Ban More Books! The Peril of the Unexamined Shelf
Making all good books permissible has the same ironically virtue-dulling effect as safe, didactic stories.
The Villainization of Effeminacy in Classic Gay Literature (or My Literary Squad)
I think that there are plenty of things within the gay community that deserve to be challenged and criticized; I just wish that my precious protagonists didn’t conflate these flaws with effeminacy.
Pokémon, Ranked
What culture doesn’t have a myth of a turtle who keeps the world, or at least a small forest, on its back.
Headshot
Much as I enjoy teaching novels and short stories, video games do something special when played with a group.
Pros and Cons
That’s a heavy con for Madison (Pros: Government job benefits, Roommate Night with my best friends, a church that has become home, cheese).
Ne Carpamus Diem
Giving up the control, allowing our grasping hands to slacken is scary. We don’t know what to do if we do nothing. Yet life goes on.
Read Your Food: Beyond Recipes
With every bite of these foods, we eat our history, and we inherit the ingenuity of immigrants, slaves, presidents, and chili queens who crafted the foods we love today.
The World Got Bigger
So I let go, and I felt immediately liberated from the burden of trying and failing to imagine a loving God in the day-to-day.
Fear Factor
I mean honestly, I cried the entire eight-hour car ride to college (shout out to my parents who kept driving).
Musicprayer
That’s a lot of lead up, I know. But, like, welcome to my head I guess.
