For the first time in a long time, I have so much to tell you.
This is not to say that events, or shapes, or singularities, are happening, or stopped happening. I just mean that for a long time I felt like I was living extended, stretched out, dying at the fingertips and screaming at the branches about how time runs out1.
I’m back in my roots again, and at least one of my roots is a dinosaur tail and it is always the one that tugs me home. I am still feeling the journey of this, of course— but nothing feels like I’m blowing in the wind, gripping on like a winter leaf.
I feel grounded enough to start writing about all those little leaves and branches, and I find myself chopping onions and thinking of things to write, and showering and remembering things to read, and taking photos2 on my walks so I can tell you all about it later.
Awhile ago, I stumbled across a new creative project in the world. The man on the screen said he was making a coffee magazine3, without ads, with recycled paper, limited edition.
What caught me is how it seemed like readership itself was one of the arts they were catering to, in a world that increasingly feels like readership is just a metric that needs to be hit to unlock other things.
I’ve been a reader my whole life. Even when I lost literacy, I would sit with books and magazines. I’d trace the letters and flip the pages. I still remember the feeling of seeing a capital letter A when it was not something I understood. I loved it. Loved how it made our text into a mountain range, how sharp it was against the edges.4 Reading is the art I know more than any other.
And I don’t know anything about the art of coffee.
But I still submitted a note on their site5 that they should tell one of the many stories of coffee in U.S. prisons. How it is currency and lifeblood. How and what the cost of it extracts from our labor and families.6 How we make a latte with techniques that are grounded by a science so far from those of us inside that it feels like witchcraft.
The editor, Ben, responded generously to the idea. He explained that their magazine wasn’t a coffee-science journal, but genuinely about how coffee at all its various stages intertwines in our achingly human lives. He requested something in my natural writing style; so I wrote about me, and what I saw inside, and the slow crafts of prison I loved, and how everything you love inside of prison comes with a tinge of grief. And then I made my own illustrations for it.
The magazine came out this week.7
I’m incredibly proud to be part of it.
My first paid illustrations, my first pitched piece of writing, is out there in the world. The editing was so soft with all my grief and so smart so people could follow me all the way in. The paper itself is a wonderful experience, the colors and print so bright and beautiful. When I couldn’t read, I would have held this tight. When I was inside, I would have so carefully torn it to pieces and decorated an entire world.
Now, today, here, I get to just sip my coffee, and read it.
And I’m grateful for that, too.
The man talking about magazines. Grateful to the TikTok FYP for realizing I wanted to hear about the project despite not even recognizing James Hoffmann or knowing anything about coffee.
It feels important to say that I remember the feeling. When I look through time now, I recognize all the letters so some of the magic of the moment was left behind.
I cannot stress enough how wonderful of an experience this was, even as a writer who is famously particular. Ben Szobody was an incredible editor — really holding onto the writer, the story, the work, the magazine, and project management of it all with careful hands. https://shop.cherrybonesmag.com/pages/faqs
My new job is to help expose the commercialization of the criminal legal system and advocate and organize to protect and return the economic resources extracted from affected communities. When I submitted this pitch, I didn’t know how far-reaching the food crisis in prisons was, from a “follow the money” sense of things— I do now, and I’m learning more every day.
You can still buy one! They’re $21, and they do sell out which is the downside of limited edition. I think if they get enough on the waiting list after it sells out, then they do another run, but essentially it’s a one season fruit. https://cherrybonesmag.com/
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