I began working on Plenitude just over four years ago. The first issue came out in the fall of 2012, and included both emerging and established writers such as Betsy Warland and Nancy Jo Cullen. From reading and selecting material, to designing epubs, to marketing–I was a volunteer staff of...
It’s cruel to ask a writer to pick just one book, ever, for any reason. And so, in this case, I’m going with two—a particular pairing at a particular time. When I was sixteen, I gobbled up Anne Cameron’s backlist until I came to The Journey. I slowed down then, because I never wanted it to end. A...
Romeo, Romeo, Where Art Thou? Before. I wander through the women’s bookstore in Toronto. My eyes fall on a title, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. I read the description, dip into the first chapter, and buy the book. My discovery of Jeanette Winterson comes early in her ascendancy and, really, it is...
Lucas Crawford I. I never went to the High Line or sucked transgender clit or dick. I never asked for three free samples at Milk Bar’s lower eastside locale; it’s just that I never find enough to lick. I never asked a stranger to pull over his car so I could take a hot dump in the woods. I...
Brett Josef Grubisic A few years ago I got a mid-afternoon call from a friend. Originally he and I weren’t friends, not exactly; as strangers we’d made contact surreptitiously online and met for quickies on sporadic afternoons, work routines permitting. After a while the camaraderie flourished as...
I first read Denton Welch a few years ago. Actually, that’s not completely true. I read his short story “When I Was Thirteen” in Alberto Manguel and Craig Stephenson’s anthology Meanwhile, in Another Part of the Forest a good decade or so ago. It’s probably Welch’s most anthologized story, and it’s...
