A man at a bar called me a “dirty spic” this weekend. Earlier this week, I was hanging out with some brown folk and a friend dropped in on us. “Who invited the white girl?” someone asked when my friend C went to go get herself a drink. Everyone at the table laughed. This weekend, [...]

At the reading I gave last Thursday, I read a short piece on how people on my mother’s side of the family can’t sing. My father on the other hand, had a wonderful singing voice, and my mom boasted of this despite my father’s permanent absence from all Colombian vacations. Vernally fatherless, I had to [...]

On Monday, George Saunders came to Pitt. I went to a Q&A session after lunch, asked him about what it was like to transition from fiction to nonfiction. He answered that he felt as though he was holding back the punches in nonfiction. The people were real, so it wasn’t so easy to be biting [...]

I’ve posted this elsewhere on my journal, but it’s still a legitimate question! I’m sorry for the length, but the background is necessary (I think). So I have this friend (no, really). Before she turned 21 she never drank and was the typical “good girl” in every way. Since she turned 21 (last summer), she’s [...]