Category: writing
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“Being There: Education in an Emergency” in Lunch Ticket
It’s been a long time since I’ve written about my experiences in education, and the emotional weight of trying to access the feelings of this year kept me from making the effort. But for the Lunch Ticket blog, I wrote about what the pandemic has been like for teachers and students in Texas. It was…
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“The Lone Star” in No Contact Mag
For Issue 13 of No Contact Mag, I wrote about the Texan fear—and my sustained hope—of “turning into” California and how Westerns prove there’s less space between the two than Texas and John Wayne might like. I’m thrilled to be in this magazine, which you can read here. “The Lone Star” was previously shortlisted for…
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“Re-mystifying Language” in The Adroit Journal
One of my favorite memoirs published this year, E.J. Koh’s The Magical Language of Others, has stuck with me since I read it in May. I reviewed it for The Adroit Journal, which you can now read here. I highly recommend this memoir of family, language, and loss.
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“Suburban Wars” in The Athenaeum Review
In my latest for the The Athenaeum Review, I looked at two titles in Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series, short books on single albums. I had some fun collapsing the intellectual distance between Nine Inch Nails and Arcade Fire in writing about their albums, Pretty Hate Machine and The Suburbs, respectively. Daphne Carr’s book on Pretty Hate Machine lands in my…
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“No True West” on Bridge Eight
My essay, “No True West,” about the Man with No Name trilogy, has been published in Bridge Eight‘s Film and TV Conversations on their website. You can read it here.
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Look for the Pigeons, Make Way for the Lilies
Almost as soon as we caught wind that we would be staying in our homes for the foreseeable future, we started wondering what masterpieces might become possible. The story quickly spread around the Internet that, while quarantined, Shakespeare wrote King Lear. Newton was working out the early seeds of calculus, which, thanks, I guess? The…
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Rejection Letters: A Personal History
Wherever this finds you, I hope that you are well and taking care during this difficult time. This week, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what it means to be a teacher when there is no classroom, as well as how we each find ways as humans to take care of ourselves…
Ben Lewellyn-Taylor 