I first heard of Ocean Vuong two years ago. My cousin asked if I was familiar with this book, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, the first novel from a poet. It was being talked about a lot, she said. Vuong's previous book, a collection of poems titled Night Sky With Exit Wounds, had been published four years prior in 2016. Our mutual interest was piqued–the titles alone pulled us in–and we read the novel in tandem that October. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is Vuong's explor

I’ve recently gotten really into tracking the books I read. I’ve always used GoodReads and just started using Bookly. Both are apps you can get on your phone to track what you're reading, how long you’ve been reading, and log quotes. I love these apps, but I have been craving more, which is how I got into book journaling. I read a lot of books. Last year I read 84 books and can barely remember the details of some of them. I realized by just using the apps I wasn’t really reme

Donned in his signature cap and collared shirt, Kenneth Charles Blume III swivels around in his desk chair with a can of Yerba Mate cracked open in his right hand. Behind him sits Carol City rapper, Denzel Curry, ready for his freestyle. Atop a desk full of knick knacks, computer plug-ins, and rolling trays sits a Mac playing a half-done beat through a speaker. Welcome to The Cave. Kenneth Blume III, known in the music industry as Kenny Beats, is a jack of many trades. He is

Many today are familiar with the very popular New York Fashion Week. A series of fashion shows and events that take place in New York City that are a week long, and purpose for designers to showcase their seasonal collection to buyers, the press, and the general public. Fashion week first took place in the 1950s and was originally known as “press week”. On Seventh Avenue, rooms would be packed tight and models would strike poses down narrow runways. The purpose of fashion wee

Winter early 2019. It’s the calm before the storm of 2020 and company’s are being shouted at from all different directions to embrace diversity and inclusion. In response, Nordstrom enlists the help of Droga5, an advertising agency now better known for its Meta ads that just miss the mark, to achieve their mission of ‘celebrating individuality and human connections’. We expect corporate wokeness schlop. We get “An Open Mind is the Best Look”, an ad shortlisted at the 2019 Cli

En plein air painting is a French term that means out of doors painting. In other words, the act of painting outside in the open. This matter of painting has been around for as long as painting has existed, but this exact term became popular with painters such as Claude Monet and John Singer Sargent. For centuries, this painting method was used, and is still used to this day, but what does it truly convey? Painting as a concept is fundamentally different from a photograph bec

If you’re even a moderate reader, chances are good that you’ve run into James Patterson – the word prolific doesn’t even do it justice, especially in the young adult genre. I remember reading titles like I Am Number Four, Maximum Ride, and Daniel X, only later recognizing that under each of them was the name “James Patterson.” I couldn’t believe that all these stories I loved had been written by the same person. Turns out, they probably weren’t. Because while James Patterson

Whether you are a poet or a prosaist, your next great work could be hiding in a dream cloud. You might say that you don’t dream, or that they’re random or weird and have no coherent storyline, or that they’re just plain forgettable. The truth is that everyone dreams, and all dreams can be utilized for writing purposes. How to remember your dreams (if you can’t): On your next day off, spend a little more time waking up. Don’t set any alarms—they can disrupt your dreams very ab

Pablo Neruda, born as Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto in Parral, Chile, to a rail-worker father and school-teacher mother (who died shortly after his birth), grew up in Temuco, a town in the southern countryside. His younger years were critical for his inspiration to compose his early works, especially with the help of his mentor, future Nobel laureate and fellow Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. Neruda remained a productive writer throughout his childhood and into hig

Tides by Mary Oliver Everyday the sea blue gray green lavender pulls away leaving the harbor’s dark-cobbled undercoat slick and rutted and worm-riddled, the gulls walk there among the old whalebones, the white spines of fish blink from the strandy stew as the sick hours tick over; and then far out the faint, sheer line turns, rustling over the snack, the outer bars, over the green-furred flats, over the clam beds, slippery logs, barnacle-studded stones, dragging the