Dear Republic,
It’s been Imagination Week at The Republic of Letters. What a strange and wild bunch you are!
One more week to send in pieces for the popular “Project” prompt. Write to republic.of.letters.substack@gmail.com with “Project” in the subject line.
-ROL
THIS WEEK AT ROL
Kim Zarins, “A Room Without a View”
A fun fact about Kim Zarins is that she actually has no imagination at all! In some publications, that might disqualify her from Imagination Week, but here that prompts a really interesting excursion on how imagination works, on how the inability to visualize, “aphantasia,” does not inhibit a very rich imaginative inner landscape.
The Literarian Gazette, “Raise High the Banner for Literary Standards!”
It’s Imagination Week, but we wouldn’t be ROL really, would we?, if we didn’t have a piece bashing the publishing industry. Our Brutha-in-Arms The Literarian Gazette aka Tyson Duffy has a barnburner of a piece moving the discussion about the AI literary magazine scandals beyond gossip and back to the publishing industry, which, as with most things, deserves the blame.
A. A. Kostas, “A. A. Kostas Hears Voices”
Kim Zarins’ piece on imagination focused on the visual. A. A. Kostas’ turns on the auditory in this personally revealing piece on how Kostas actually writes and how he actually takes his law school exams. Oh, and by the way, the song ‘Ebony and Ivory’ is really astonishingly bad. What did happen to Paul McCartney post-Beatles?
W. G. Lloyd, “My Autogyn Imagination”
So we’ve covered the visual and auditory, let’s also cover the core imaginative category of cross-dressing, as W. G. Lloyd does in this deeply lyrical piece.
WEEKEND LINKS
It’s a good week for revisiting classic writers. Tom Vondriska explains — better than his chatbot would — why Updike is not of the times right now and why that’s all the more reason to revisit him.
Retroactive praise is important but what about the retroactive pan? How exactly did A Visit from the Goon Squad pass itself off as great literature in 2010? SamJordison goes back in time to right wrongs.
ELLIOT JOSEPH BURR is fired again and feeling great about it! A perfect mid-summer piece on the joys of not having to get up in the morning and go into work.
Clementine Morrigan has a deeply sobering piece about the psychological damage pornography can cause. There’s a lot to take in in this piece, but here’s one hot tip: if you’re an adult and there are kids around, try closing the tab with the porn on it before you walk away from your computer.
Thanks for the mention!
Much appreciated