Last Write
Last Of The Bougainvillea Years
Zeina Hashem Beck | New Lines | 7th July 2022
Thoughts on displacement from a poet who has moved from Tripoli to Beirut to Dubai and beyond. Like her beloved plants, her life in each city feels "beautiful and out of place". The temptation to reach for familiar things in unfamiliar territory is best resisted — "I’m learning there’s imprisonment in trying to recreate the past" — but it is possible to feel anchored by the novelty of a fresh start (6,374 words)
Why Write?
Elisa Gabbert | Paris Review | 6th July 2022
Musings on a subject that receives much indifferent treatment: why writers write. This author navigates the clichés with aplomb before articulating her own purpose. "I think I write to think — not to find out what I think; surely I know what I already think — but to do better thinking. Staring at my screen makes me better at thinking. Even thinking about writing makes me better at thinking" (3,471 words)
'To do better thinking', of course. Read five outstanding pieces of writing a day, and think the thinkiest thoughts that can be thunk. Thanks.