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Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries X, XI, XII, and XIII

Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries X, XI, XII, and XIII

In these queries, Jefferson continues enumerating the features of Virginian civilization: its marine vessels (X), the activities of Native American tribes (XI), the locations of urban centers (XII), and the nature of civic power in the Commonwealth (XIII).

Origin Stories: Zachary Tyler Vickers’s CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR MARTYRDOM!

Origin Stories: Zachary Tyler Vickers’s CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR MARTYRDOM!

In the first story of Zachary Tyler Vickers’s remarkable new collection, Congratulations on Your Martyrdom!, an origami hobbyist with pathologically stubby fingers is stuffed like the roadkill he prepares for children. If you’re looking for the fiction about married people drinking lattes, this probably isn’t the book for you.

The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Howler” by LaTanya McQueen
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The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Howler” by LaTanya McQueen

In modern society, what often constitutes progress is the dulling elimination of those instinctual parts of our being that aren’t beholden to conscious thought—say, our hard-wired physical and emotional responses. In “The Howler” (Permafrost) LaTanya McQueen explores the potentially redemptive nature of those impulses that lay beyond our control.

Taking Something Unconventional and Making It Beautiful: An Interview with Elisabeth Jaquette

Taking Something Unconventional and Making It Beautiful: An Interview with Elisabeth Jaquette

Elisabeth Jaquette is a prolific writer and translator of Arabic. Her translations have appeared in the Guardian, Asymptote, multiple anthologies, and other places. She holds an MA from Columbia University and was a CASA Fellow at the American University of Cairo.