Day after the school shooting in Florida, my son’s elementary practices lockdown. When I pick his five-year-old self up in the parking lot crowded with parents I don’t breathe. I’ve been drinking, is why, so I hold my body in my mouth. “Noel and his partner are in town, we’re meeting for dinner at Matt’s,” I say to my boy, loading him in the car. Strapping him down. “We're good at traveling together,” my brother tells me at the restaurant. He takes a bite from his Juicy Lucy. “We're … [Read more...] about Matt’s
Kathryn Savage
A Person Who Looks: An Interview with Lacy M. Johnson
Houston-based Lacy M. Johnson’s recent essay collection, The Reckonings, grapples with vital questions: the concept of evil, police killings, the BP oil spill, and the complexity of speaking truth to power. Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in the category criticism, Johnson’s essays move between the personal and the political with deftness and precision. This interview was conducted via email where we talked about Johnson’s curatorial project, the Houston Flood Museum, … [Read more...] about A Person Who Looks: An Interview with Lacy M. Johnson
Lesser Missiles
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/kathryn-savage-lesser-missiles We smelled smoke and, out the window, embers rose in the night. We got out of bed and pulled the red alarm box in the hallway and went outside. From across the street, we watched fire destroy our apartment building. The woman who lived down the hall from us wore a nightgown and fanned herself with a magazine and shook her head. We found a motel nearby, mostly used by military girlfriends and wives. Then we walked … [Read more...] about Lesser Missiles