The Kiss: Intimacies from Writers

A deliciously diverse anthology of essays, stories, poems, and graphic memoirs, where writers explore the deeply human act of kissing.

Kisses from Nick Flynn, Rebecca Makkai, Pico Iyer, Ilyse Kusnetz, Andre Dubus III, Christian Kiefer, Camille T. Dungy, Major Jackson, Bich Minh Nguyen, Terrance Hayes, Ada Limón, Honor Moore, Téa Obreht and Dan Sheehan, Kazim Ali, Beth Ann Fennelly, and others.

In this wide-ranging collection of essays, stories, graphic memoir, and cross-genre work, writers explore the deeply human act of kissing, and share their thoughts on a specific kiss—the unexpected and unforgettable, the sublime and the ambiguous, the devastating and the regenerative. Selections from beloved authors “tantalize with such grace that they linger sweetly in your mind for days” (New York Times Book Review), as they explore the messy and complicated intimacies that exist in our actual lives, as well as in the complicated landscape of the imagination.

This is a book meant to be read from cover to cover, just as much as it’s meant to be dipped into—with each kiss pulling us closer to the moments in our lives that matter most.

From Sioux Falls to Khartoum, from Kyoto to Reykjavik; from the panchayat forests of India to the Giant’s Causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland; in taxis and at bus stops, in kitchens and sleigh beds, haystacks and airports around the globe—people are kissing one another.

The sublime kiss. The ambiguous kiss. The devastating kiss. The kiss we can’t take back. The kiss we can never give. The kiss that changes a life. In this anthology, writers and thinkers share their thoughts on a specific kiss—the unexpected and unforgettable—in an attempt to bridge the gulf, to connect us to one another on a deeply human level, and to explore the messy and complicated intimacies that exist in our actual lives, as well as in the complicated landscape of the imagination.

Sparked and developed from a series curated for Guernica by editor Brian Turner, this is a book meant to be read from cover to cover, just as much as it’s meant to be dipped into—with each kiss pulling us closer to the moments in our lives that matter most.

Brian Turner is the author of the memoir My Life as a Foreign Country and the poetry collections Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise. He directs the low-residency MFA at Sierra Nevada College. The Kiss was conceived with his late wife, the acclaimed poet Ilyse Kusnetz, to whom it is dedicated. It was developed from a series he curated for Guernica.

Contributors: Kim Addonizio – Kazim Ali – J. Mae Barizo – Laure-Anne Bosselaar – Kurt Brown – Nickole Brown – Benjamin Busch – Brian Castner – Tina Chang – Steven Church – Adam Dalva – Mark Doty – Andre Dubus III – Camille T. Dungy – Martín Espada – Dave Essinger – Siobhan Fallon – Beth Ann Fennelly – Nick Flynn – Kimiko Hahn – Cameron Dezen Hammon – Terrance Hayes – Pico Iyer – Major Jackson – Lacy M. Johnson – Christian Kiefer – Matthew Komatsu – Ilyse Kusnetz – Ada Limón – Rebecca Makkai – John Mauk – Christopher Merrill – Philip Metres – Kathryn Miles – Dinty W. Moore – Honor Moore – Aimee Nezhukumatathil – Bich Minh Nguyen – Téa Obreht – Kristen Radtke – Suzanne Roberts – Roxana Robinson – Schafer John c – Dan Sheehan – Tom Sleigh – Patricia Smith – Ira Sukrungurang – Christopher Paul Wolfe – Sholeh Wolpé

The Kiss:
Intimacies from Writers
by Brian Turner (Editor)
Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780393356885
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Available in paperback on February 12, 2019
$15.71

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The Kiss:
Intimacies from Writers

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