Lunar Departures: Ava Sharahy Interviews Emmalea Russo
An arts collective sets out to launch a second moon, dubbed “Moon2”, into the Earth’s atmosphere, an act in which even the group itself is unsure of the full consequences. What follows is The Moon Papers (Arcade Publishing, 2026), a masterclass in genre hybridity, balancing sci-fi sensibility with a literary lyricism. Following its cast of characters – from a bat expert, to the daughter of an art dynasty carrying on an Internet affair with a member of the collective, to the daughter’s gallery owner conspiracy theorist husband – The Moon Papers examines the art world, escapism, and the intersection of
Channeling by Tyler Dempsey
Samuel Peters Brown—a stereotypically thin dude with disheveled hair and that beard-with-no-mustache combination of the late-1800’s—was a descendant of the Mayflower and what you might call “uber successful.” But it wasn’t his severe look that got him places. It was a history in ship-building and time in the House of Representatives for the state of Maine that led to his appointment from President Lincoln as Navy Agent in Washington D.C. And it was through Mr. Brown, millions of dollars’ worth of ships, guns, and naval war materials were purchased during the Civil War. He founded a town in his lifetime.
Ted McLoof Recommends: Nicholas Montemarano’s “If the Sky Falls” and Anna Dickson James’ “Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch me Fall Down”
Nicholas Montemarano, If the Sky Falls (Yellow Shoe Fiction, 2005) I was 24 years old when I first encountered Nicholas Montemarano. He was reading for a class I was TAing for, so I dutifully picked up his then-latest book, If the Sky Falls, a collection of short stories. You have to understand that this kind of thing happens a lot: reading the books of visiting writers is part and parcel of academia, and unfortunately the books are often at best easy to get through and at worst a chore. I was as a result not only pleasantly surprised but gobsmacked
Reply by Sam Lamplugh
I haven’t talked to my father for thirty years, and this news doesn’t change anything (it’s impossible to talk through three decades of life; the silence is too full – (though I should preface this by noting he has tried to talk to me during this time (very recently, in fact, for obvious reasons (via the usual channels on social media et cetera (which channels, incidentally, were a big part of why I broke off contact in the first place (in that they facilitated his transgression (though there was more to it than that, of course (the ‘more than that’
Cheese Drawer by Kate Catinella
There’s about seven inches of grated parmesan piled onto a side plate. The waiter said Say when, and the guy never said when. Just watched the waiter shave more and more of the block until finally they say, “Sorry sir, that’s the rind.” And the guy says, “That’s good then, yeah.” “So I guess you like parm,” I say. He says, “It’s okay.” I want to push, but he starts telling me how he took his niece to her first baseball game. About getting ice cream in a plastic hat. Tomorrow he will do some weedwacking. Will weedwack his neighbor’s
Kelly Krumrie Recommends: for ‘Concentric Macroscope’
The theme for this list is CONCENTRIC MACROSCOPE, which is the title of my latest book. Concentric Macroscope (Crop Circle Press, 2026) contains several themes itself, and running ideas. It also contains everything I read, watched, heard, and experienced from 2021 to 2023 when I was writing it, and likely also everything before that. Perhaps even after? Such is a macroscopic vision. Macroscopic means not microscopic. That is, you can see it. It is large scale, the stuff of the naked eye—or one big eye, or all of our eyes. I was thinking about concentric circles as one big eye,