Hi all,
I’ve been on accidental hiatus (as you may have noticed) the last few months, and that will continue until after my defense and, probably, my official graduation in May. During my hiatus, I was, of course, madly writing my dissertation, but I also had the privilege of introducing lectures from two excellent writers, and it’s got me considering using this as a space for reviewing and recommending. Anyway, I’m rethinking what this project/newsletter/publication is at the moment, and so while I’m deciding, I’ve paused all subscriptions (a little while back now) so those of you who pay are not charged in the meantime.
Until I know what this will be, please take as an offering these other things I was working on:
The first is a review of University of Florida architecture professor Charlie Hailey’s book, The Porch for The Georgia Review. I recommend the book if you are interested in trends in how we make our homes and what that says about our relationships with nature—it’s also got some interesting meditations on Florida and the impermanence of a lot of what we build there. I also use my review to wander off into discussions of modern Florida, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and why mosquitoes are maybe okay. From my review:
The decline of the porch signals this refusal to acclimate, a preference for simply bulldozing over the natural environment. Florida’s swamps never needed to be drained; we are not fixing a problem so much as creating a new one. There’s a theory that science writer David Quammen champions: if mosquitoes have any value to humans, it is that they have prevented us from entering and reforming natural spaces that we might have otherwise ruined with our hubris. We need nature to thwart us. The story of Florida, at least since air conditioning and the construction of dams and drainage ditches, is one of trying to refashion places that we have no business changing. Of trying to force a singular vision of what the state should be onto land that doesn’t react well to being paved over.
I also had the pleasure of speaking with a fellow contributor, Caylin Capra-Thomas, about her essay, “Somewhere Like Here But Better” (available in the print edition of The Georgia Review’s Spring ‘24 issue). I was tasked with talking to her because, in many ways, her essay is about moving to my hometown (Gainesville, FL) and how she finds it unlivable. But it’s also about the struggle to find something that feels like home. We talk about wanting to acclimate (or not) to certain places, transplants in Florida, and what we learn (or try to unlearn) is beautiful or ugly. Read it here.
Thanks for reading, y’all.
Really enjoyed the conversation with CCT. Esp appreciated the comparison of perfume/skin to
place/person.