An investigation followed, during which it was revealed the the subjects knew they might be drugged and had signed release forms saying so; and the ones who were hospitalized already had histories of mental illness and drug addiction that could explain their reaction. As a result, no criminal charges were brought against Jumand—but the University cancelled his research and kicked him off campus. He eventually went on to form a quasi-utopian collective that lived in makeshift geodesic domes on some farmland outside of town, and died at 43 when he—accidentally, it’s believed—drove his bicycle off a cliff and into a waterfall.

In writing—both mine and my students’—there’s no predictable path to a final product. Sometimes the basic shape of a thing comes to you immediately, and the process that brings it to completion consists primarily of refinement. When this happens, editorial assistance is most valuable writ small: rhythm and pacing, sentence-level tweaks. But at other times, you don’t know what you have, or what, if anything, about it is the good part. You’re more open to people’s broad suggestions, which might send you in a new direction, and to the process of creation itself, which may bring you exciting surprises.

In my work as a teacher, I assign a lot of experimental writing prompts, with an eye towards nudging students out of their comfort zones and onto, I hope, unexpected vectors of self-discovery. My intro to creative writing course, in recent years, has consisted entirely of these prompts, one every week, two pages maximum. My thinking with these students, mostly sophomores, is that they don’t actually yet know what they’re capable of; the prompts force them to try different things. I’ve had lots of students whose best work in intermediate and advanced fiction classes grew out of these intro experiments.

Also pedestrian, quite literally, and also delightful, are the utility access panels embedded in every urban street, over which people walk and drive every day. They’re like utility access panels anywhere, except surprisingly diverse in style, embracing a wide range of patterns, symbols, and typefaces. I love a beautifully designed utilitarian object, so I photographed dozens of them, mostly in the cities of Garachico, La Laguna, and Santa Cruz. Here are a few favorites.

No, yeah, no, I don’t think so, no

He was texting somebody from bed. Trying to hide it from her—it wasn’t clear who it was.

We’ve lost something, though: the particular look of particular writers’ work. One could tell, in the old days, who wrote what at merely a glance. So-and-so favored narrow margins and monospaced fonts. Such-and-such laid his stories out like book pages, with wide margins, Garamond variants, and page headings. When we read these manuscripts, we read them the way their writers intended. The emailing of word processor files, however, has left manuscripts open to changes—substituted fonts, altered formatting. And certain shortcomings that were once made manifest by printing now go unnoticed by writers, and only appear when classmates print.

This paper, made by Japan’s Tomoegawa Co., Ltd., is indisputably, unapologetically the shit. It is very thin, yet quite tough (I haven’t accidentally torn a page yet) and mind-bogglingly smooth. Its cream color is easy on the eye. It is most commonly found in the form of loose sheets and pads, and is great for letter writing. But Nanami has bound it into these journals, and they are amazing.

Are Professors Nelson and Underbridge playing footsie? They are sitting 14 feet apart. And yet it seems to be so.

Professor Gutierrez is delivering his remarks in French and everyone is pretending to understand.

Professor Van der Hoet keeps flickering in and out of view, like a distant rare deer seen through trees.

Marty, the guy you have to like because he’s always at the bar and is super friendly but you hate him, everyone does, he’s insufferable, but you can’t not like Marty, it’s a prerequisite for drinking here, but you want to kill him, we all do

You encounter your crush in a bar. She’s with friends. We were just talking about you, she says, and the friends laugh.

She orders salad. A few bites in, she thinks, why always salad? Fuck salad!

She is walking over the bridge between the north and south ends of town. Beneath her the creek rages and roils with spring runoff.

UMPIRE CHANG DELCHANG • CHAMPION EGG • VERNOR CANDINESS • TOMAS • GRAVE LIMPET • MUNDEN HAMMENPLATZ • OL' BEN • MITSY III • JASON PEPSI • EARSLEY KENTON JR. • HEAVENY • PASTOR MINK • CHIVE ENJOY • SEVEN MYSPACE • MO EARP • V. C. D. B. PLAQUE • CAL CATFAN • TED THE ELDER • HEATHER JANE AMANAPLAN • TOASTY RUTH • MOONSPAWN LIKERS • D'TUB • SINGLES DANCEPARTY • EVENY WATERS • OVERLY CHANCE-WINTRELS, EDITOR • EAMONN MUST'VE, SERIES EDITOR

In this town, there are people who like deer and people who dislike deer. The people who like deer dislike the people who dislike deer, and the people who dislike deer also dislike the people who like deer.

When I arrived at Pohatcong Package Place, I would reach into my pocket and pull out my allowance money. Then I’d open the door and step into the air-conditioned, busy closeness of the place. Pohatcong Package Place was a liquor store. It’s gone now. It couldn’t have occupied more than 500 square feet, despite clearly having been originally designed as a residence—a little brick bungalow, probably of 1930’s design. What was once probably a sharply sloped front hard had been dug down to street level to create a small parking lot, surrounded by grassy embankments. Behind the counter stood Nick Varhal, the owner of Pohatcong Package Place.

Which is where she should have thought to look for the notebook: beneath the radiator she had set it down upon when the phone rang.

She sits up in bed and she says, “I’m going to make some toast. I’m going to eat it in bed.”

She and he are talking loudly, to be heard over the noise of the machines outside.

The Ahab smells like a radio manufactured in the nineteen-seventies that is about to, but has not quite yet, burst into flames. It smells like dog shoes the dog refused to wear that have since fallen into a box of moth flakes. It smells like a copyright-violating bootleg action figure lying at the bottom of last year’s school backpack. It smells like a roll of orthodontist’s x-ray film shoved into the back of a drawer full of old lollipops. It smells like the inside of a skateboard helmet just removed from the head of a child who earlier the same day swam in a heavily algal lake or stream. It smells like expired antidepressants. It smells like a pile of slightly moldy megachurch hymnals. It smells like a sterile bandage designed exclusively for use on eels. It smells like a nursing home on a fishing boat.