Mark Bessen

Mar 18, 2024 | memoirland.substack.com | Laureli Ivanoff |Lynne Tillman |Mark Bessen |Victoria Chan

Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by , now featuring four verticals:Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus,  Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation. First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “You Have Been Given,” an excerpt of ’s new essay collection.

Mar 14, 2024 | electricliterature.com | Wynter K. Miller |Mark Bessen

Standing in line at the H-E-B checkout, I’m mindlessly deleting emails when a photo of a naked, pornographically hot beefcake stretched out on a massage table illuminates my screen. I recoil and quickly pull the front of my jacket around the phone, worried I’ll scandalize a wayward shopper, or worse, traumatize some passing youth. I tap the bookmark button, then quickly swipe to another screen and wait for my turn to clumsily scan my groceries.