Editor’s note: Art and the City is a special project by The Dallas Morning News arts and entertainment staff. We asked more than 100 members of North Texas’ creative community to tell us in their own words how they are living life and making art during the great shutdown of 2020. We also asked artists to share a piece of work that is especially meaningful to them right now. You can contribute to this project by emailing us at artslife@dallasnews.com or share your work online with the hashtag #DFWArtMatters. We are sharing work weekly in our free Arts & Entertainment newsletter, sign up at join.dallasnews.com/newsletter.
Want to see more from Art and the City 2020? Check out the links below:
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Singing to my cat. This is now a thing.
Yesterday I performed Kenny Rogers songs for my cat. Wallace and I have shared my crooked little carriage house for a while, but lately things have gotten intense. “Lady,” I sang, as his big marble eyes followed my sweeping hands. “I’m your knight in shining armor, and I love you.” I started listening to Rogers after his death on March 20. I was surprised how much of the emotional sweep and piano tinkle of those ’80s ballads felt burned on my brain, a hit of nostalgia at an uncertain time. Like every writer I know, I’m struggling with what to say, how to make money, if the center holds.
I’ve spent the past years working on a memoir that was partly an attempt to understand my perpetual solitude; once a life circumstance, now a government mandate. I wonder what such extended isolation does to the human spirit. I wonder who we’ll be on the other side. For now, pop songs are an escape, as they’ve always been. I scooped up Wallace in my arms; this creature is so patient with me. “You’re the love of my life,” I sang, scratching under his chin as his head tilted toward the sky. “You’re my lady.” And his eyes fluttered closed as the cymbal shivered and the piano plunked its final note.
— Sarah Hepola is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget” and the upcoming “Unattached.”
Words with friends
I’m a literary agent by day — I have been for 27 years. COVID-19 has adversely affected the book business, of course — nothing can replace the intoxicating experience of walking into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, being wonderfully exposed to all those different books, and walking out with a book or books you didn’t know you needed. That simply can’t be replicated online, so internet sales aren’t picking up the slack and never will. But the pandemic has also affected publisher acquisitions, which is what my job entails. At the big five NYC publishing houses, everyone’s working from home, and though they’re still buying books, it’s just not the same. But my job hasn’t changed that much — I’m just doing it from home, working with authors on their nonfiction book proposals and their novels, and trying to sell the same to editors. Life — and publishing — will go on.
— James Donovan is a Dallas-based literary agent and author of ‘Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11.’
Weathering the storm
My son, Archer, turned 6 months old the day known U.S. cases of the novel coronavirus started doubling every four to five days. He’s too little to know about nonlinear spread, but he probably wonders why he sees so much of dad now. As the virus began burning through northern Italy, my writing life had just begun to restart after a paternity hiatus. I’d recently turned in a draft of my first magazine feature since Archie’s birth. Perhaps I’d also soon find the follow-up to my first book, The Man Who Caught the Storm. Then it became clear that the trouble we’d watched from afar was already here. While Dallas County set about defining which employees it deemed “essential,” my wife, Renee, and I took similar stock of our own household’s division of labor. Her: A full-time employee with fantastic health insurance. Me: A freelance magazine writer and, to date, one-time author. I’m not sure there was ever an actual discussion. Day care was closed, and we couldn’t both work. The morning Archie turned 6 months, I was with him for his first butterfly sighting. It lifted off from purple wisteria flowers next to our porch and wobbled through the air right past his face, absolutely blowing his baby mind. For now, this is my gig. I keep him safe, happy and home.
— Brantley Hargrove is the Dallas-based author of “The Man Who Caught the Storm: The Life of Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras.” hbrantleyhargrove.com.
Wishful thinking
My nana had a saying: “Be careful what you wish for — you just might get it.” And now, I have the gift of time. Mornings are mine again — no more driving strangers from before dawn to long past dinner, no more being too tired to write. I’m reminded how it feels to be a poet — I notice the monarch flying above my three-story building, I watch my cat watch the leaves skip down the street. I’m present when blue jays against dry grass warn against forgetting that, even in a time of great collapse, vibrant life continues. I celebrate with wild solo dance parties. I work on my Lupita [Nyong’o] arms. I admire new hair on my legs as they swing from my patio. I sing loudly to the night. I listen to quiet, and I listen to myself. I tell my mind sharp sensations in my body are just a song by the Temptations. I agitate as much as I meditate. I write to city council. I’m back on social media and new to Nextdoor, trying to incite a rent strike. My calendar has entries for Skype dates I can make instead of events that I can’t because of capitalism.
— Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is a Dallas poet, writer and founder of Dark Moon Poetry & Arts. She is the author of “Everything Good Is Dying” and “Moon Woman.”
The stories we tell ourselves — and others
I teach fiction at SMU and Writing Workshops Dallas and feel lucky to be teaching in these uncertain times. My days consist of the same work as before the pandemic, but the classroom has migrated online. The human connection around a workshop table now feels increasingly urgent; individual stories matter as we find ourselves siloed at home, where I share a studio with my wife, visual artist Danielle Huey Kimzey. I’m privileged to spend more time with my three children. We’re all watching a lot of Disney+ in between DISD homeschooling and making up stories at bedtime. Our imaginations are on fire because we don’t know what will happen next. Our lives at home feel indefinite, and the great benefit of teaching fiction is that it keeps me engaged in my own creative work.
— Blake Kimzey is the executive director of Writing Workshops Dallas and the author of the story collection “Families Among Us.”
Postcards from the edge
Any week, I write postcards to friends in between the shuffling itineraries of work. Walking them to my neighborhood USPS mailbox is an activity that uncommonly doesn’t require a car. This week, the “essential” nature of this diversion is called into question. It has been a challenge to maintain the same number of steps, words, emails and clicks while the circumstances underneath them are shifting so rapidly. My hours are still occupied as my routine is adapting to isolation and economic uncertainty. In the past, I spent a lot of my time filling my library. These days, I’m organizing it.
— William Sarradet is a Dallas-based arts writer.
At the end of the world
My wife, the artist Nancy Rebal, and I, and our three dogs, have decamped to our little house in the little town of Corsicana about an hour south of Dallas where she has a studio and I have nothing but time, it seems, to address my publisher’s edits for a forthcoming book. We sit on our front porch in the evenings watching small-town life pass by and thinking of the end of On the Beach when the clouds of radiation approached to the strains of “Waltzing Matilda.” Such a jolly song, I always thought, to go so terribly sad. We wave at neighbors from a distance, read a bit from The Decameron, crank our Victrola up to play a 78 of Vaughn Monroe’s 1943 “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World).” And, if it’s clear tonight, I’ll haul my old brass astronomical telescope out on the deck to look at Venus’ moon-like crescent and the ghostly glow of the nebula in Orion, some 1,300 light years away. And in which constellation I’m happy to be able to note already, just standing and looking, the big red star we like to call “Beetle Juice,” having inexplicably dimmed for a while, is brightening again. Being old at the end of the world, I think, is not so bad.
— David Searcy is the author of “Shame and Wonder: Essays.”
The new simple life
In my day-to-day life, things have not changed drastically, as they have for many. I’m an introvert who mainly works from home. But internally — emotionally and psychologically — I’m very much affected, anxious and filled with worry for loved ones, especially my 83-year-old father. My thoughts and my heart are full with concern for people in general, for lives and livelihoods affected by this pandemic. For comfort, diversion and pleasure, I lean into nature. Spring is unfolding, as it always has, all around us: Oaks and elms release their golden pollen, their canopies shimmer with burgeoning leaves; rain tentative and rain bursting meet the ground, the windowpane; daffodils, anemones, irises, roses make their bold entrances onto the start-stop North Texas vernal stage; clouds — soft, swollen — swim languidly across blue skies; outside our living room window, the sprightly comings and goings of the Carolina wren couple who have moved into the bird house draw our attention away from the TV. The beauty and solace that nature — always cycling, moving forward — gifts us is untiring. This year, we humans return an unintended gift to nature: A much-needed respite from our constant doings and churnings. This, too, gives me comfort.
— Fowzia Karimi is a Texas-based artist and writer. Her illustrated debut novel, “Above Us the Milky Way,” publishes Tuesday. fowziakarimi.com.
‘The solitude is palpable’
As a writer, I feel compelled to take advantage of the free time, but the stillness of the world is deafening. The bubble of being at home is reflected by the outside world being in a bubble of its own. The solitude is palpable. We can feel it in our cores. I’ve been spending these days in a familiar yet alien world in the streets, in the parks and in my own home. Writing, checking in on family, cooking, listening to music, trying to get used to video-chatting with friends — there is joy in these activities, but they seem out of reach at times, as if we were doing them behind glass. It’s hard to think of what hasn’t or won’t be changed. From the way we socialize, down to the way we touch others and even ourselves. I hope we feel compelled to rise to the occasion. We will certainly be defined by our responses to COVID-19, collectively and individually. A new determination could rise within us. When this is over, the compassion we gain for one another could be the only thing worth truly celebrating.
— Mike Soto is the author of “Dallas Spleen,” and his debut full-length collection of poetry, “A Grave Is Given Supper,” will be published this summer. deepvellum.org.
DIY? The future is now
I’m getting back in touch with my DIY publishing roots. I’ve been laying out eBooks, setting up new titles on a print-on-demand basis, offering “freemiums,” making my work available under Creative Commons licenses, and participating in virtual/remote reading series. Yes, in one way, I’m just clearing out my archives. But I am also trying to steer that impulse away from marketing and toward generosity. That is, I hope to emerge from this experience with a better grasp of the means of literary production and equipped with skills I can apply to making alternative models of authorship more sustainable. From my point of view, the future has changed. The bad news: It’s arrived sooner than I expected. The good news: Now that’s it here, I can stop anticipating and start intervening.
— Joe Milazzo is the author of a "fictional anthology of fake translations of nonexistent texts by imaginary authors’ called “From the Falling Latitudes.”
‘I like a slow life.’
The quarantine has been dark, obviously. There’s an odor of nightmare about it. Like everyone else, I worry about friends and family for the same cruel array of reasons. No one is safe. Some jobs are suddenly dangerous, some suddenly vanished. But also, the hours slow down. I get to know myself — and loved ones — better. We organize our lives around seeking essentials like food, exercise, human interaction. Days — like weeks’ worth of rainwater gathering in one tub — wash into each other, becoming a single soak of contemplation. I like a slow life. Not that everything has come to a halt. I’ve been working remotely with creative collaborators and students. I’ve been writing. I’ve learned to fingerpick “The South Wind.”
— Greg Brownderville is a poet and an associate professor of English at Southern Methodist University.
This won’t be easy
For the past five years, I’ve worked from home as an author and freelance writer, so I know how important socializing is for mental and physical well-being. Social distancing would not be easy.
The first week, I took many walks and found purpose giving a social-distancing literary reading of my novel, Secrets of the Casa Rosada, for my apartment building with the support of our company, Ci Management. However, loneliness pushed me to quarantine with my parents, and now I have social interaction, a hot tub, and a backyard where I like to write.
Although I’m still working on my next novel, my freelance career has taken a hit because I specialized in travel and arts writing. I stay occupied pitching articles, planning online seminars, and preparing for two online classes – Magical Realism and Prep Your Novel – I’m teaching with Writing Workshops Dallas in April.
During this time, I’ve found peace sunbathing by the pool with my mom, building planters with my dad, and writing a short story about how Dallas might heal when this passes. But what helps most is taking off my shoes and walking through the grass, so that I can ground myself in the natural beauty we have.
— Alex Temblador is a novelist and freelance writer based in Dallas.
How Have Things Changed?
These days, I, a poet, watch this world
slowly reach the same conclusions I have:
human rights matter to more than just humans,
the earth is tired of our [expletive].
Purchasing power is not more luxurious than love.
Your undoing in quarantine
might be the only thing that will save us
from indefinite incarceration,
eco genocide.
In the ancient cultures I come from,
the ones that were burned, imprisoned,
and buried into my blood,
stories of bats describe a ritual death,
an initiation for a new beginning,
a rebirth in darkness.
These days, like many nights before,
I, a queer brown female body in movement
born of criminalized peoples,
remember our bodies
were never made for,
nor welcomed
into, a world
where loving,
moving, and breathing,
are punished
with lethal dis-ease.
These days, for me and mine,
nothing has changed.
We continue miraculously living into
the tender fierce resilience
this warring world has conceived
knowing the Fall is coming
but first there must be Spring.
A Recommendation:
For you reading this,
painfully recognizing the season,
consider setting aside diversion
and being brave enough to see
you are a seed in potent darkness
reach for the cool water
find pleasure in thundering night
touch the earth that is your skin
call in the magic buried in your blood
dare to break open in climax by your own hands
for our work now is to bloom beautiful in chaos
and return home come winter
— Edyka Chilomé is a Dallas-based poet, activist and cultural worker. She is the author of “El Poemario del Colibrí” and “She Speaks Poetry.”
Updated, April 5 at 12:20 p.m.: Additional writing by Edyka Chilomé has been added to this story.
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