Disposable Heroes, and AI Stole My Book and Sold It Online
Curated reads.
Favorite Essays I Read in the Past Two Weeks:
The space between
Disposable heroes
The kidnapping I can’t escape
Split ends
What the Germans left behind
What a haircut can do to a person
I remember
My great hunger
Love bug
Favorite Flash Stories I Read in the Past Two Weeks:
Favorite Sentences I Read in the Past Two Weeks:
“Every so often, when she drinks, Susan thinks it could be she who shows up, talks to Melanie in her chair, and she who could be the hero, or forge a real friendship, then thinks of how soon this kindness would turn to obligation and commitment, how it would no longer be splendid that she showed up that day, but how disappointing it is when she never comes back.” –link
“And yet my mother insisted change was not possible, not yet and maybe even never, though nearly every night, we could hear the rats scratching, scratching, patient, oh so horrifically patient, through the thin walls that, maybe for only one more night, protected us from them.” –link
“When you’re little, and your mother is everything to you, it’s hard to understand how someone so glamorous can be so sad.” –link
“What everyone craved, it seemed, was someone’s investment—someone’s attention—and turning to each other was just a consequence of realizing the hospital staff couldn’t provide that.” –link
“There is no guide for making a home on resettled land.” –link
Favorite Paragraphs I Read in the Past Two Weeks:
“When they told him I was dead, he came to stand on the ground above my feet. He looked depleted, all out of advice. Said this thing was new, said he didn’t know beans about being dead, said it scared him shitless. He didn’t blame me for leaving, didn’t like the world much either, said hate breeding hate breeding hate must keep it turning, said he’d always prayed to me like a god, to his good and restless, beautiful son.” –link
“I completely agree that writing can be learnt only through writing. I want everyone who aspires to be a writer without any higher degree for literature to practice it like me.” –link
“Racism harms overtly. It sabotages physical and social environments. My mother taught me about racism before I entered elementary school where, at six years old, I asked one of my first grade classmates to play with me and he said that his parents told him he wasn’t allowed to play with niggers. She had the talk with me that white parents don’t have with their kids: even if you pump gas into the car, you get a receipt. I wore a mask to get through the day and it caused me to question what was true and white folks’ motives. Did that kid switch seats to get away from me? Is this police officer following me even though I’m not speeding? If racism has done this to my mind in my 50 years of existence, I had to accept what it had done to my mother’s. How long can anyone’s brain, especially one who has dealt with the trauma of racism, maintain that hyper vigilance and stay mentally healthy? I can’t pray it away. I can’t pill it away. I can’t run it away. And I can’t hide it away. It’s the knee on Black folks’ neck that makes us say “I can’t breathe.”” –link
Book Recommendation
Ghostroots, PemiAguda
Etcetera
Laugh in the face of standards
How much ‘fiction’ are we ok with in our nonfiction?
AI stole my book and sold it online
The life and untimely death of a Boeing whistleblower
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