Tag: identity

Alison Fields remembers the perils of junior high: fitting in, standing out, and trying out.

Once described by 8th century Mercian king Offa as “a terrible place,” it’s an odd, out-of-the-way part of the world.

Alexander Chee considers the ways in which answering the question, “What are you?” turned him into a writer.

A.M. Homes wrestles with her ambivalence toward learning more about her birth parents and the circumstances of her adoption.

Do we carry pieces of our younger selves with us, even as we grow and change?

On belonging — and not belonging — in two worlds at once.

Hayat Norimine describes what it was like to grow up as an only child in a Japanese-Syrian household in Pullman, a town in the Palouse region of Washington State.

“I’d had no idea that we had ever had to define our identities at all, because to me, white Americans were born fully formed, completely detached from any sort of complicated past.”

“Brayden” and “Nevaeh” have got nothing on their 17th-century predecessors, “Waitstill” and “Supply.”

Andrew Kay found himself on the dating scene and the academic job market at the time time, living life as one long interview.

In this roundtable, poets from around this world discuss the role borders play in their lives.

Have you ever thought really hard about donuts? Like, 7,000 words hard? Keaton Lamle did.

How one woman finally styled her hair in a way that determined who she was and demanded that her loving grandmother accept her decision as a sign of strength.

“People insist that only an idiot would move from the land of the dollar to the 68-times-weaker rupee.”

In Real Life Mag, information accessibility and data-use expert Zara Rahman explores the coercive power of the location drop-down menu.

Christian McMahon so rightly reminds us that everyone has “a right to exist safely in public spaces.”

Lauren Alwan narrates her family’s migration from Syria to California to explore how people’s evolving identities help gain them a foothold in America and create unintentional tensions across generations.

In more than 30 years of membership, Annie’s descendants became interwoven in the life of the tribe. They married other Nooksacks and had kids; those kids had kids. But once the disenrollment process began, people chose sides. “It was just like a light switch,” Elizabeth Oshiro, one of the 306, told me. People she knew […]

In Food52, Mayukh Sen explores the ways fruitcake became a homophobic slur, queerness, and his own personal attachment to the namesake food.

At Guernica, Melissa Matthewson explores infidelity in the search for her identity.

In The New York Times Magazine, Rachel Cusk meditates on the ways our homes are simultaneously the places we live, and set pieces that we art-direct.

Sherry Turkle studies how we relate to our devices, and thinks it’s high time we start talking to each other again.

The sound stage for Orange, where we proudly employ what has to be at least 64% of lesbians in the New York City metro area, is not a place where you can shy away from women or sexuality. And if you’re trying to, Lea Delaria (Big Boo) will nip it in the bud by inviting you […]

On Iron Eyes Cody and “the tribe of the Wannabe.”

We are expats and nomads. We are products of multiple countries. We run away from places that don’t feel quite right, only to never find where we belong. These stories celebrate the journey of returning to (or discovering) our roots, and the elusive, ever-evolving concept of home.

Charitably, we can see the practice of reviewing one’s own works as a kind of knowing critique of the insider trading that can occur among authors and reviewers. Why bother to solicit reviews for your books when you can write them yourself? There may, however, be something more poignant here. Even for holders of tenured […]

Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. 1. “I Was A Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” (Laurie Penny, New Statesmen, June 2013) The difference between playing a leading role in your own life and playing a supporting role in everyone else’s. 2. “Promises […]