Aging defiantly, literary selfies, and balloon animals
Welcome back to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and monthly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Longreads, Tin House, Granta, and Guernica. Each essay in this newsletter has been selected by the editors at the above publications as the best of the week, delivered to you all in one place. It may be the start of a new work week, but at least we have this great new writing to get us through it.
I’m 72. So What?
by Catherine Texier (art by Emily Press)
Now, as the years pass, I have less and less desire to leave New York, where my roots have pushed down through the cracks of its broken sidewalks, even though, technically, at past 70, I suppose I am truly getting old. But the idea of going back to France would seem alarming, a tolling of a bell of sorts. Of course, staying in New York, the city I fell in love with at 22, might seem like waving a garlic branch in front of the grim reaper, a kind of vade retro satana, a vain attempt to stay forever young, or at least delay the inevitable.
Diary of an Awkward Teenage Balloon Artist
by Camille Beredjick
A fit, blonde balloon trainer named Lindsay stood in my parents’ living room, teaching me to make dogs and hats and lobsters out of stretchy, colored latex. I knew right away that I wasn’t right for the job: Model balloon artists were attractive and sociable, and I was awkward and introverted. I took it anyway, wondering if I could channel some of Billy’s charisma. How could I draw people to me like that?
The Ugly Beautiful and Other Failings of Disability Representation
by s.e. smith
It is deeply troubling for able-bodied people to learn that . . . we find beauty and pride in ourselves, not in how we can most align with what nondisabled people think human bodies and minds should look like. That rather than hide or minimize disability, some of us want to accentuate it. We want to carry sparkly canes, to sew custom pouches for our medical supplies, to wear crop tops with our ostomy bags showing, to show our facial differences.
Terror is a Faggot with Halal Sausages Strapped to His Chest
by Bobuq Sayed
When I’m asked about Afghanistan, I want to answer truthfully but, still, the complications of honesty plague me. My emotions writhe and thrash. Even wearing peeran tombon and a grown-out beard, a trip to Afghanistan could expose me to people hostile to my queerness, to those who reject my take on Islam, and even those who resent the privilege of my literary aspirations.
How to Take a Literary Selfie
by Sylvie Weil
I found myself immediately identifying with certain self-portraits, as if they were snapshots that mirrored (imaginary) self-portraits of my own. For example, Gwen John’s Self-portrait Holding a Letter evoked a very particular memory for me and sparked my ‘Self-portrait with postcard’. A postcard whose meaning eludes me and which, like Gwen John’s letter, is from a love affair. So I attempted to paint myself with words, holding the postcard.
Writers’ Resources
4-Week online class at Catapult: Writing Personal Essays with Substance
Tarpaulin Sky Press is accepting manuscript submissions for their 2020 Book Awards
RSVP now for the next Memoir Monday reading! Monday, November 18 at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn.
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Until next Monday,