Life has been busy, in both good and challenging ways. While I was gone, I was reading reading reading, writing writing writing, tabling and taking panel notes at AWP, hopping around the gall…

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To be honest, I’ve entered a new stage of life, and I’ve been really trying to soak it in and be present despite the fucking terrifying amount of vulnerability involved. I’ve had a few hiccups and sleepless nights along the way, but there’s also been so many adventures, discoveries, and revelations too.

It’ll be a little more than a reading list this time because I want to take the opportunity to be grateful for the small and silly joys in life too. (Don’t worry, it’s still mostly bookish.)

There are things that have come into my life this season that I can’t believe I’ve lived this long without. And there are things that have stayed with me or returned, inviting me to enjoy them in new ways.

Samuel Delany, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Y’all, I might have found my new favorite writer.

Samuel “Chip” Delany, who hates being called Sam, has a long list of accomplishments in both science fiction and nonfiction. Truly, as far as writers go, he’s made for me, and yet I’ve only encountered his work this year.

It all started with an essay called “About 5,750 Words,” which I wish I read much earlier in life. I’m now hellbent on reading Delany’s entire body of work. But for now, let me ramble on about two books of his that I read this fall.

TIMES SQUARE RED, TIMES SQUARE BLUE by SAMUEL R. DELANY

Okay, look, there’s a lot of dick in this one–at least in the first half. And maybe that’s not your thing, like why do you need to know about someone’s meaty foreskin, right?

Trust me, it’s worth the meaty foreskin.

This is such a masterful work, and I truly believe it should be a pre-requisite for anyone living in New York City or any city facing similar issues and changes. I have never read a more specific and nuanced perspective of this city, and of social exchange, in my life.

The book is listed under sexual cultures, and it should be, but it also is an examination of the larger infrastructure at work in our everyday interactions and our contact with others.

The first half is a chronicle of Delany’s interactions within the old Times Square, mostly within its adult theaters. Though this part is quite . . . sexually involved, I guess . . . the payoff is incredible. Throughout all of these interactions, Delany has such a measured and composed emotional frequency that when you do access an emotionally elevated Delany in the text, it makes a difference. But even then, he is never judgmental–never puts himself above anyone else on the page.

The second half delves into the development of the new Times Square, and Delany does a good job of explaining the political and socio-economic mechanisms behind the development, its true motives, and the inevitable consequences.

He makes a case for contact, especially interclass contact, and provides so many examples that, as a reader, will immediately clarify your own everyday experiences for you. And if they don’t, they will make you question how you view your everyday experiences, your contact with other people, and your ideas about safety and community. This second half holds so many timeless truths that are (unfortunately) relevant across generations and borders.

The first part is a visceral, experiential mosaic while the second part is a more reflective, critical text that puts everything into perfect clarity. Together, they make a fully alive book.

THE MOTION OF LIGHT IN WATER: SEX AND SCIENCE FICTION WRITING IN THE EAST VILLAGE by SAMUEL R. DELANY

This is the book that answered the question: Samuel Delany, where have you been all my life? RIGHT HERE! He’s been right here the whole damn time! He even writes about visiting his cousin on Fish Avenue in the Bronx, where I spent over ten years of my life.

In this book, I got to meet Delany in so many ways. Here are a few:

• Delany facing and misremembering his father’s death

• Delany at school; Delany at camp

• The Delany who invents Chip

• Delany at Bronx Science

• Delany as Marilyn Hacker’s childhood friend

• Delany as the father of Marilyn’s child

• Delany in an interracial marriage with Marilyn Hacker

• Delany cruising

• Delany as a writer; Delany as a science fiction writer; Delany as a respected writer; Delany as a respected writer married to a poet who he thinks should get equal attention and praise

• Delany as a queer man; Delany as a queer man in a straight marriage; Delany as a queer man in love with big hands (me too, bro)

You get the point. Is this work for everyone? Maybe not. But it was certainly for me. And I think I’ll be spending many afternoons with Chip for the rest of my life.

*

The Albanian Book

Every time a new Albanian author enters the literary scene (or at least becomes known to me), I need to investigate. And this time, I was completely blown away.

MISINTERPRETATION by LEDIA XHOGA

This book deserves the praise it gets. I absolutely flew through it. I was reading two other books at the time, but this one pulled me away. I did not want to read anything else until I finished.

As a mostly nonfiction reader, this book made me want to strive for reading more fiction, but it also made me wonder if I shouldn’t finally give fiction an honest try as a writer too.

The culturally specific dynamics and contexts that are at the roots of MISINTERPRETATION are activated by each character who enters the scene, the changing character dynamics and relationships, and the main character’s interiority. And it’s all done in such a balanced way, in a way that allows for the feeling of suspense to rise in the middle of the book.

There is just so much energy in this book, from the prose to the characters themselves. I am proud, jealous in the best way, and inspired. And I have only one thing to say to Ledia: MORE.

*

A Literary Surprise

This is a book I didn’t pick up because I thought it was just a book about weight, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a book about weight. What I got when I actually read it was so much more than my preconceptions.

HEAVY by Kiese Laymon

This is a book that is, yes about weight, but about weight in so many different ways. It’s about the weight of what is left unsaid, the weight we carry because of what we cannot share, the weight we carry from parental relationships.

The way Kiese Laymon uses the direct address is masterful from start to finish. It actually becomes almost invisible when we get pulled into scenes from his life. We get fully immersed, and then get reminded that we’re talking to mom the whole time when she reappears–or rather when the narrator is ready to remind us that we’re still talking to her.

That direct address is all the more special when we think about the complex relationship the narrator has with his mother, how it transforms over time, and how that complex relationship impacts even the narrator’s journey towards language and writing.

From “Been” to “Bend,” I was discovering and encountering, falling in love with, sympathizing with, rooting for this narrator in new ways. And it’s definitely worth a re-read.

*

My Favorite Feline

Also this fall, I adopted a nine-year-old cat! She is the most unexpected source of love, and I’m so happy to have her. Having a cat teaches you a lot about routines, boundaries, and care.

I mostly call her Ketuç these days, and she’s growing to be a most wonderful companion. She enjoys curling up next to me when I’m reading, watching retro PBS programming, kneading my thighs, and chasing ribbons or lasers.

Recently, she’s started to people-watch from the window, and it’s made me incredibly happy.

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Record Hits

Finding a permanent spot for a record player has proven a bit challenging, but now that it’s settled, we’ve been unwrapping our newest acquisitions.

Yesterday, I really enjoyed SUPERB by Surprise Chef. The record was a gift, and I don’t listen to much “Australian cinematic soul,” so it was definitely a pleasant surprise. (I think Ketuç liked it too.)

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A Politics for the People

At this point, I’ve voted in a few elections. But this vote is in the “new favorites” section because the 2025 mayoral election has been the first time I’ve voted for someone that truly makes me feel hopeful for a new day, for a New York for all New Yorkers.

We have two days left to make Zohran Kwame Mamdani the next mayor of New York City, to turn a new page towards a politics for the people. If you can, please join canvassing efforts here, and let’s make November 4th, 2025 a truly new day.

Return of the Runway

Project Runway came back this year, and so did Heidi Klum. But more importantly, Law Roach is a fucking judge, and I mean, who better?

This season was a bit too short for all of its wild personalities, and I wanted more. But the changing, clever subtitles under contestant names in the confessional scenes had me dying every time. Whoever had the brilliant idea to use that space as a sort of meta-commentary is a genius, and I hope they’re on for next season because they are an invaluable member of that team.

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Getting Offline

It’s been over half a year now that I’ve been off social media.

I used to deactivate Instagram regularly to give myself a break, but this is the longest I’ve been consistently offline. And I even deleted my TikTok! (I know, I gasped too.)

In that time, the online activities I’ve really enjoyed have recalled the ways I would have interacted with the internet when I was growing up: reading newsletters, watching YouTube videos, collecting references.

And I have to say, it really feels like I have my time back.

*

Playlist Standards

There are a few songs that have come back into my life in the past few months. All for different reasons, and all with very different sounds.

• Peace Song by Fat Dog (And I’m in love with the world/ So take it easy on me!)

• A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke (Honestly, this man’s voice? I am floored and crying every single time.)

• Have a Cigar by Pink Floyd (Arguably my favorite song of theirs.)

• Ambulance by Blur (I know I’m not all there/ But I’m gettin’, gettin’, gettin’ there/ If you let me live my life/ I’ll stay with you to the end/ And I know, Lord/ I’m nearly there.)

• H.O.O.D. by KNEECAP (Because even though the Irish language has humbled me greatly, I still thoroughly enjoy hearing it.)

Sometimes, I can get in a rut if I’m not finding new music, but blasting an old favorite can be a good way to remind me of my first love.

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Checking Out

One of my goals at the beginning of 2025 was to use the library more often. This is partly because I already own too many books that I haven’t gotten around to reading, partly because my shelves literally can’t take on any more, and whole-heartedly because I love and believe in libraries.

My first unpaid job was at the Belmont Library in the Bronx, which I have started revisiting and writing in whenever I can. When I was a kid, I spent many after-school hours at the library on my own looking for my next read or hanging out with friends.

As I got older, I became interested in building my personal library, and that meant buying more than borrowing. But when I was a teen, browsing that library was an experience of finding something to fall in love with on the shelf each time.

Today, I have three library cards, and my work table holds three piles of borrowed books. I honestly get a thrill out of finding something by the call number–in September, I found fourteen books within half an hour and felt like a fucking champ.

Speaking of those piles, it might be time for me to get back to my reading.

*

Pafshim,
Z

It’s been a while, and I’m returning to you on the 25th anniv…

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Part of my motivation for the project was wanting to add some greenery to an old concrete and stone yard. The other major factor was that I was get…

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But before my infatuation with nonfiction, there was my love affair with the library and weekend trips to Barnes & Noble (yeah, the one in Bay Plaza, RIP to a great one) with my mom and my sister. Soon after arriving in America, I began sneaking books about magic into my childhood bedroom. My father would sometimes find me awake and reading in the middle of the night. His head would appear in my doorway, warning me that I’d go blind reading in the dark if I kept at it.

When the first very beige and very fat home computer made its way into that same bedroom, I started a fresh document for my newest adventure: a fantasy novel. I spent weeks thinking about how to build the world within that book, and of course, that document is long lost to me now, but I remember having fun.

I’m not saying fiction is always more fun than nonfiction, but the nonfiction I pick out for myself tends to be pretty tragic if I’m being honest. Maybe not tragic–maybe serious is a better word. Maybe I don’t have the right word, but I felt it—really felt it—on an afternoon of reading with my partner.

We sat in our living room with our respective literary companions and set a timer for our daily reading hours. Eventually, the sound of my pencil scratching away at the margins grew louder and louder. I was furiously studying a memoir that I couldn’t wait to be done with.

I stopped and looked over at my partner, and I saw the opposite of what I was feeling: the pure joy of reading. The sight forced me into stillness for a bit.

I realized I had turned something I loved into something really exhausting. Of course, reading is work, and it should be work. But I had been all work and no play for years! In my pursuit of studying and gathering formulas for successful storytelling and well-articulated truths, I had sucked all the feeling out of reading.

How did I get here? And more importantly, how could I get back to enjoying my books? Maybe it was about diversifying my reading list. Maybe it was about picking up fiction once in a while. Or maybe I was just reading the wrong memoir–that’s a fair possibility too. (* I was in fact reading the wrong memoir.)

Anyway, here are a few fiction favorites to fall in love with, and–because I’m me–I’ve included an essay for dessert.

Cosmogony by Lucy Ives

Let me introduce you to the book that helped me realize I do in fact have a sense of humor. It sounds ridiculous, but I really do struggle with my sense of humor, and most people just don’t make me laugh. Lucy Ives though? She makes me laugh.

I honestly don’t know if I could ever give Lucy’s writing its due. She’s one of those writers that produces books like magic–like how does she do it?

Cosmogony, when I read it, was the first work of fiction I’d read in years. And boy, was it a good choice. In it, Ives explores the supernatural in such everyday situations. Reading this work is reading the familiar in an unfamiliar way—from a different angle. For me, it creates this hilarious, funny, and absurd in-between space.

My favorite of the Cosmogony stories is probably the one about the affair—a particular couple’s dalliance into infidelity told in such a universal voice. There are places in this book where you’ll just laugh because you’ll recognize yourself in it, you’ll recognize humanity in it. You’ll chuckle and sigh and think, This is just what people do, huh?

Drown by Junot Diaz

An oldie but a goodie. Listen, personal shortcomings of the author aside, this book changed my fucking life. And I will swear, to this day, that it’s his best work.

This collection really did change my life because it was the first book I read that mirrored my experience as an immigrant living in abject poverty. I read this book and literally thought, Wait . . . I can write about what really happened? After years of English literature classes taught by mostly old white ladies in Catholic schools, I was reading a book about a world and a life that felt so recognizable to me. It was closer to home than any other story I’d read so far.

This book was also my first experience of cross-cultural recognition and connection in art. This story which was centered on the life of Dominican characters, mostly in New Jersey, felt just like the world I was navigating as a kid in the Bronx. These characters were my neighbors, the sounds were sounds I woke up to, and the language was familiar.

And that’s one thing this book opened me up to too: the usage of foreign language in an American book with no explanation or translation. It was just there: Spanish and English in the same sentence–you figure it out. It felt bold to me, in the best ways. And I never added a footnote of translation to my own work again!

So yes, scandals aside, Junot’s writing contributed to my life as a reader and a writer in ways I’ll forever be grateful for.

(* Apparently I’ve misplaced my copy of this book! I’m mourning my original, teenage margin notes as you read this.)

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Disgusting, delirious doom! Fucking delicious. When I picked up this book, I was working a marketing job I absolutely hated, and the only thing I looked forward to was being able to read on my commute. I had never read Moshfegh before, but this book was recommended to me as a beach read but only “if you like your beach reads dark and depressing.” So of course, I said yes to it.

I have to be honest and say this won’t be everyone’s taste—it gets very visceral and very gross. And largely, our main character is a privileged woman wasting her inheritance away after dealing with family grief . . . or really while avoiding grief and most other emotions. Her goal? To sleep the year away.

She’s not exactly a likable narrator, but we don’t need her to be because the writing alone is worth savoring this book. That being said, if I’m really keeping it real, I haven’t read Moshfegh since. I’ve tried, but I haven’t been able to commit to another one of her books. It might be that she’s the kind of writer you have to really be in the mood for.

Either way, this book sucked me in. Maybe it was one of those train crash that you can’t look away from situations, I don’t know. All I know is: My Year of Rest and Relaxation was impeccably written, and it is worth the read for that alone. By the time I read that last page and closed the book for good, it was like my heart fell out of me, and I slumped down to the floor.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Okay, okay, hold on. Bear with me. The first Dune film basically reads like a long trailer, and that’s because it fails to communicate the function of prescience in the narrative. And while the second film is marginally better, the most recent film adaptations of Dune are a failure in my eyes. The soundtrack of these films alone is enough to provoke my endless rage about how lazy and borderline Islamophobic this adaptation is (I’m a Hans Zimmer hater for life, fight me).

At the end of the day, what I need people to know is that those films do not grasp the deeper spirit of Frank Herbert’s work—which is largely anti-savior, by the way. There’s the 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, but that version leaves much to be desired in its own ways, and Lynch himself didn’t like it. But we’re not here to talk about that.

We’re here to talk about Dune. The real Dune, encountered as Frank Herbert intended.

The first book in the series is really the only one I’m adamant you read. If you like sci-fi and fantasy, you’ll recognize so much of the groundwork that inspired your favorites in this book. I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan myself, but if you are, you’ll read this book and the math will be mathing. Dune really is a quintessential work of science fiction, and—for me—the influence of Islamic culture and spirituality on the text makes it feel like more than sci-fi. This book offers as much in spiritual and philosophical musings as it does in world-building.

If you don’t like sci-fi . . . Well, fear is the mind-killer, and I urge you to take the risk on this one.

Phong Nha, the Making of an American Smile by Tammy Nguyen

Time for dessert! And this one is perfectly portioned.

This pamphlet-style book, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, is an essay that tells a parallel Vietnamese-American story. The text is full of relatable family members, real estate adventures abroad pretending to be rich investors, and a very visceral journey through the caves of Phong Nha.

On one hand, we have a narrator striving for a perfect smile—a signifier of wealth, health, and education—no matter what the pain or financial burden is. On the other hand, we have that same narrator exploring the cave formations of Phong Nha and the manmade utopian-like development of Forest City. Reading this work, I am thinking about artifice, about striving for perfection, about our society’s increasing ambition for utopia and what those attempts actually spawn.

And then . . . It gets a little lyrical, a little like we enter a parable but we enter it upside down or something. I’m into it! And I’m thinking Nguyen’s O (also published by UDP) is a nice follow-up to this adventure.

That’s all for this round folks! Whenever you can, support independent presses and bookstores by buying your books directly from them. And support your local library by becoming a regular (and courteous) patron!

This week, I am celebrating a huge milestone while navigating some interesting transitions. Holding space for celebration and transformation at the same time is something I am learning to do better.

I am wishing you solitude if you need it, community always, and happy reading forever!

Until next time,

*Z*

P.S. If you stopped watching The Handmaid’s Tale years ago, I might recommend you forget this new season and just stick to the books. Yikes. Okay, bye!

Well, this fruit…

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An…

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I’m not sure if the system I landed on works yet, and I’m unhappy with a few of my shelves, but I did find so much that I love and so much that I seem to insist on keeping. So here I am, writing an introductory reading list for you.

In 2025, I’m hoping to tackle the growing list of books that I’d like to read or revisit, so we’ll go on that journey soon. But for now, here’s a first five. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot of nonfiction, with one little fiction surprise.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

If we’ve ever spent more than fifteen minutes together, you’ve heard me talk about how much I love this book from Graywolf Press. Machado’s first memoir is an investigation of memory itself, and it’s an examination of the queer archive—at the personal level and at the level of the collective archive. The representation of the queer villain is interrogated along with the possibility of abuse in lesbian relationships, but the visceral quality of the narrator’s intimate experience is never sacrificed.

One of my favorite things about this work is Machado’s innovative use of the referential. She uses the footnotes in this book in a genius way: enacting them to establish a conversation within the text, often offering commentary that our narrator can’t exactly share in the main narrative. In one scene, the narrator is in the backseat of a car while her aunt preaches a disbelief in gay people, and the narrator’s mother is silent; the footnote attached to her mother’s silence is one that pulls from a folk myth about a mother setting her own children on fire.

If you haven’t read this one yet, pick it up, dive in, and never look back. And if you’re ever planning on writing a memoir, this is an absolutely masterful work to study before your endeavor.

A Handbook of Disappointed Fate by Anne Boyer

This is one of my absolute favorite titles published by Ugly Duckling Presse, and there is not a single page of this book that had been spared from my highlighter’s touch or from eager margin notes. Boyer is a master of wit and acute observation, and this book pulled me into an even deeper love of the essay form.

Boyer is able to weave generous juxtapositions together and even write parallel essays. For example, “How to Go From Poetry to Art” and “How to Go From Art to Poetry” are printed alongside one another, encouraging readers to read the essays together, allowing us to examine the relationship between poetry and art as forms. The author truly invites us to read differently and write differently and maybe even to live differently. I could spend my favorite afternoons with this book for the rest of my life.

Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art by Erica N. Cardwell

This title came to me as a gift while I was working for the Feminist Press, and what a gift it was. I will say, though, that I would have 100% bought this book myself if I had encountered it in the stores. This is an impeccable notational work that moves through personal archives and cultural archives and art criticism.

We are with the narrator when she thinks about Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series, and when she faces Kara Walker in the museum, and when she flips through her mother’s diary. Cardwell invites us into a process of grief and inheritance on a personal level and on a historical level. Intimate family histories entwine with larger community histories in images, objects, and senses.

A Tree Grows in Queens by Magali Duzant

This small collection of essays and images walks readers through New York City, encountering the stories of the trees that we may not be paying attention to but that are an integral part of our daily life and history. Each tree is used to tell a story—sometimes about the history of colonization, sometimes about patterns of migration, and sometimes about what our elders leave behind.

Informative yet intimate, this book leaves me encouraged to interact with the living things that grace city streets more often—to pay attention to the small things whenever I encounter them. Plus, this book was made by Conveyor Editions, so it’s a beauty to behold, and the images sequenced in this work tell their own story.

The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy

My first encounter with this book was during a final pass at proofreading while the book was moving through the publishing process at Feminist Press. My first fiction read in a very long time, this book took me by surprise and had me wishing I could have read it when I was a teenager.

A trans witch joins a coven undercover, not knowing whether she will be accepted or allowed to practice if her trans identity is uncovered, but even bigger secrets come to light during her journey through forests, friendships, and covens.

UNTIL NEXT TIME! We encourage you to explore these works by borrowing them from your local library, buying them from an independent bookstore, or buying directly from the publisher or press.

I wanted to channel the energy in this childhood picture–to be excited for and to create a life this child always wanted, imagined, and deserved.

Plot twist: I started the year off sick.

…

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Months later, I found myself promising to shape that essay into a book. I thought, many times: how am I even qualified for this? I had one of those moments of questioning myself that made me want to disappear. But working with this particular artist was unique; the conversations that can be hard to have with anyone…

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The sun seeped through the window and into th…

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This weekend, I led a workshop for Petrit Halilaj’s Abetare (Noisy Classroom) exhibition. Maybe you know Petrit’s work from the Met’s ro…

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