Hi everyone, I’m Bryan, and I’ll be your Tyrant of the month for this, the shortest month of the year.

I’m writing to you from America, during a time that feels imminently apocalyptic. Over the past few months I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends about the purpose of art in These Times, and my opinion seems to change with my mood and the news. I’ve rolled my eyes more than once at the suggestion that art is now “more important than ever,” but at the same time have deeply connected to emerging new mediums, like videos of white supremacists being beaten in the street.

So who knows. I know that without art I’d be a less empathetic person, but I also wonder how well empathy has served me, and whether there are other, more useful personality traits I should focus on sharpening while the tides rise.

I don’t know.

So I reached out to my favorite writers saying I wanted to know what they were working on and thinking through right now, even if it’s rough around the edges, or seems trivial, or whatever.

I’m really excited to share their work with you, and I hope you enjoy reading. And if not, at least this is a very short month.

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I’ll continue to post links to the work I post here

Must Be Peopled by David Burr Gerrard

Something Great About The Sun by Meredith Alling

The Nigger Knockers by Rion Amilcar Scott

Album Reviews of 1994 by Julia Dixon Evans