among the stars*
Welcome to the Sunday post.
The Spring 2024 issue of Pleiades is out.
The issue contains a featured Special Folio titled “On Disability” with a wide range of texts that document disability from wonderfully disparate angles. The issue also contains a tribute to Maureen Seaton. I loved the care in each of the works that were part of the tribute—again, another wide range of texts, this one documenting friendships, literary movements, and legacy. Fatima Haidari, with David Keplinger, also have a folio, “In the Tavern of the Heart: On Translating the Rumi of Islam.”
I have a creative nonfiction piece titled “Fingers/Meet Dirt” in this issue. I’m thrilled to have my work in the same issue as Niki Herd, Elizabeth Hall (whose book I HAVE DEVOTED MY LIFE TO THE CLITORIS I joyfully blurbed!), and all the fine writers in Pleiades.
“Fingers/Meet Dirt” is an amalgamation of pieces that had been lying in what was a set-aside hybrid manuscript I call “42” (the age I was reflecting on). These pieces wouldn’t let go, nor would I. The title is a refrain I held for months after my father died in 2014. The combination of fragments was waiting for an entrance, metaphorical and otherwise, and years later, I found the “ending” that felt most “right.” I’m grateful for badass writer and Pleiades cnf editor Caroline Crew for encouraging this work forward and offering entry.
A lot of the fragments I can barely reread because the vapor of grief shrouds me in seconds. If you know this kind of grief, you might appreciate reading it. If not, I still hope you get yourself a copy and enjoy the dozens of writers’ work inside.
