I remember talking with a writer who told me about the coffee shop in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, connected to Alice Walker and Tracy Chapman in the mid-’90s, before it closed because of an alleged dispute over an espresso machine. I felt immediate regret that I never got to go and sit at the counter and maybe see Alice Walker try and steam a cup of milk. New York City is full of places like this: storefronts and clubs and restaurants where artists, briefly or sometimes for many years, came together in person in sometimes incongruous ways. Soyica Diggs Colbert’s new book, Freedom’s Gate: Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba & Nina Simone Live at the New York Nightclub That Shaped the Civil Rights Movement, is about one of those places: the Village Gate, the famous West Village club where musicians like John and Alice Coltrane recorded seminal albums and where Aretha Franklin made her New York debut. In the landscape of mid-century New York City night life, the club stood out for its mulitracial clientele and its embrace of a wide variety of musical genres. It makes sense that it became a fertile testing ground for Simone, Angelou, Hansberry, Makeba, and others as they each worked out how to respond to the times with the art that they made. It’s a cliché to say that all art is political. In our current period, however, new political horrors crop up every day and most popular music seems incapable of naming, let alone responding to, the moment. Freedom’s Gate reminds us that the great artists of the Civil Rights Movement were not inevitable. They were the product of hours of conversation, study, collaboration, and disagreement, of women talking after hours in a smoky club or listening to one another rehearse. Freedom’s Gate offers a possible blueprint for how musicians might get back to making music that speaks to the moment. 

 

Samantha Irby is one of my favorite writers. I am not alone in this feeling. Her essay collections Meaty, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, and, most recently, Quietly Hostile are some of my favorites. Irby pulls off a nearly impossible trick, which is writing things that are truly funny, not just an editor’s idea of cleverness. She’s also one of the few living writers who can construct a profound fart joke. In addition to her essays, Irby writes for television, most recently And Just Like That…, as well as Shrill and Tuca & Bertie. She’s also an avid romance reader, so when the internet went into a frenzy over the upcoming movie Wicker, a horny fairy tale in which Olivia Colman commissions a basketmaker played by Peter Dinklage to weave her a sentient wicker basket in the shape of a man who happens to look like Alexander Skarsgard, she was exactly who I wanted to talk to about what was going on and why so many people love these types of stories. 

First, I have to ask … what are your thoughts on Wicker? And have you read the short story it was based on? 

Girl, I would watch that gorgeous freak watch paint dry, I’m down so bad for him—so, yes, I am frothing at the mouth for Wicker. I really hope the sex scenes are insanely graphic. I mean, is there a rating system for rattan-based intercourse? I’m so excited for more people to get into monster porn, and fingers crossed that this movie is a gateway drug. I had no idea Wicker was based on a short story, so I guess I now have homework to do.

Why do you think so many people are drawn to monster-human romance? And do you think it can work with a femme monster—like, a true monster, not just a creepy lady—and masc human?

When everyone, including myself, went into psychosis over Heated Rivalry, this is what I wrote about it: “The thing that makes the books and show most appealing is that it’s easy to project onto these men without the reflexive analysis of, say, wondering why no one ever put their multimillion-dollar professional hockey career in jeopardy for me. No need to speculate on whether or not if I had a different body or a better personality someone would have [ruined] their entire life just to [have sex with me].” 

And I feel kind of the same way about monster books, like: “This is never going to be possible on this planet in this dimension, so I don’t have to waste even a millisecond wondering why it’s not happening to me.” It’s also such a relief to not have to apply the fallible qualities of a human man to these strapping beasts! I don’t think, “A dude would never do something that nice,” because maybe a minotaur would! It’s possible that gargoyles are extremely tender lovers, and I will literally never be able to disprove that!

This is the first time I’ve ever thought about it, but I would love a novel with a lady monster. I mean, that’s the whole thing about these novels, right, that anything you dream of happening can magically happen? Now, I do not believe that anyone in Hollywood would ever in one million years gift us a hulking lady ogre to drool over as she sexually mounts a human partner, and that’s why books are superior to movies.

 

 

 

Do you think there’s such a thing as a guilty pleasure? I asked Jamaica Kincaid this question and she scoffed in my face and said, “Why would I ever tell you about something I feel guilty about?”

 

I do not! Life is so hard and bad, we are living in a collective nightmare, and I am actively praying for the sun to explode and wipe us all out, so if there’s anything that can distract you from the horrors surrounding us and give you even a fleeting moment of joy, you should put it on a billboard. Guilt and shame are so crazy, and I’m trying to have less of it in my life, and while I’m not doing great at that in other aspects, when it comes to my happy smut, I don’t give a shit. I really don’t care. I would talk to Michelle Obama about Kraken smut; I would go on CNN and talk about this gay-orca-shapeshifter romance I just bought. This is that freedom our ancestors fought for!

 

What is the best romance you’ve read recently, and what made it stand out to you?

 

I just read this YA romance called Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert, who is one of my absolute favorite romance writers. Her banter is always sharp and funny, and she does mental-illness rep really well. Her characters always feel extremely lived-in. Also, Talia is British, and I’m a sucker for biting British humor. I like my romances sprinkled with a little sarcasm and meanness, and she’s so great at it. Plus, she writes about complex, fat Black women who never even consider attempting to change their bodies! Without giving too much away, this one’s about an ambitious young woman with daddy issues and her OCD-battling ex-best friend but maybe also boyfriend. It’s so charming, you could die.

 

Who are some romance authors you are always excited to read?

 

Alicia Thompson! Jasmine Guillory! Cat Sebastian! Adib Khorram! Kosoko Jackson! Mariana Zapata! Kimberley Lemming! Tal Bauer! J.J. Mulder! Olivia Dade! Talia Hibbert! Leonor Soliz! Laurel Holl! Sara Raasch! Lily Mayne! Anita Kelly! Tierney Rose! Hannah Bonam-Young! Fae Quin! Tia Williams! Danielle Allen! TJ Klune! Charlotte Stein! Jax Calder! Mhairi McFarlane! Jonah Yorke! Lucky Hart! Alexis Hall!

 

What is a romance couple combination you long to see or read about?

 

Actually fat woman (get outta here, “curvy”)/actually fat woman. Old crone/young bimbo. (I need more old-gay-woman smut, please!! I am begging.) MILF/MILF (and when I say “MILF,” I mean, like, an actual soft-bellied, cardigan-wearing, NPR-donating, lunch-packing, minivan-driving mom).

 

 

What is a romance couple or trope that doesn’t do it for you? I think I read someone say once that they hated enemies to lovers because why would they want to sleep with someone who hated them?

 

This is probably considered bigotry in some circles, but I simply cannot do any version of polyamory. It is just not my thing. I don’t want a reverse harem, I don’t want three men, and nothing takes me out of the fantasy faster than trying to suspend my disbelief that three or more people can exist harmoniously in a romantic and sexual relationship. Extraterrestrial smut is more plausible to me. 

 

What are your feelings on a historical romance?

 

I am allergic to history and learning things, so I haven’t read any yet, but I did just buy a couple on the recommendation of one of my favorite booksellers, so I’m gonna give it a shot, m’lady.

 

How did you start reading romance? What was the first book within the genre you ever read, if you can remember?

 

I don’t know if this is cheating, but the first romance book that came to mind was Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, which I read when it came out in 2013. Honestly, though, my voracious romance consumption really kicked up last year. My friend opened a romance bookstore in Portland, Maine, and I started reading her recs, then I read all six of the Heated Rivalry books while deep in my psychosis at the beginning of the year, and I haven’t slowed down since. I think I’ve read almost 50 romance books since January? It’s like ice cream. They just slide down so easy.

In each edition of this newsletter, we ask writers to share a space where they wrote something beautiful. It can be their regular writing spot or an unexpected place of inspiration. This week’s writer is Hannah Lillith Assadi. Assadi’s latest novel, Paradiso 17, is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award in Fiction. Her other novels include The Stars Are Not Yet Bells and Sonora.

Hannah Lillith Assadi: “I don’t have an office, but I have a small writing space demarcated from the rest of my bedroom by a handcrafted wood room divider. This is a photograph of the desk where I wrote Paradiso 17. It’s also the desk on which I wrote my previous two novels. Jake, my partner, bought the antique desk for me years and years ago, and I wish I could remember the circumstances of that purchase because it’s brought me a lot of writing magic over the years. I surround myself with images I’m thinking about in my work. For Paradiso 17, it was photographs of my father from across his life, as well as a rendering of Safad, his hometown in Palestine. Just beside my desk is the piano, which I keep telling myself I will play again, and a painting of my father’s, which I can’t mount because he left it out in the old garden so long, the canvas suffered from weather damage. There are also artworks here by some of my friends and one by an ex-lover who passed in 2014 and who I am finally trying to write about now. Visuals are very important to me, as is music. I write my dreams down every day. Of course, what’s not pictured here is the room extending beyond the writing space, lined with books, some in piles on the carpet, because I’ve run out of bookshelves!”