Launched This Week: October 10th-14th

This week we’re celebrating the relaunch of Black Balloon Publishing, as well as the publication of Amy Kurzweil’s graphic memoir Flying Couch! Read Allie Wuest’s conversation with Black Balloon co-founders Elizabeth Koch and Leigh Newman, then check out the marvelous book trailer for Flying Couch. (You can get your own copy of the book right here.)

“There isn’t a safe place to move; there is only the illusion of safety. You can’t plan for everything, so you pick your tragedy and aim for that. I chose earthquake.”

Christine Ro on losing an immigrant language, and how she and her mother make do:

Her Korean is weakening now, though she still uses it regularly with family members, service professionals, and old friends. She forgets Korean words more and more often; the Korean:English ratio of her sentences continues to shift as time goes by. I’ve been speaking with her in an idiosyncratic mixture of English and Spanish, with Korean generally used only when referencing foods.

I think we both feel intermittent pangs of guilt due to a weakening grasp on a native language, and—in disparate ways—this experience is something that ties us together.

END IT NOW?: In a new narrative advice column, Alissa Nutting and Dean Bakopoulos respond to readers weighing whether to bring something to a close—a job, a project, a relationship, a habit—and they take on the issue of one reader’s little nervous tics in their debut column. Send your own questions to Alissa and Dean by emailing [email protected] and including END IT NOW in the Subject line.

“I wanted someone to play with, but I wanted to create the rules”: A new Body Language column by Tracy O’Neill on the changing meanings of love and play.

Nicholas Ward, “There Is No Violence Here”:

The flirtation and the festival, the community and laughter, the revelry and adventure: it all left me empty. Out there in the crowd someone, some man, would commit violence against someone else, out of anger or fear or lust or sickness . . . No one wants to imagine violence lurking around every corner, especially from those closest to them, but it does. It’s always there, whether we want to admit it or not.

“No matter who wins, he sees a bleak future”: In which the Magpie takes a ride with a man we’ll call Tom. Also: Yuka Igarashi chatted with the Magpie about her column, how it feels to write under a pseudonym, and the different ways in which writers can engage with the world.

That’s our week; thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend, friends.

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