On October 24, 2026 at New York Insight Meditation Center, I had the pleasure of gathering with writers, readers, and friends to celebrate seventeen years of Big Other. Since founding the journal in 2009, I’ve thought of it as an (im)possibility space, viz., a continuum for subversive writing that challenges expectations and expands our sense of what literature can be and what it might become.
A Night of Readings Celebrating Big Other featured readings by Big Other contributors Martine Bellen, Elaine Equi, Heller Levinson, Dawn Raffel, John Reed, John Schertzer, Terese Svoboda, and Micah Zevin. Their superb work took us through strange atmospheres, irreal landscapes, dark comedy, philosophical inquiries, and intimate meditations on love, loss, death, memory, history, being, becoming, and much more besides, each writer distinctively demonstrating how literature can unsettle assumptions and open unexpected possibilities.
It was a delight to emcee the evening, of course, but an even greater pleasure to hear such extraordinary writing brought to life again and again, and to convivially commune with everyone before and after the readings.
The celebratory gathering grew organically out of New York Insight’s Artist Salon and Café, which, on a monthly basis, brings artists of all forms together in a spirit of attentive presence and shared exploration. I find the connection between literary experimentation and contemplative practice especially meaningful. Both invite us to slow down, question our habitual ways of seeing, and remain open to what we don’t yet fully comprehend.
Big thanks to New York Insight Meditation Center for hosting the event, especially Community Steward Kathy Ferrara for helping make the evening possible, to photographer Tom LeGoff for marvelously documenting the gathering (see the photos below), and to all the volunteers! All proceeds from the evening supported New York Insight’s programming efforts.
And kudos and big thanks, again, to Martine Bellen, Elaine Equi, Heller Levinson, Dawn Raffel, John Reed, John Schertzer, Terese Svoboda, and Micah Zevin for sharing their work, and to everyone who came to listen and celebrate!
Seventeen years is a beginning, another point from which to look inward and outward, another occasion to discover what we haven’t yet imagined.
Thank you for being part of this continuing journey.
Excelsior!
(Header image: Julie Mehretu’s Renegade Delirium, 2002)
