Read: How to Be

A Bookish & Particular Supplement

Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash

Hey there. How are you? I know that’s a tough question to answer these days, but one we should keep asking. Right? I hope you’re at least okay enough.

I’m bit by bit working on another full issue, but right now, I wanted to offer this supplement. I’ll send these from time to time to highlight something or remind you all of timely info like event reminders and things.

I recently finished reading Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers, a novel which in part is set in 1985 Chicago in the early days of the AIDS crisis. I wrote in my Goodreads review: I read the last 50 pages or so last night and it was finally time for me to let the waterworks flow as I thought about the past and the present and love and life and friends and things let go and things let in….

These feels inspired me to share my story How to Be, a tale of Chicago yesteryear, to a larger audience in my Medium.com publication. I started writing it shortly after the events in the story took place, just over twenty years ago now. It was eventually published in Midwestern Gothic, Issue 19 (Fall 2015).

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I’d say the contents are PG-13. Some of you would probably like more. Maybe a little less. But there you go. The curators at Medium have since distributed the story in their LGBTQIA and Relationships topics, which is pretty cool. It’s my first curation so I guess I’m out of “curation jail.” Hooray!

Thank you for reading the story (and this newsletter!) I hope it adds a little enjoyment to these trying times. And if nothing else, you get to learn something about twenty-five-year-old Michael. :-)

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Cheers,

Michael