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A Battery of Tests

      “Compensation” shows itself as a consistent, gendered thread in my life story. Compensating for my other family member’s disappointments to make my mom smile. Compensating for the body I knew I wouldn’t stretch into. Compensating for disadvantage as a way of life. The skill saved me from the stigma of having an

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A Story in Parts

    A story in parts   A list of things I thought of and had to restrain myself from doing before my grandmother’s funeral Pack shorts and sneakers and a hoodie and my my BLACKLIVESMATTER bracelet and a book into a survival pack because she said ​It’s 2017, come as you are​ and I

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from Descent

    What does genre mean to you and how does it build/unbuild your work?         Lauren Russell is the author of What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta, 2017). She was the 2014-2015 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the 2016 VIDA Fellow to

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Land: Tierra

I want to write about tierra, which means soil or earth to my people, maybe dirt, or land, which, in turn, means something very precise and precious. By writing, I tell the world I am a brown man. Where I am from. What I am. Not boxes to mark some form, but blood knowledge, what

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