by Joel Worford Markus Spiske Last year, last January — I wrote a column called “How Does a Writer Practice?” in which I tossed and turned over not knowing how to objectively improve at writing. My anxiety stemmed, I guess, from the fact that, as a storyteller, you never outgrow not knowing what the hell you’re doing. “It frightens me to practice a craft in which the skills I regularly rely on, I can’t call upon, at will” (the writer I am today would have cut that last comma.

by Joel Worford Marius Masalar At the end of last month, I moved to Iowa City to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. That move marked the end of what I consider to be the first chapter of my music career, as I intend to spend the next few years focused on my writing. If I had to choose three words and a phrase to encapsulate my experience as a professional musician, they’d be blessed, transcendent, could you turn down? and frustrating. I have made good sounds and I have made b

by Joel Worford Raphael Lovaski This month I listened to all of Taylor Swift’s studio albums. I went chronologically from Taylor Swift to Midnights, sharing thoughts on my Instagram story for each. I only lost one friend throughout the journey, so I’d say my opinions were generally well-received. I found the majority of her discography good, some of it bad, and some of it great, with more great than bad moments. Red was my favorite album, and Lover was my least (too long). I

by Joel Worford Job Vermeulen I started learning to sing when I was eighteen. Some people realize in their early adulthood that they have a vocal talent that is worth pursuing. I was not one of them. I learned to sing in spite of the vocal cords I was dealt, not because of them. My uncle saw me perform recently and said to my father “I didn’t know there was a vocal gift in our gene pool.” There wasn’t, Uncle Todd. I cultivated it, slowly and frustratedly, over nine years of p

by Joel Worford Dmitry Osipenko As a tennis player, I’ve struggled with the yips since I was fourteen. For those unfamiliar (God bless you, I envy): the yips are when your brain starts getting in the way of what your body knows. The yips make a previously subconscious effort feel awkward. It is like when someone tells you to think about walking, so you stumble. In the yips’ case, that someone telling you to “think” is your brain. And it won’t stop telling. In my case, my brai

by Joel Worford Patrick Tomasso I read about forty books a year, and of those forty, around thirty are new encounters. The other ten are more or less the same ten. Open by Andre Agassi will be one. So will The Making of Rumours by Ken Caillat. The book about Jeff Buckley his manager wrote will be on there as well. And then The Hunger Games trilogy, and a few other fun ones. I can’t imagine my life as a reader without rereading. I treat my favorite books the way I treat my fav

by Joel Worford Masha Kotliarenko It is interesting to me that the conversation around cultural appropriation is often a moral and not aesthetic one. Because as far as I’ve seen, no one really cares when writing the other is done well. Take Rue from Euphoria as an example. Race is not a defining part of Rue’s story — whatever part it plays isn’t mentioned much on screen. Yet I can’t help but think that that is probably for the better. Imagine if every time Rue spoke on her st

by Joel Worford Aaron Burden How does a writer practice? I don’t really know. And sometimes I’m not sure why the question matters, but of the fact that it does, I am almost completely certain. It seems the clearest way to explain our obsession with other authors’ daily routines — their word counts, their hours spent in the chair — or the ever-looming reiteration, like some community comfort blanket, of how thinking, talking, looking, singing, crying, pooping and peeing should

by Joel Worford Moises Alex David Foster Wallace wrote about tennis so well, so comprehensively (with that brand of brilliance occasionally found in authors [shouts to Mark Z. Danielewski, Helen Dewitt, Fran Ross] that makes it seem as though adding the word “literary” before their “genius” only reduces the truth of its fact) that I almost don’t see any reason to. DFW did for tennis what James Baldwin did for the black church, what Herman Melville did for seafarers, and what

by Joel Worford Ludovica Dri Words—around whom, I’ve built my entire identity—keep failing me. Or perhaps I’ve let them down. Who knows? Every single day is an opportunity for more words that will not come. More imaginary lives that will never breathe the imaginary air that will never blow. Entire generations of imaginary families erased from a history never created. I can only imagine what it must be like—to sit in Heaven’s waiting room while some Angel, the author of your l