Jack Straw, 19 October

I had the pleasure of curating the Jack Straw alumni reading on 19 October. Jeff Crandall, Cora Goss-Grubbs, Tanmeet Sethi, and Don Mee Choi read and it did turn out to be an evening of the particular and of resistance.

Here's the introduction I used at the reading:

These days seem overrun with leaders and would-be authorities who would like to absorb all of us into their one single, and absolutely true narrative, whether that narrative is one of national glory or of absolutist religion.

One of the best weapons against these narratives is the particular. The details of the particular stick out at odd angles. They’re hard to pin down. And they don’t fit smoothly into some grand, but single story.

I hope that in tonight’s reading you’ll find the particular and the diverse, and the pleasure that comes from remembering that it is in the multitude of stories that art lives and resists.