Indie Lit Round-Up: What to Read This Weekend [Vol 17: Aug 31]

Leah Angstman
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

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 recurring column 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.

“My silent mother returns to our silent home with stitches in her brow, swollen cheeks, her warmth extinguished.” | CLAIRE POLDERS has a quick story of abuse and motherhood in “Limbo Land” at Lost Balloon.


“The whole point was to scare each other, but nothing was working.” | K. C. MEAD-BREWER has a creepy witch story that fits right in with modern-day culture in “The Hunted” at The Cincinnati Review. [Audio available]


“On the way to the gallery show, Jane fantasized about Thomas fucking his ex-girlfriend.” | JEN CORRIGAN has a story about winter, financial woes, jealousy, and relationships in “Falling out the Other Side” at The Tishman Review (page 86).


“It took some real / medieval / work to give // Ohio the veins / it needed / to pump blood // again.” | DARREN C. DEMAREE has an Emily poem, “Emily as We Thread the Geography of Ohio,” in The Tishman Review (page 102).


“You will laugh / after I am dead.” | TODD DILLARD has a rather tragic “Knock Knock” joke poem up at Flapperhouse.


“Cats were dying.” | REBECCA CURTIS has a “Christmas Miracle” that is witty, wonderful, and gory up at The New Yorker.


“When I think of Black Lives Matter, I think of my grandmother.” | JODI SAVAGE talks about black lives, mental health, and her grandmother in “What If: On Black Lives Matter and Mental Health” at Catapult.


“I own a teacup that has the words every day I’m hustlin’ scrawled around the rim.” | ESMÉ WEIJUN WANG has a story of illness versus productivity and society’s viewpoints on both, “I’m Chronically Ill and Afraid of Being Lazy,” at Elle.


“In a recent nonfiction workshop I taught at Sarah Lawrence College, a female student cringed when I suggested she include more of her own story in an essay.” | MELISSA FEBOS talks about “The Heart-Work: Writing about Trauma as a Subversive Act” at Poets & Writers.


“My first connection to smell was the smell of holy water and sacrament, the second was the smell of my mother’s Buddhist temple.” | ARABELLE SICARDI examines perfume’s centuries-old holy war in “Perfume, Power, and God” at Racked.

LEAH ANGSTMAN serves as Editor-in-Chief for Alternating Current Press and The Coil magazine, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, and a proofreader for Pacific Standard. Her work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, Electric Literature, Slice Magazine, Pacific Standard, and elsewhere. Find her at her website.

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.

The Coil

Literature to change your lightbulb.

Leah Angstman

Written by

Transplanted Midwesterner; EIC of Alternating Current Press; reviewer at Publishers Wkly; CNF & fiction writer and poet. Find her at http://leahangstman.com.

The Coil

The Coil

Literature to change your lightbulb.

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