Thought-Provoking Links and Listens
Portraits of inmates, politics in the strip club, and more.
Hello Darklings!
This is just a mid-week hello from me with some great reads that I’ve come across in the last couple of months, including a stripper’s take on Trump, a groundbreaking look inside American prisons, and stand-up comedy in Palestine. Have you read, listened, or watched anything recently that you’d recommend? Share in the comments below!
Before we jump in, I wanted to remind everyone that this Saturday I’m hosting The Short and Sweet, our monthly gathering over Zoom for paid subscribers. This month we have a very special guest, the brilliant writer—ghost, memoir, fiction, you name it—Ada Calhoun! Ada is the author of several books including St. Marks Is Dead; one of my all-time favorite memoirs, Also a Poet; and her most recent novel, Crush. Ada and I will talk all about writing across genres, being your own fiercest editor, and what it’s like to be one of the most sought-after ghostwriters in literature.
Becoming a paid subscriber to Listening in the Dark costs about as much as an ice cream (with extra sprinkles on top), and it gives you full access to The Short and Sweet monthly gatherings, plus our incredible archive of conversations with extraordinary people including the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; conflict resolution facilitator and author of The Art of the Gathering, Priya Parker; novelist Janet Fitch, and more. Hope to see you this Saturday, June 14 at 1pm ET for The Short and Sweet with Ada Calhoun! (The Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers about thirty minutes prior to the start of the Zoom.)
Now, onto the recommendations! Here are a few things I’ve been ruminating on the last few months:
My brilliant friend, the journalist Sarah Stillman, has published a profound and in-depth report on the epidemic of incarcerated people in the U.S. dying in jail. This is extraordinary reporting and very much worth your time to read. There is also a website, Starved for Care, which details the stories of inmates alongside beautiful portrait drawings by artist Janelle Retka. These stories humanize the lives and deaths of these inmates and ask the hard moral questions about the role of privatized prisons in America.
Sometimes I will stumble across a piece of writing that’s so damn good, I feel jealous. That is how I feel about this piece by fellow newsletter writer Alison Rose Reed at
titled, “I’m a Stripper; Of Course I’m Not Surprised by Trump 2.0.” This is a killer piece of writing that swings hard from the very first lines.
Emily St. James, a writer I have loved for years, recently used her newsletter to publish an essay written by a mother about her trans child. The essay, titled “Undetermined,” is an urgent and very potent piece of writing for anyone who wants to learn more about what it feels like to raise a trans kid in America today.
A great partner to “Undetermined” is the New York Time’s new podcast The Protocol, a six-part series and powerful deep dive into the history of youth gender medicine, where it came from (the Dutch!), who it was meant to help, and what may come next in the legal and political fights over its future. This is a must listen for anyone and everyone with questions or concerns about medical care for transgender children, and it will hopefully dispel a lot of the disinformation that is out there about trans kids and their families.
I recently got to see a beautiful and poignant documentary, Palestine Comedy Club, which is currently making the rounds at film festivals and was produced by friend and fellow Substacker,
. I couldn’t summarize it better than the documentary’s official synopsis: “Palestine Comedy Club follows six Palestinian stand-up comedians who write and tour a stand-up comedy show exploring the unlikely, often dark humour that surrounds the complexity of Palestinian identity. What starts as a blending of comic traditions to encourage honest and open reflections through the shared enjoyment of laughter becomes an existential imperative to survival and sharing common humanity.” Here is the trailer for the film, and here is the group’s website. Keep an eye out for this film when it gets released—its a beautiful one!
That’s it for now! See you all this weekend for Good Riddance and The Short and Sweet.
Fuck ICE,
Amber
Hi Amber,
A dear friend and co-moderator for Bibliography and Therapeutic Writing has an incredible serialized memoir she is publishing on Substack about art therapy/yoga/meditation in women's prison. It is incredible and I think you'd enjoy it - https://meditationsinblue.substack.com/
xoxo
Laura
On the advice of my Emotional Support Canadian, I have been reading the novels of Christopher Moore. My ESC says Moore's writing is what mine would be if I had talent. Moore is the reason I couldn't get published, because he occupies my niche. But if he were to die in a tragic accident, perhaps success would finally be mine. So I looked up his bio, keeping my eyes peeled for hobbies like rock climbing, bungee jumping and illegal street racing. Having failed to find anything other than the sort of sedate life that will lead him to die of a heart attack in forty years, I sent my cousin's rock climbing gear to him in an effort to goad him along. She hasn't needed it since the accident. In the meantime, I have read his books about 1940's San Francisco, whales, vampires and Jesus. They are good.