Katie Flynn reads from “In the Skin,” and we interview Associate Editor, Essence London, on why she voted for the piece. Listen here for an glimpse of our latest issue and insight into our selection process.
“In the Skin” was originally published in Indiana Review 39.2, Fall 2017.
Thanks to Youtube Audio Library and John Deley for letting us use “Beer Belly Blues.”
This is what I remember:
A man was at the river, ferrying people across.
“Pali wah! Pali! Hurry!”
The line of people snaked alongside the bank, matching itself against the curve of the river. Those near the front jostled for the best spot. Those behind hunched over against the cold, bundles and bags hanging off of them like ungainly appendages. Ropes of black smoke rose up from Pyongyang’s low-slung skyline and billowed across the winter sky, obscuring the foothills.
I can’t sleep. My furnished apartment in Freiburg, Germany, has a TV that broadcasts a single channel, in German, and since I’m too tired to read but too wired to rest, I tune in for half an hour. I speak nicht Deutch—just a little Yiddish—but can still make out the tail-end of a news program on an Auschwitz survivor, replete with images of rawboned prisoners and the eminent entry gate (“Work shall set you free”); a preview for a film called Female Agents in which be-lipsticked vixens gun down unsuspecting Nazis; and the start of a sitcom called Tel Aviv Rendezvous in which a guileless guest shows up at a Shabbat dinner with nonkosher wine.
Image: Falkenblog
Congratulations are in order for the recipients of creative writing grants (in prose) from the National Endowment of the Arts in 2012. Several recipients also happen to be past IR contributors, and we’d like to give them a shout out:
Katherine Leonard Czepiel “Wendy as Elsa,” Issue 33.1 (Summer 2011)
Carolina De Robertis “42 Poorly Kept Secrets About Montevideo,” Issue 28.1 (Summer 2006)
Richard Holeton “Thanks for Covering Your Lane,” Issue 28.2 (Winter 2006)
Benjamin Percy “Refresh,” Issue 30.2 (Winter 2008)
Ted Sanders “Obit,” Issue 30.2 (Winter 2008)
Well done!
