Publications
“The Party Goers”
Selected as a distinguished story of 2021 by Andrew Sean Greer for Best American Stories 2022
“I was back up against the wall, trying to look like I belonged, when Julian Gould walked in. I’d heard stories of his own parties, late night and lawless, where he made people feel, with his disregard for tomorrow, like the hard work they were doing was not only serious and worthwhile but that it had desserts. We’d met once before—our introduction so brief I doubted he’d remember. I watched him notice me.”
Read the rest at The Southampton Review.
“The Long Run”
“Miranda awoke to an empty house—blankets flat beside her, air cold and breathless. Downstairs, the sheets Lucas had used were piled neatly on the couch, a note at their center: Next time, come to the city! She found another from Jeffrey on the counter; he did not sign it Love, or x. He didn’t even write his name. Miranda held the notes while she waited for the water to boil and the foggy insulation of her hangover to recede. Last night had been bad, the emptiness told her, measures worse than she had thought.”
Read the rest at The Literary Review.
“Parts and Labor”
I’ll admit I was in a fair amount of therapy then for a problem somewhere between obsessive-compulsive disorder and oral fixation. Whenever I saw an object discarded in the trash or on the street I would imagine it in my mouth. The more disgusting the object, the more acute the sensation…
Read it in BOMB Magazine’s First Proof series.
Zoran Tairovic, Blue Bike, 2015.
An intimate essay on her battle with anorexia, self-denial, and the destructive allure of devotion and sacrifice.
Growing up as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslim in Philadelphia, Halimah Marcus felt the sting of never fitting in. Until a summer of change. In riding horses, Halimah becomes empowered. In her friend Melissa, she finds a sense of belonging with a competitive edge. Desperate to transform, Halimah also discovers an avenue of rebellion against her parents’ stricture: anorexia.
Who Loves It Most is Halimah’s reflection on the fragile balance of body and spirit that teenage American girls are expected to master. For Halimah, that balance becomes a religion, a place where the body is an altar of both worship and sacrifice. Ultimately, she discovers, recovery lies not in what we deny ourselves but in what we embrace.