Issue 8: Inheritance
tonight at Nightclub 101
Our eighth print issue includes: our dead friends & their unfinished projects, JFK assassination cross-stitches, sperm donation centers in minor American cities, ill-advised campus romances, prima ballerinas with ankle monitors, online poker, and Sophie Madeline Dess’s decisive statement on her debut: “I’d rather die than have my parents read it.” Our cover and back cover are both oil paintings courtesy of Stella Winter.
If you’re in New York, you can pick up a copy tonight at 101 Essex. If not, you can order it here.
Our longtime Creative Director Nat Ruiz laid out this issue, with emotional and technical assistance from Jack Lamborn. Nat also contributed a number of illustrations. It’s our first print issue in a while: Never ask a man his age. Never ask a woman how frequently her magazine comes out.
We have excerpts from Stephanie Wambugu’s Lonely Crowds, Natasha Stagg’s Grand Rapids, & Emily Adrian’s Seduction Theory, three brilliant, singular novels that are out this year. The issue also includes a new story from Sophie Kemp, six new poems by Alisha Dietzman rescued from our slush pile, and an old poem from Tao Lin, who has contributed to every print issue to date. Also inside of Inheritance: the self-titled extract from Barry Hannah’s Boomerang (1989.) Will Stephenson, who wrote the introduction to the book’s new edition, will be reading some of it tonight at 101. Luckily for everyone, a number of Barry Hannah’s books are in the process of being reissued, including The Tennis Handsome, which I am writing a new introduction to for Open Road’s 2026 edition.
As ever, the best way to support our little project is to subscribe. Or, if you happen to be heir to a textile fortune, get in touch. Paper is expensive.
I’d like to start publishing excerpts from our sold-out print catalogue on this platform again, and maybe I’ll get around to it soon. A handful of those older issues will be available tonight in person.
A lot has happened in the five years since our first reading at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. But I guess a lot is always happening.
Thanks for being part of Forever.
x Anika