“Recently, a new friend kept scrunching up her nose when I said my family moved from California to Detroit. This happens all the time. But in this moment it hit me that one of the things that makes no sense when people ask “WHY DETROIT?” with all of their death showing is this presumption that we can choose our homes.”

I stumbled on Borealis around this time last year and was so excited to see Aisha Sabatini Sloan had a new collection out. This did not disappoint. I’m not a writer, but pieces on craft always grip me and I loved not only the reflections on home but also hearing about the writing community and epiphanies some residencies can bring.

The way the COVID-19 pandemic was discussed and analyzed was especially validating and cathartic.

“The film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, begins with a little black girl gazing up into the face of a white man wearing a hazmat suit. A street preacher standing on a small box asks: “Why do they have on these suits and we don’t?” He refers to the hazmat men as “George Jetson rejects.” It feels wild to watch the film right now, as governors begin to take their states out of lockdown knowing that black and brown residents will continue to die at unprecedented rates, taking a calculated risk that will look, from the vantage point of history, a lot like genocide. The film’s street preacher sounds obscenely prophetic. “You can’t Google what’s going on right now,” he shouts. “They got plans for us.’”