Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette

Share this post

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette
Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette
From the Archives | Dear Curious: Is That Fucked Up?

From the Archives | Dear Curious: Is That Fucked Up?

Lit Salon on what it means to write things that "reach far enough into the universe to make things messier and more difficult"

Jeannine Ouellette's avatar
Jeannine Ouellette
Oct 11, 2024
∙ Paid
51

Share this post

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette
Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette
From the Archives | Dear Curious: Is That Fucked Up?
44
7
Share

originally published October 2023

Once in a while, someone asks you a question you’ve heard a million times before, but for whatever reason, you hear it anew. You hear it as if for the first time.

That happened to me last fall when I joined my friend Heidi Czerwiec in helping another friend,

Sonya Huber
, launch her beautiful book of essays, Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook. We gathered at Moon Palace Books, my favorite Minneapolis indie radical progressive anti-racist bookstore—the ground-zero of support during the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder—and we each read from our recent work before taking questions from the crowd.

The question that hit me hardest was the simplest one, the shortest one, the one I’ve heard countless times. For whatever reason, I heard it differently that night and I’ve thought about it again and again since. Maybe because I keep getting older, or because the world keeps getting harder, or because every day that passes, I care a little bit more.

Like I sa…

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Jeannine Ouellette
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share