I am my own person. I say. Rather shook. Rather frail. The mirror stares at me, bemused, in its shock-still belief. Of course. Whose else would you be, and ever hidden behind that faux reassurance, the rider, who else would want you? I am my own person. Came as revelation…

In the long and winding history of literature, there’s no shortage of notable characters — authors who captivate our imagination not just through their words, but through their very lives. — One such figure is 20th-century poet and actress, Michael Strange. Nee Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs, Michael was a rebellious socialite and suffragette icon. She adopted the male pen-name Michael Strange to distance her social life from her poetry (particularly due to its oft-erotic nature). Though as soon as she adopted…

One of the hot conversations de jour seems to be the increasing role artificial intelligence is slated to play in the world of art, literature, and everything in that sphere. From cutesy Instagram AI-powered challenges to authors creating a whole new ‘portfolio’ for themselves with the use of artificial intelligence…

Coriolanus Snow: We all do things we’re not proud of to survive. The new ‘Hunger Games movie’, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes strikes me as mandatory viewing for our modern times. Director Francis Lawrence refuses to shy away from the gore or to mask the grittier aspects of this…

When you look-see self naked in the mirror or chin-down, what’s the first part you notice? When I look at mine, the first part sticks out is the knees, like two bald old men huddled together on park bench. Same time bench, every day bench. My knees are loyal to…

I’ve often heard people speak of the great catharsis inscribed in writing. Been encouraged to put my thoughts into words. My emotions into words. My very sense of self into fragile, thesaurus-bound words that mean something else. My therapist wants me to write. A new dance instructor asked me to…

I tend to populate my social media with a bunch of different pages that I feel have the potential to help me grow, and educate me. Across our culture, there are several movements (spanning everything from dieting to one’s entire approach to life) that profess simpler times as the supreme…

Not for the first time, I am struck by the almost maleficent attraction people seem to have towards extremist divisiveness. While it’s well within human nature to pick sides (it’s why football is so successful), more and more of our media outlets have taken on a toxic…

One of the cinematic highlights of 2023, for me, was Ira Sachs’ wonderfully nuanced Passages. Starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, and Adele Exarchopoulos, the movie follows Tomas, an egocentric director whose marriage to Martin unravels, after he begins a passionate affair with Agathe, a younger woman. Note: this article contains…