creative writing on environmental justice
1,000,000. Number of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. predicted in a statistical model published March 13th that assumed no social distancing measures.
154. Number of minutes on March 15th that I spent reading news media on my iPhone.
0. Number of states with “stay at home” orders on March 16th.
On March 17th I woke up at 2 a.m. I checked our bank . . .
There’s a certain look people get on their faces when I answer the question of where I’m from. I go to great lengths to assure them I’m not the survivor of apocalypse they expect me to be. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more cities will start having to reckon with the torn social safety nets that failed to catch the people of Detroit.
I recently . . .
I’ve been thinking about saltspray roses, rugged and adaptable, clinging to dunes, strengthening coastlines, hardier than their blossoms suggest. I’ve had trouble writing, lately, because I don’t want to expose myself, don’t want to publish anything that I might regret, and yet (for me) writing demands vulnerability. I turn my flaws to the light, hoping . . .
Last night, I dreamt that a campsite I stayed at during a cycle tour was barren, as if there had been a terrible drought. I touched the wall of a house and rubble cascaded down. Then I was walking up a narrow staircase with a man who was escorting me to a job interview with his boss. The staircase wound up and up, getting tighter, until I couldn’t go any further.
A few weeks . . .
“Mom? Why does this freeway have so many lanes?”
“Well Tom, remember when you were six, and the schools were all closed, and you did all your schoolwork as homework? And your teacher came on Zoom every day?”
“Er . . . yes?”
“Well . . . remember, before . . .
Michael: How has your creative practice changed as a result of living through this pandemic?
Soumya: The pandemic has changed mainly two things about my writing.
Firstly, I was more like a nocturnal creature, hunting words upon the keyboard at the dead of the night. My job as a school-teacher never allowed me much time during the day to write strange and . . .
Editor’s note: In the submission call for this series, I asked everybody to answer two questions: how has the pandemic affected your creative practice, and how will the world change?
The short answer, Michael, is that I will change nothing and I doubt the world will change. The slightly longer answer is that the world has always been unravelling: . . .
The messages are urgent—create more art now, document your experiences in these times, don’t sweat over if what you’re creating makes sense, the world needs it, you need it. I create art, mostly short fiction, and I have to do it while battling with depression and anxiety. No, I cannot write through my depressive and anxiety episodes. I wait . . .
It’s time for agitation against the dark,
for poetry to watch and adore silence―
now it’s no time for hug, kiss, or love.
Last summer when we were far away
I planned a rendezvous by a riverbank―
the warm river having a quiet stream
stirring souls―and to bathe together.
One year already passed, but my plan
hasn’t seen the light, because nature
had probably hatched . . .
Nearly a year and a half ago, I applied for a residency. Massey University, paired with the Square Edge Community Arts Centre, has a writer-in-residence every year. I only applied to practice applying for things. I didn’t expect to get it—and I didn’t. The 2019 residency was given to another writer . . . but would I be interested . . .