“Perhaps tragedies are only tragedies in the presence of love, which confers meaning to loss. Loss is not felt in the absence of love.” – Elizabeth Alexander “I’ve never really said goodbye to anyone.” – KSR Image credit: Fiore Rosso, “Frequency 68, Hill 60”
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Devotional: Fear
I am afraid of so many things I cannot count them all. like failure, for instance there are uncountably many ways to fail and I am afraid of all of them. or sadness and its harsher twin, weakness. I fear them both. yes, darkness too there’s a reason I don’t go out to howl at…
Read MoreBook Review: Vermilion by Molly Tanzer
A few weeks ago I read a rave review of a book called Vermilion on NPR’s website. I am the type of person who typically believes everything NPR tells me, so when they wrote that the book is “a unique, hearty, thought-provoking romp that rewrites history with a vivacious flourish,” and described its protagonist as “one of the most…
Read MoreAbstraction: Enlightenment
“‘We hear so much of the splendid stone bridge of Joshu, but I see nothing but a miserable old rustic log bridge.’ Joshu retorted, ‘You just see the rustic log bridge, and fail to see the stone bridge of Joshu.’ ‘What is the stone bridge then?’ ‘Horses go over it, asses go over it.’” –…
Read MoreDevotional: Multitudes
I contain so much of you “Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons?” — Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body) – Image: Salvador Dali, Figure with Drawers for a Four-Part Screen
Read MoreDevotional: Peasants
Friday. I count the hours in every weekend, wasting them as surely as I waste breath. My generation’s mantra, “live life to the fullest”, a product of the post-WWI attitude of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” and the roaring growth of the Baby Boomers, has left me obsessed with material things, questing…
Read MoreDevotional: Loneliness
Wednesday. Loneliness is real, but this is not it. This is the kind of loneliness you have to get used to. This is the kind of loneliness that makes you who you are. How you fill your time now tells the person you are today who to become tomorrow. Will you clutch your loneliness to…
Read MoreHow I Sold My First 10,000 Books
It’s been a crazy year and a half for one Amira K. Makansi. Since I began my journey as an author and a publisher in July of 2013, my co-authors and I have released two books and a novella, all set in the world of Okaria, a futuristic post-apocalyptic civilization. In early April we announced…
Read MoreIn The Language Of Dreams: Why Genre Fiction Deserves To Be Considered Great Literature
Pretension exists everywhere, but sometimes I think nowhere more than in literature. How many of us read The Grapes of Wrath in high school? How about The Great Gatsby? Or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter? But, let’s be real: who ever assigned The Lord Of The Rings to a high school curriculum? Or what about Dune, Frank…
Read MoreBook Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I have read four books of Neil Gaiman’s to date: Coraline, Sandman: The Dream Hunters, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, and now, American Gods. It is strange to say that I have read four of his books because I don’t necessarily feel as though I’m the biggest fan of his work, or as though I have even…
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The Z-Axis 