Malaga Island and an alumna interview
Welcome back to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, and Literary Hub. 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.
The Legacy of Malaga Island and the Limits of Maine’s Progressivism
by Surya Milner (art by Sirin Thada)
Originally home to Darling’s mixed-race descendants, the island soon blossomed into a multiracial fishing community. Intermarriage was illegal, but the white mainlanders of nearby Phippsburg pretended not to notice—at least in the beginning. For those whose connections to the place run deep, the story of Darling’s granddaughters and their families is a tale of a quiet island community, “dyed in the wool,” that subsisted on what the Atlantic could offer and committed to teaching their children how to read, write, and eke out a life from the sea.
Fever in the Woods
by Hillery Stone
Our shelter was a house in the woods with no hospital nearby, no grocery delivery or reliable ambulance. But I equated the unbreathed air and miles of emptiness with a certain nonhuman security. In the absence of germs and infectious disease I chose loneliness, a too-quiet hunter’s cabin through the trees, a wasp infestation and near-wild land governed by coyotes and bears. The woods are where my mother escaped to with me; where I feel safest, and most afraid.
Exploring the Gulf Between History and National Myth in Israel
by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner
My parents, like so many other Holocaust survivors who came to Palestine/Israel after WWII, were hardly willing colonialists. But living as part of the colonial project, they were normalized into its ranks, and later also accepted its rationale and methods. When faced with such massive injustice, one either rises in opposition or, willingly or otherwise, joins in.
Writers’ Resources
Read this great interview with Memoir Monday alum Amy Long about her essay collection, Codependence, at The Rumpus!
Register now for the next Memoir Monday reading! September 21, featuring Athena Dixon, Sarah Kasbeer, Angela Chen, and Melissa Faliveno.
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