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Strange Fruit, 2020
content warning: lynching, police brutality A man was lynched today And like Strange Fruit He swung in the breeze But in the distance A low baritone voice, Strains I can’t
Fast
Maple, skin, girl I hope your insides Tastes as sweet as the syrup I imagine. You were a symbol of lust, not love, Since the day you came into form.
On “Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl”: A Conversation with Jeannie Vanasco
Content warning: mentions of sexual assault I first met Jeannie Vanasco in the fall of 2016, about a year before the #MeToo movement surfaced on social media with the allegations
From the Archives: “Endlessly”
“Endlessly” originally appeared in the 2019 contest issue of So to Speak. Content warning: mentions of abuse. Endlessly He isn’t going to answer, but I knock and swallow the
Leaving My Abuser: My Adoptive Father
The police are not coming. My birth mother severely punished, Holt Korea protects my birth father still and shames me, “Your birth mother never called to ask about you.” The
Conversation & Creation: Four Fiction Authors on their COVID-Era Writing Process
On a Sunday afternoon in September, I find myself with a precious thing: several hours of uninterrupted time to write. I sit down, Word document open in front of me,
The Independent Bookstore as a Community: A Conversation with Old Town Books’ Jen Cheng
image via @oldtownbooks on Instagram Even before the global pandemic—a phrase that still sounds almost unreal to utter—supporting independent bookstores was paramount to the literary and small-business community. It’s not just that, if
Announcing our 2020 Virtual Reading!
So to Speak is thrilled to announce that on Friday, November 6, 2020, at 7:30 PM EST, we’ll be holding a virtual reading with some of our amazing 2020 contributors
A Child of Various Tongues
My Mum is driving. Her skinny body sinks into the leather seats as she takes control of the vehicle. When we turn onto the half-murrum, half-tarmacked road, our tummies rumble.
They, Them, and Us: Language and A Demand for Change
I am 4 years old. Learning to read, in tears because the words don’t follow the rules. My mom patiently helps me pronounce the word enough, and I don’t
Authenticating Detail and Disability Narratives
Why does disability matter in a craft essay? Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’ve already been told narratives about disability. Allow me to share a disability narrative of
Who Owns A Story?
“Write what you know.” Fiction writers have heard it a thousand times with a thousand different meanings attached. It’s a phrase that, when taken at face value, means to write