Personal Essays
Sarah Crowder’s lists; things that can make me forget the world is ending, for a brief moment
I’m not advocating for laziness or complacency or apathy in a time where there are people that need your help and rights to fight for and action to be taken, but sometimes you need to do something that for a second or an hour makes you forget that the world as...
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Sarah Crowder’s lists; advice and true facts about storms
A version of this piece originally appeared in our Amtrak (adventures through the South) zine, and was inspired by the countless summer storms that sought us out from Birmingham, Alabama all the way to Terlingua in Texas. “The calm before the storm” is a...
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A Critical Overview of the Evolution of Dolly Parton’s Tits
A Critical Overview of the Evolution of Dolly Parton’s Tits from 1965-2015 and their Direct Relation to America’s Standing as a Dominant Global Superpower. by Chris Harward In this brief essay I will discuss the various ways in which Dolly Parton’s...
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Sarah Crowder’s lists; all the men I ever loved who were killed by cars
This is a list of men I’ve loved that have been killed by cars. I’m no Maggie O’Connell by a long stretch but it has become somewhat of a recurring theme in my life, shout out to all the other significant men in my life who also got run over but...
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Obscure Sorrows: Monachopsis
Monachopsis n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach – lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognise the ambient roar of your intended...
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Abeona Diaries: At The Alcove
Tuesday 28th October, on the grass outside the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn, Glendale. I just read over the last few pages of my notebook from New York and couldn’t quite remember the person writing it. It feels like yesterday and years ago. After four...
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Abeona Diaries: Summer in Oakland
The summer is already in full bloom in Oakland during the first days of June. It’s always a little warmer here than it is in San Francisco and here is where I am spending my last few days in America for a while. So much has happened in the past six weeks. I’ve...
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Obscure Sorrows: Lachesisim
Lachesism – n. The desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, to lose everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a...
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Taming The Muse
“It comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers…” Leonard Cohen is addressing the Spanish audience at the Prince of Asturias Awards. He is explaining, in his deeply charming and humble manner, how he finds his inspiration. “In other words”, he...
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Sarah Crowder’s lists; ways to deal with the trauma of menstruating
I didn’t get my first period until I was 14. I was so excited that I whipped my freshly stained white knickers off and waved them in my mother’s face like a triumphant flag. I was so happy, the fact that every other girl in my year at school had already started...
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Obscure Sorrows: Onism
onism – n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time. As described in The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows. It’s the warm coloured stone of Greek churches. It’s the restful aureate light that everything here...
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Sarah Crowder’s lists; people I grew up with
I’ve lived in at least twenty different houses in my life, but one has felt more like home than any other; a semi detached council house on a council estate in a tiny Surrey village. I moved there when I was five years old and we had to move away when I was...
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