A Year in Reading: Mairead Small Staid

In January, every vein in my body expands, the amount of blood coursing through them increasing. Strange voluminous thing. I’m unable to read anything (too queasy each day, all day) but a book borrowed from the library in which an embryo is depicted at its actual size. I can cover it with my littlest finger, and do, a fact I write down in my notebook. In my notebook, I do not call it it. I call it you.

In February, I read ’s and ’s , on translation. I have spent the last couple years working on a book about translation, about marriage as a co-written text—but now it (you?) is on its way, this actuality we’ve authored. Funny, I never thought of myself as one for collaboration. Never