“I grew up in communes in Allston in the ’70s. There used to be this great big penny poker game at the Spanish House commune; it was in the former Spanish consulate on Commonwealth Avenue.”
FICTION EXCERPT: ‘THE AUTOGRAPH OF STEVE INDUSTRY’
My grandmother is high, reading science fiction in the kitchen while a choir of drunk relatives do Johnny Most Christmas carols.
PICK YOUR BLEMISHES: AN INTERVIEW WITH OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
In a sea of perplexing novels and short stories that seek to highlight the good in bad characters, Ottessa Moshfegh‘s work rises above it all with murky water dripping from its edges, forgoing the good altogether to reveal the worst in everyone. The Los Angeles-via-Boston writer prides herself on writing with a sense of unstable […]
‘POP’ GOES THE GENRE
A conversation with Berklee English prof Mark Polanzak about his new sorta memoir As journalists at DigBoston, it’s hard for us to worship genre-benders who take liberties in weaving fiction into nonfiction and memoir. But while phonies like Ben Mezrich patch together micro lies with fantasy and package slop as real talk, Berklee College […]
EXCERPT: ‘POP!’ BY MARK POLANZAK
But I wrote this funny story about my dad’s death. It goes on for many more pages, being funny and super distanced from the grief.
INDEPENDENT FILM FESIVAL BOSTON REPORT: ON FOUR FICTION FILMS
A spotlight on fiction films of the IFFB
MASS FICTION: THE ASTEROID THEORY
In different ways, I lost my two best friends, but I gained something too. On that rainy, fall night, I glimpsed the way life could be, when everything breaks just right.
NEW FICTION: NEXT YEAR’S SHOW
The opening band sounds like Dick Dale on downers. Dual vocalists split the front of the stage. The hipster, stage-left, plays rhythm, mic on distortion.
NEW FICTION: EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN
Her commitment had been total until, during one of four weekly after-class sessions, she lost concentration when her coach’s interest diverted visibly to a younger girl stretching on a nearby mat.
SUMMER FICTION: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
That night I decided my hunch had been right all summer that nothing else in my life had ever mattered. I was encapsulated in darkness.
