It is likely that, if you’re here, you have turned to stories and poetry for comfort during dark times (or any times). Mental Health Day is around the corner and, while you may already have your go-to validation lit, I’m going to go ahead and share some of my literary chicken broth. I will confess that every fiber of my will power was involved in keeping me from sticking exclusively to Maya Angelou quotes, because that woman’s wisdom could bring me back from the dead on my worst days. So, in addition to two of my favorite tía Maya quotes, …
There’s something alchemical about cooking—a kind of alchemy that can be quite reminiscent of how seasons change one into the next with patience and wisdom. In this season of witchcraft, magic, and mystery, I hope you’ll join me in making some cauldrons bubble.
Let’s not forget that book banning is, fundamentally, conversation banning. A book gets banned when someone with power deems it dangerous, and it is only deemed dangerous when the thoughts dripping through the pages threaten a comfortable yet questionable, well-enough-rooted institution. So, one of the most sensible ways of honoring forbidden literature is to continue the tradition of feeding uncomfortable yet necessary conversations, and partaking in them. So, in celebration of Banned Books Week, I hereby give you a drop’s worth of some of the current thought leaders around the world—authors, activists, visionaries, and public officials— whose discourse is worth …
I eat censorship analysis for breakfast and serve it with a pink, buttercream trimming. That’s why I am writing this article. Happy Banned Books Week.
I grew up on Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar, and as is the case with anyone with minimal sensitivity for masterful language and smart poetic prose, I fell in love with their work. It wasn’t a healthy kind of love, though; it was the kind of love in which I pretended not to see all the red flags and continuously reminded myself how perfect the object of my affections was, in hopes that my affirmations would make the soul-crushing bits disappear. Since this is literally the first thing I would call out in any relationship between humans (fictional or …
