“This may be weird but I don’t feel alone when I write. Most of the time I’m writing about or influenced by other writers, so I feel like they’re right there with me. I feel alone when I am NOT writing.”

Lillian Ross does not reveal how the adaptation of The Red Badge of Courage will pan out until practically the very end, at which point, the plot reasserts itself and what had seemed a sideshow attraction rears into view as the true climax of Picture.

Futuristic sexual encounters aside, we’re constantly betraying our partners and friends with technology. In any interaction, a phone is liable to appear with or without explanation—shifting a dual-sided conversation into a regrettable love triangle.

Inside, perfect / strangers shed their day / a hull of amber—
shadow puppets / empty armchairs / set tables / curtains split
to comfort / life
without a hole inside it.  

As a card-carrying member of the horde, I have never had the privilege of having only one voice echoing in my head. I have always had multiple voices singing in mine. The call, and the response.

“The memory that stuck out from these time was of my father — a fervently religious immigrant — beginning every Sunday by waking me up at dawn for service in our all-white parish.”