May News

A PUBLIC SPACE No. 33

An issue of choreographies. Perform a version of John Cage's 4'33" and Raven Chacon's Echo Contest. Navigate the em dash with Astrid Seme and Baroness Elsa. Differentiate the notes with Riddhi Dastidar. Plus Fiona McCrae on the accumulation of small slips. Antoine Wilson orchestrates a summoning, an arrival, a birth. Helen Oyeyemi trespasses. And more. Order your copy, or subscribe, here.

A WEEKEND WRITERS' RETREAT

We're delighted to announce our third annual Weekend Writers’ Retreat, presented in partnership with Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. Join us for a long weekend of generative writing workshops, literary talks, and evening events in Tivoli, New York. This year's retreat will be held Thursday, October 8, 2026 – Sunday, October 11, 2026, featuring an expanded number of instructors and accommodations. Stay tuned for news about applications.

2026 PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration

Mahreen Sohail, author of SMALL SCALE SINNERS (A Public Space Books), was honored at the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration in Washington, D.C. on May 6.

NEWS FROM APS FRIENDS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Luis Muñoz
ONE MOMENT (Washington Square Press)
translated from the Spanish by Garth Greenwell and Idra Novey

APS contributor Luis Muñoz examines the friction and elusiveness between self and others in this bilingual poetry collection, One Moment. Luis Muñoz's poem "Three Friends" appears in A Public Space No. 33.

Kasia Nikhamina
SEARCH WORK (OR BOOKS)

2025 APS Writing Fellow Kasia Nikhamina contributes to the new anthology Search Work, edited by Rachel Meade Smith. Made up of personal essays, archival job ads, labor research, and even a playscript, this anthology reflects on the rituals, cultural artifacts, and emotional turbulence of looking for work. Kasia Nikhamina's story "Junco and Wolf" appears in A Public Space No. 33.

Kristen Gleason
THE WALLET AND OTHER THEFTS (Fonograf Editions)

2016 APS Writing Fellow Kristen Gleason offers a collection of short fiction concerned with theft, shame, exile, tourism, masochism, God, and "Nature." Kristen Gleason's story "The Pale Pig" appeared in A Public Space No. 25.

PUBLIC ACCESS

This month's Public Access–work from the magazine's archive, made free and open to all–was selected by Vayne Ong, the new Programs Manager at A Public Space.

Selected and Introduced by Vayne Ong
Four poems and stories that consider movement with an uneasy relation to time; arrhythmia, catching up, the eleventh hour. The flurry of frantic gestures because the window of arriving comfortably has passed. When an actor forgets their lines on stage. When my in-laws arrive at our dinner reservation 30 minutes early. New York's dire lack of preparation for the World Cup. In these off-beat pieces, I learn the arts of improvisation, when a road splits.

Reenactment
Bridget Lowe
I slobber on the dimensional, I lick
the rough bark of that tree.
Continue reading.

Refugees
Thanassis Valtinos
translated from the Greek by N.C. Germanacos
I left the house unlocked so they would not break the door down. I walked and I walked and I walked. My feet were torn to shreds. I owned a pair of old shoes—after a while I carried them in my hand. I’m still walking that walk in my sleep. Continue reading.

Woman Running
Suzanne Buffam
Look at that strange woman running. There is no bus in sight. No one seems to be chasing her. No one else is even on the street at this hour. Continue reading.

Saint Andrews Hotel
Sara Majka
While her friend clipped, Helen stared across the sea. She felt as though she had lost something but she kept forgetting what it was, and when she remembered she couldn’t understand it. Continue reading.

ELSEWHERE

Congratulations to long-time APS contributing editor Yiyun Li on receiving the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir for Things in Nature Merely Grow.

On May 22, Jessica Hagedorn joins award-winning composer Mark Bennett and director Emilio Ramos for a staged concert of Most Wanted at the Lincoln Center. Most Wanted interrogates our dangerous obsession with fame and celebrity.

On June 3, APS contributor Antonio Romani will present his new book The Patient Wait of the Stones at Community Bookstore at 7 PM.

As the writer-in-residence at Fondation Jan Michalski, Mateo Askaripour will give a talk on invisibility and hypervisibility on June 4.