Now Playing: January 2026

Our January 2026 edition of Now Playing features love letters, a novella, and a limited series, all from our contributors!

Lia Hagen

Lately, I've been looking for queerness in women's letters. In a slim collection of love letters between Virginia Woolf and the novelist Vita Sackville-West, I did not have to search very much at all. Sometimes, Woolf and Sackville-West openly used terms like lesbian and sapphist. More often, they invented their own language, a unique collection of nicknames, codewords, and coy hints. Other authors are harder to read. When letters have been destroyed, I have to interpret their absence. Jane Austen's sister thought her letters would ruin the writer's reputation. Obviously, this means that Jane Austen was a lesbian, and no, I will not be taking criticism at this time. Sometimes, despite what has been lost, there is more to be found. The Willa Cather Archive includes over 3000 of her letters, but only one to her long-term partner Edith Lewis. Cather had wanted all of their messages destroyed. I don't know why Lewis saved this romantic rumination on the stars, but I believe it was too beautiful to burn. As Cather observes the planets, she wonders if humans may be "the only wonderful things—because we can wonder." When the philosophizing is over, she compliments Edith for packing her clothes without a wrinkle. I find that this is what I want the most from these letters: the monotonous details of lesbian life, the way these women carried each other through a hostile world. I want to know how queerness has always hidden in plain sight, and I cherish every dull detail that I can find.   

Stephanie Gresham

I read The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza last month and I’m still thinking about this thoroughly delectable, bizarre book. Part detective mystery, part fairy tale, part twisty exploration of the volatility of human memory, this novella’s prose sometimes seems trancelike while still managing to accomplish an imaginative and completely unpredictable story. Weird in all the best ways. I’m probably going to start reading it over again right now.

Joan Glass

The last show I watched was Love & Death, a brilliantly acted limited series with Elizabeth Olsen, Jesse Plemons & Lily Rabe that portrays the death of Betty Gore at the hands of Candy Montgomery. Highly recommend!