by Robb Todd
A book can change a life, even save one. That’s what a book did for Mitchell S. Jackson and now he has written a memoir with that same aspiration: Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family.
FICTION | NONFICTION | POETRY
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by Robb Todd
A book can change a life, even save one. That’s what a book did for Mitchell S. Jackson and now he has written a memoir with that same aspiration: Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family.
by Harris Lahti
There is Tom the carpenter, Jim the plumber, and Harry the heating guy whose hunting dog recently bit his nose off. Ladybird still sleeps in the bed, he tells me. Wasn’t her fault.
The bandages on the top part of his nose slip down while he talks. The bridge of his swollen nose is clearly not attached to his face. Each time he turns away, I can see the eyelashes blinking on the other side.
by Tess Crain
The literary device of eliding proper names of course predates Clarice Lispector (“Interrupted Story” was originally published in 1942).
I think a lot about snow globes. We did not have snow globes in small town Alabama where I was raised. I’m fascinated by them probably because they were not in my childhood. The contained experience of a snow globe, when you pick it up and shake it… an experience that doesn’t last very long. To reveal a beautiful scene, or something like a golden Buddha.
by Siena Oristaglio
The room is as dark as a crow.
A bright light appears, bathing a group of figures. They pose along a bench, their gazes fixed into empty space.
Strange sounds permeate the room — news clips, low voices, musical snippets, static — a radio on seek. The group remains still.
Far behind them, two figures emerge. One, legs spread, appears to give birth to the other.
Pingmei Lan’s short story, “Cicadas and the Dead Chairman,” which appeared in Epiphany’s Fall/Winter 2018 issue, has been named a winner of the prestigious PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize. Below is a brief interview with Pingmei, featuring our Epiphany 10 questions.
by Pingmei Lan
That summer when Chairman Mao died I saw a funeral for the first time, a national one. It had gone on for weeks. Everywhere I turned people were wearing black armbands and making white paper flowers. The usual sea of blue Mao suits seemed to be foaming, churning, shaping into dark and light swells. Thousands of mourning wreaths blanketed Tiananmen Square, eventually spilling down to the sidewalks of Chang’an Avenue. For days, then weeks, it looked like snow in summer.
by Robb Todd
There's no better microcosm of America than an airport.
There's no better album to listen to in an airport than this one.
by Tess Crain
Some of the best novelists in the Americas and Europe have written about chess—yet one of the best chess novels, Chess Story (published in German as Schachnovelle; also known as The Royal Game) by Stefan Zweig, was written by an otherwise less than superlative author.
by Zack Graham
“You, Very Young in New York,” a poem by Hannah Sullivan, will remind you of why you live in New York. It will remind you why you struggle through winter after winter, why you wait underground for a train that may never come, why sometimes, despite living in the biggest city in America, you feel so alone. In short, “You, Very Young in New York” is the perfect remedy for a brutal New York February.
by Siena Oristaglio
I recognize the bold colors and simple, graphic drawing style. A hot pink bonfire radiates from the base of what appears to be a vintage wooden paper cutter. The object hangs on the wall across the room from me, its broad handle jutting into the space.
by Robb Todd
A silver-bearded man stands in the middle of a sidewalk spotted with gum, a bamboo rice paddy hat tilted on his head, and he cups his hands at his waist and asks in monotone: “Can you help me? I’m poor.”
I pull a banana from my coat pocket and hand it to him, and he says, “Everything you need to know about life you can learn by watching animals,” and he peels the banana by pinching off the black spot at the bottom, not by pulling the stem. “I speak several languages, including toddler, and I’ve picked flowers from rhinoceros horns. Every ritual is forced upon us.”
by Tess Crain
This past year, I set out to read a hundred books. All had to count, more or less, however subjectively, as “literature.” As I had read fifty-two not without effort the previous year, the goal was to read more, not more quickly; and since my schedule had not changed in any major way, doubling this number required I make time… mainly by skipping parties, putting off work, and puttering less. The project was self-conscious but—books being central to my life as a writer—seemed worthwhile.
Time began to register in volumes…
by Zack Graham
There is a preternatural precision to Hernán Diaz’s every syllable, word, phrase and sentence. No room to spare. He doesn’t let you breathe. What’s more, he is a writer capable of conceptual translation. He can turn the banal into the fascinating. He can reduce the complex into the basic. He can even make the gruesome majestic.
We’re pleased to announce a new monthly feature showcasing four critically minded writers: Zack Graham, Tess Crain, Robb Todd, and Siena Oristaglio. The Epiphanic, so-called, will publish at least one piece each month about an artistic enthusiasm, whether literary, visual, or performative in nature… The intention here is to provide an extended space for critically minded writers to develop their perspectives. If literary culture is to survive well into this new century, the vital role of critics cannot be ignored. Algorithms do not speak with an individual voice; it is the individual voice, finally, or several in conversation, that consecrate literary endeavor. If the perception of value is left to the marketplace alone, well, then, it’s safe to say we all stand to miss a great deal.
by Olga Zilberbourg
A friend’s ten-year-old son recently came up to me at a party to ask, “You’re from Russia, right?” Sensing caution in my assent, the boy hesitated before asking the next question, clearly trying to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t cause offense but would express his curiosity. He finally came up with, “It’s a very violent place, isn’t it?”
Whenever I’m asked to summarize the entire country of Russia at a party, I invariably recall a scene from a popular Soviet movie. When a character returns home from vacation onboard a cruise ship, his apartment building super pressures him to give a lecture to the residents entitled, “New York—the City of Contrasts.” The hero remarks that the cruise didn’t go to New York but to Istanbul and Marseille, and the administrator quickly goes along. “Fine. Call your lecture, ‘Istanbul—the City of Contrasts.’ What’s the difference?” To many Soviet citizens living behind the Iron Curtain there seemed, indeed, little difference between going to New York and Istanbul. Both were equally exotic. To many of my American acquaintances, contemporary Russia remains such an exoticized “other.” This massive country that covers more than one eighth of the Earth’s inhabitable land and is inhabited by approximately 160 ethnic groups speaking one hundred languages becomes reduced in conversation to a few set phrases.
You will learn craft and language, you will develop a love affair with poetry, you will find lifelong friends and mentors. You will experiment, test your boundaries, search for your voice. But you will find yourself surrounded by white peers, white teachers, people who can’t push you to ask yourself the harder questions about who you are as a writer. While this will bother you slightly, you won’t know how to articulate why, or even what you’re looking for, at least not in a way that doesn’t sound self-hating.
The anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life brings together complex and confident stories from an impressive list of authors.
