020
“[P]eople should make sure they are up-to-date on their vaccines, including flu shots, because a community that is more resilient overall and less likely to get other diseases is going to be better positioned to handle a novel pandemic. And schools and employers should be preparing their plans for what they will do if the epidemic hits where they are located. …”
2. How to Write Fiction When the Planet Is Falling Apart
By Parul Sehgal | The New York Times Magazine | February 2020
“Jenny Offill is the master of novels told in sly, burnished fragments. In her latest, ‘Weather,’ she uses this small form to address the climate collapse.”
3. That Feeling When You Share Your Deepest Secrets With a Stranger You’ll Never See Again
By Bryan Washington | The Cut :: New York Magazine | February 2020
“Itinerant Love: The feeling of unfettered closeness and guiltless exposure that comes from spending an intimate night with someone while knowing that you won’t see that person again, despite it just being really lovely, thereby giving you both license to share more of yourselves than you ever would otherwise.”
4. Waterlines: On Writing and Sailing
By Martin Dumont | NYR Daily :: New York Review of Books | February 2020
“I had spent hundreds of hours building that novel, dreaming it, conceiving it, putting it down on paper, and now it was going to live a life beyond my control. An existence in the hands of others — the readers, who would likely always remain unknown to me. It was terrifying and fascinating.”
5. Polar Extremes
NOVA :: PBS | February 2020
“Paleontologist Kirk Johnson explores the dynamic history — and future — of ice at the poles”
6. What’s in Kale (or a Pear) that Seems to Lower Alzheimer’s Risk?
By Gary Stix | Scientific American | January 2020
“Particular antioxidants in fruits and vegetables may lower chances of getting the disease”
7. Daily Bread
The Splendid Table :: APM | January 2019
“If you have ever wondered why New York bagels are great or not so, we get the answer from Dianna Daoheung of Black Seed Bagels. …”
8. Black Queer People Writing Ourselves Into History: An Autostraddle Master List
By Carmen Phillips | Autostraddle | February 2020
“As we imagine new worlds for ourselves as queer black women, we want to know –who were the visionaries of our past? And who are those visionaries right now? As queer and trans black people, who have we’ve loved or looked up to? When did have we found clarity about our purpose? Who helped us imagine our own future?”
9. Boobtown
By Christian Wallace | Boomtown :: Texas Monthly | January 2020
“We explore a different kind of boom in the Permian Basin. Meet the women working at a lingerie coffee shop, a ‘breastaurant,’ and two area strip clubs.”
10. The world’s oldest asteroid strike in Western Australia may have triggered a global thaw
The Conversation :: The Guardian | January 2020
“A new study showing the 70km-wide Yarrabubba crater dates impact to 2.29bn years ago”
Tell your friends!
stillness of heart 