Barbara Lock, MD // When I talked with writer and writing teacher David Ryan in mid-April 2021, more than a year into the pandemic, I was relieved to find his bright generosity intact. Ryan is my former writing professor. Class conversation was just as likely to hit on his heady days as drummer for The…

Nefise Kahraman // Freud’s therapy couch, covered with a carpet from Smyrna (today’s Izmir in Turkey), is as intriguing an object as the sculptures and paintings that make up the décor of his famous office. Each with their own story, these items are still on display in the Freud museum in London alongside his divan,…

Micah Bateman // Lisa Olstein, the author of four collections of poetry, recently released a prose meditation on chronic migraine, Pain Studies (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020). Thinking through migraine and with migraine, Olstein’s study threads in and out of autobiography, history, philosophy, literature, pop culture, and more—making piquant stops along the way at Joan of…

Kate Bolton Bonnici // Inside the room someone breathes through a machine until at some point they will be moved to a smaller room & there will be no breathing machine & breathing will end in some version or another. (You get that this is code for what you don’t know how to say.) Outside…

Megan Swartzfager // Ling Ma’s 2018 novel Severance is a book about a zombie apocalypse that involves no cannibalism, no hordes, and no explosions. Instead, Ma deploys zombies who are more like jet-lagged office workers than rabid dogs. Nevertheless, they carry all the horrific weight of the traditional American zombie of anti-capitalist works like George…

Sal Marx // Condition on discharge: stable. Still, I stumbled out of the belly of the hospital, onto pavement, clutching newly prescribed instructions: 1.  Avoid physical exertion  2.  If you feel worse, go to ER immediately 3.  Do NOT use marijuana or other illicit drugs  4.  Taper off the drug that treats your Major Depression within…

Editor’s note: This post is the second in a two-part series featuring the work of writers Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea. Read the first part here. Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea // Following the publication of the pamphlet In the Sick Hour by Takeaway Press in August 2020, writers Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea facilitated…

Editor’s note: This post is the first in a two-part series featuring the work of writers Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea. Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea // In the Sick Hour is the product of a collaboration between writers Jane Hartshorn and Kaiya Waerea. In the winter of 2020, just before the UK went into…