Table of Contents
Introduction Greg Gerding 17
Brief Timeline of Notable Events 27
September 2020
The Days We Didn't Die Brendan Canty 39
This is the inner molting that becomes a careful person. This is the fear that you must feel before you really engender self-protection.
The Upside of Being Down Alex Dang 43
To look inward and reflect on yourself is complicated. It's recognizing what you have inherited, what you have ignored, and what parts you need to improve.
Highway to Hell: Seasons (of Grief) in the Abyss Isobel O'Hare 46
It turns out that my father's suicide wasn't the end of the world after all; the only end of the world is the actual end of the world.
Hope and Helplessness: Existing While Black in 2020 Ashley James 55
Existing while Black in 2020 is living on an edge, knowing that any interaction, any moment, could become a matter of life or death.
The Year of Living Pandemically Liz Scott 59
All this imposed time at home set the table for some very real, come-to-Jesus meetings with myself.
Defiantly, We Shall Celebrate Something Leyna Rynearson 64
Speaking to you from the middle of 2020, it feels like the worst part of all of this is that you never know what's coming next.
Like Crow with Red Wings When He Captured the Sun Skyler Reed 67
You cannot hold fire in one hand, ash in another, and say we are not all related.
1400 Licks + One to Grow On Ran Walker 70
When I reflect over what all of this means for my family and me, it begs the question: How much has the experience of being Black in America changed since 1619?
Halfway Out Nancy Townsley 72
I really want to be part of the solution, not the problem, moving forward.
You Have No Faith in Medicine Brian S. Ellis 75
This year, 2020, has discovered ways to exploit every weakness that was baked into this culture. This year has brought into vivid detail all the work that needs to be done.
Rewinding the Narrative Dian Greenwood 79
Change is inevitable. The tsunami of disruption we're living through is part of the change.
I Am Positively NOT Viral Travis Laurence Naught 82
YouTube has gone from "a friend I call a few times a year" to "a roommate"
To Be Is To Be Essential Kenning JP Garcia 85
Can't suggest further readings, these words as so much those that want also to be understood will assuredly miss the mark, the essay is no place to take a stand.
Curled Up on the Couch (with My Dog) James Jay Edwards 89
The blessing of spending time with Hitch hasn't all been lying around and watching movies, though. Another plus to being home with him is that his condition needs near-constant monitoring, something I couldn't give him if I had been going to work.
Catastrophe Model (Quick Notes) Rabb Asad 92
We leave each other like passengers shedding a tram's motion at the stop. It's like when you break your lease-the way landlords and tenants just turn their backs on each other.
The Gentlest Ghost Joseph Edwin Haeger 97
2020 is the year absurdity died. Nothing is funny and nothing matters.
The Fear of Lost Time Ellen Yaffa 99
A nagging anxiety hangs in the air like a fog bank, or carbon monoxide. Stealthy, lurking, a pall unseen.
Stay and Fight Ben Tanzer 101
What 2020 has become is not an aberration. It's not some weird, terrible, contortion of random events that leaves us here, now, perplexed and fucked.
Are My Carnal Rhymes the Cure for My Porn Addiction? Adrian Ernesto Cepeda 105
This essay is not against porn nor masturbation; it's about how I tried to use my addiction as a release for the pain and grief I was trying not to feel.
Oh, Crap! What NOW!? Jason Zenobia 109
It's really hard for me to get my shit together, especially since washing my hands and not panicking have become full-time occupations.
October 2020
The Death of Momentum Gabino Iglesias 113
We are storytelling animals, and that is more powerful than the division we're seeing, the stupidity that angers us, and the individuals that govern us.
The Study Leah Noble Davidson 116
At present, too many people and standards have died and there are no bars to commune with those still mourning. The news is a glass rectangle. The President has the virus and gun stores are out of stock. Interviews in the following study will focus on the experience of new and intermediate participants in what is now a shit show.
On This Night of Smoke and Fire Jackie Shannon Hollis 124
The circle of these stories grew outward from our center. We were all in this. People we knew and people we didn't know, the invisible risks. The long unknowns.
Refugee Baby Dang Nguyen 128
Where do I fit in? More specifically. How does a refugee baby, grown into a self-aware, middle-aged member of the citizenry, define themselves in terms of the current global socio -political dynamic?
Still Life with Kitchen and Avocado Shannon Brazil 131
This smoke disrupts this pandemic disrupts all that we thought we once knew. Life's little disruptions. How me suffer. How we die slowly. Cancer. Emphysema. Loneliness. Or haw we die fast. Bullet. Flame. Speeding car.
Language Lesson for 2020 Amoja Sumler 134
Consider for a second the irony of "in the black" being a positive phraseology when taking into account the Black Americans' path to the Western world.
I Ask, What Does One More Grief Mean, Today? Lauren Gilmore 137
What does it mean for memories to turn to sepia in my hands? Now? On my watch? On ours?
Know When to Fold 'Em Kimberly Sheridan 140
The crisis quickly flattened any ideas about adhering to plans or controlling life. I felt somewhat glad for the peripheral excuse; I felt like my withdrawal could seem less like a personal failing.
America's Script Revealed Stagey Y. Clark 143
Being a Black woman in America is like being an extra on a movie set where I have no voice, little opportunity to emerge, and no place at the party table. This revelation is deeply hurtful. I grew up thinking, if I worked hard, I could be a star.
The Foulest of All the Foul Balls Joe Austin 146
There are plenty of reasons why 2020 can go fuck itself (see also: "drive-by" birthday parties, Zoom "happy" hours, and gender-reveal-fueled forest fires) but none rises to the level of the double-whammy of losing bars and baseball.
The Giddiest Grew Pale Corie Skolnick 149
I woke up in a cold sweat this morning from a dream-really, a nightmare-about Stephen Miller.
Thawing a Wrench in the Apocalypse Machine Sean Davis 153
I was there as an outsider with a rifle in my hand with the mission to somehow help. Help is a very vague term when you don't know anyone by name.
2020: The Year I Unfriended Hyperbole Jenny Forrester 157
Hyperbole is all over the political scene in a way I'm not comfortable with anymore. She sounds like a machine, like a Boolean expression of a human being.
The Game of My Life Chris Dupuy 158
After all these years, for me, it always comes back to that green infield grass. That first glimpse exiting the concourse in search of my seats.
Peach Jam and Face Masks: Coping with Kids and Coronavirus Kate Ristau 160
We were going to be stuck in the house for weeks, maybe even months, and I could already feel the edges fraying, everything I worked for slipping away.
Societal Inversion Jason Arment 163
The way we forget is all wrong. Somehow, as Americans, we remember the worst kernels of truth and wrap them in fictions so vicious and untoward that they invite our belief.
Tomorrow or Today? Eric Witchey 164
Little thoughts come to mind while I settle into my chair. Doubts. Admonitions. Fears.
November 2020
The Apocalypse Has Seen Here a Long Time Wryly T. McCutchen 169
Being an entity whose art, and friendship, and romance involve loving others with maximum vulnerability and truth, that's what it actually takes to survive and even live well at the end of all things.
2020's Un-Editable Mess DeMisty D. Bellinger 174
And as the worst thing in the world happens, another worst thing in the world happens. Again. The disregard of Black lives is an ongoing reality in the United States.
Silt Tracy Burkholder 178
I was asked to stay home, like their sons and daughters, and watch the world try to wrap itself in safety as the dying carried on their work without us.
Phrontistery John S. Blake 183
Everyone will die. This truth has grown louder now that I have more years behind me than in front of me. My purpose here is to love as many people as I can before my last breath.
My Vision Is New 2020: The Trump Trashcan Tim Mays 193
I find myself in a Groundhog Day state of existence-getting up every day to go through the same tasks, broken up only by visits to the two businesses that are still operating, or grocery store trips, or the occasional patio dining scenario.
When white America Gets a Cold, Black America Gets COVIB Pneumonia Ally Henny 196
The truth is that rural America often relies on alternative sources because they frequently have to interpret and contextualize information that comes from the mainstream. Information that is geared toward the urban and suburban contexts doesn't always apply to or include rural folks.
Navigating the Social Waves Zaji Cox 199
It's something like a film plot-a globe falling under a single threat. It crept in from the outside and soon forced us apart within months, offering an edge-of-your-seat surreality from which you disconnect to process fully.
Survival: The Unshakable Mood Rashaun J. Allen 202
While the world faces a global pandemic, I feel unauthorized to have a solid year.
Moving Forward While Moving Bach Florencia Orlandoni 205
Perhaps the most important thing I learned this year is that I need to detach my self-worth from my productivity. Rest and recovery are not passive. Stillness and introspection take work.
December 2020
Two Thousand Twenty & the Age of Consequence Chris Valle 211
Every political, social, ecological, cultural, or economic flaw in our society has been thrust back upon us all at once, with a generous helping of bad luck slathered on top. We played ourselves; we laid so many mines and rigged so many booby traps that we ran out of safe places to stand. COVID nudged us just enough to stumble, and then everything just started blowing up.
Care & Maintenance of Precious Things Christine Maul Rice 216
My father left on their 25th wedding anniversary. It seemed especially cruel then, still does. Even before he disappeared, I felt compelled to fill a void in my mother I couldn't understand or identify and, after all this time, I find myself unable to resolve conflicting feelings.
2020, the Revelator Linda Rand 221
I had to remember to start the car occasionally in the evening. I'd sit inside and it smelled clean and fresh like a rental car and the interior lights would cast their amber hue. The little dinging sound, which might have been mildly annoying before, was cozy and faintly exciting. I'd start the engine and remember that I was a person who used to go places.
Ruminations on an Anthill During the Stay-at-Home Order Suzanne Burns 225
As we shelter-in-place, the anthill becomes our cityscape, the only bustle of activity within miles of the house we have grown into never leaving.
2020: The Year of the* Eve Connell 229
Soul crushing … heart expanding
Acknowledgments 233
Contributor Bios 234
Editor Bio 248
