Indie Lit Round-Up: What to Read This Weekend [Vol 2: May 11]
The Coil editor rounds up the best literary pieces from the indie Internet for you to read this weekend.
There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet to read. Here, let me help you wade through the crap to get to the good stuff. This list features stories, reviews, poems, interviews, essays, and literary whatnot that you might have missed, and you can come back every weekend for new great reads.
“Despite popular coastal mystifications, the Rust Belt isn’t a riddle. It’s a place. It’s people. It’s complex and nuanced. It’s a language.” | Leah Angstman (Me! Me!) talks about representation in the Rust Belt and reviews a new anthology of writers from the region in “The Rust Belt Isn’t a Riddle; It’s a Home” on Pacific Standard.
“your mouth so wide / it swallow a whole city in one bite.” | Hanif Abdurraqib with two poems of memory and music in The Rumpus.
“Dear teacher, my daughter is terrified.” | Sheila Squillante calls out gun violence in her touching poem, “She Was Instructed to Hide Inside a Locker,” on Bullets into Bells.
“Library budgets! They’re the worst.” | Kristen Arnett talks about budgets, recycling, and desperation in the library in “Essential DIY Tips for Surviving Slashed Library Budgets” at Literary Hub.
“Her wooden blocks are my favorite part of this room.” | Meghan McClure talks parenting and grief in “The Grieving House” on Pithead Chapel.
“I didn’t notice the reactions at first. They were so small. | Madeline Anthes has an allergic reaction to bad love in “Adverse” on Longleaf Review.
“A friend tells me his favorite word is ‘lasagna,’ / and all I can think about is my favorite word, ‘sashimi.’” | Dorothy Chan will delight you with her foodie poem, “Ode to Lasagna,” on Berfrois.
“Dulcie comes to her decision while shivering on her back stoop with a mug of undrinkable tea.” | Amy Rossi weaves a tale of witches and believing women in “What’s Done Is Mine” on Wigleaf.
“A vial of water procured near Bucharest failed customs muster. The official stamped no.” | Alina Stefanescu sings through lovely vignettes in “Seven Strains — and a Tritone” on Diagram.
“The piece, and I hesitate to write this because it seems so ridiculous, was inspired by me accidentally taking a negative photo of the moon one night.” | Chloe N. Clark is interviewed in “Weird Words with Chloe N. Clark” on Pidgeonholes.
“When we meet for a drink after many years, I’m carrying a baby and you’re still as wild as when we’d chase fireflies in your front yard.” | Dina Relles talks lost love, marriage, and the miles in between in “Whiskey and Water” on Synaesthesia Magazine.
“Things that are / inexpensive or, / things that are not / pulled out from your flesh.” | Joyce Chong brings out all the feels in “Dessicant” on Occulum.
“Q is for quiet, for the spaces between the words.” | Cathy Ulrich briefly discusses the silent spaces in flash fiction in “ABCs of Flash Writing: Q Is for Quiet” on Spry Literary Journal.
“if you have a memory of potato chips & greasy fingers & a / fine grit of sand & saltwater, you have conjured summer, all / its icy crisp bubbles like a fresh-popped can of Coke.” | Allie Marini rings in the season with “conjuring summer” on Mojave Heart Review.
“We opened our share / of your ashes / in the hotel room / before we spread them / the next morning.” | Jason Fisk breaks your heart with his poem, “Your Ashes,” in Riggwelter.
“When Hammond was very young, he had a hard time sleeping.” | Brandon Taylor finds “Millions of Tiny Things” to break you at Split Lip Magazine.
Did you love a literary piece on the Internet this week? Tweet it to me at @leahangstman, and my DMs are always open for new ideas.
LEAH ANGSTMAN serves as Editor-in-Chief for Alternating Current Press and The Coil magazine, and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly. Her work has appeared in Pacific Standard, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, Electric Literature, Slice Magazine, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. You can find her at leahangstman.com.
