Prosebuds (Issue 7: Jan. 2026)
Feliz Año Nuevo + Prosebud Vanessa Garcia!
Note: 🎧 For accessibility, I provide a reading of every Prosebuds issue audiobook-style. Listen by clicking the play button on the above “Article Voiceover” tab.
Hey, ‘buds!
It’s 2026 and, like many of us, I’m eager for all the promise of the new year! It’s truly an optimist’s holiday, but also inherently for everyone (which is ideal). Time again for our annual fresh start, and with our newly-minted Mayor Mamdani here in New York City, there’s plenty to be hopeful about. (Though, I must admit, as I return to this draft a day later, my heart aches for Venezuela in this intense period of uncertainty.)
On the first day of the year I had the chance to experience the Ruth Asawa retrospective at MoMA (running through February 7th—catch the show if you can). Though probably best known for her coiled sculptural pieces (apparently influenced by Mexican-crafted baskets constructed in a similar fashion), I found myself particularly taken by Asawa’s featured watercolor work and devotion to public art—notably the Japanese-American Internment Memorial she created in San Jose, California. In her development of the memorial, Asawa made a firm commitment to feature the crest or “Mon” of each family, including her own, interned in the camps during World War II. Perhaps my favorite part of the exhibit: the featured correspondence between Asawa (via her daughter, Addie Lanier) and one family whose Mon representation she seemed determined to “get right” (See: “Sato” card in the bottom row, second image from the left, featuring the original version of the Mon.)
Also of special note: a beloved curator of the show—Janet Bishop from SFMoMA, was it you?—chose to feature a variety of application materials from the five times the artist applied to the illustrious Guggenheim Fellowship. In Asawa’s prolific life filled with so much varied, dynamic work, she never received a Guggenheim award—and yet, she always found ways to pursue the work regardless. I appreciated so much the intimate type-written touchstones, maps, and design ideas from her works in-progress, and I’m so glad Ruth Asawa got her flowers in other ways.
“Everything is connected, continuous,” said Asawa — a line featured in the show about her signature sculptural motif, but also her persistent search for new artistic possibilities, and arguably the relationship to community inherent in so much of her work. I hope that you, too, can bathe in all the potential of 2026. May it be a peaceful year of powerful connectivity for all of us.
xCQ
CQ Serialized Fiction | Falling From the Inside: Chapter 7
This month—thanks in part to Ruth Asawa and my current reading material, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell—I’m taking the opportunity to move beyond the format I’ve followed with previous chapters of Falling from the Inside. I’m reminding myself that this is the very beginnings of this work-in-progress, and while I appreciate the serialized format, I don’t intend to be limited by it. After all, I’m still figuring out what the heck this thing is! Plus, the whole point of starting a Substack was about embracing creative freedom and not being limited by the confines of publication, etc. etc. etc.
So, in the spirit of the new year, artist’s studies and preliminary sketches, I decided to play! I started thinking I might explore Romero’s or Marie’s points of view (feel free to let me know if you have requests or opinions about either), but wound up with a little epistolary piece instead. Who knows if this chapter winds up in whatever the final version of Falling from the Inside becomes someday, but I enjoyed the exploration either way! (As always, if you want to catch up on the last six chapters, you can access the archive here.)
Chapter 7: An Unsent Email
Marie,
It’s so easy to type your name. As a matter of fact, autofill spells out the word before I even have the chance to finish, which is funny because we’ve rarely emailed and yours and Mark’s names share the same first three letters. I’ve never really thought about that before…
How are you? Really.
When I was a little girl, I’d often ask my mom, “Como estás, Mamí?” and she’d always reply with something like, “That’s a question for a stranger, not your family.” It hurt me then, as a child, but now I wonder why she couldn’t accept that my question was genuine—it wasn’t some polite, perfunctory thing, but a real question for her. Still, I learned that, for whatever reason, it wasn’t a question she wanted, so after a while I stopped asking…
Are you a stranger now? Maybe we were always more strangers than friends, or whatever else we were… Does it count if we never named it? Time is so bizarre. The distance between now and a month ago is hard to grasp. Farther back, even more so. I have this image of you in that cream suit jacket, sleeves rolled up, a few paces ahead of me on White Linen Night. You turned back and smiled at me, this sly, knowing smile. Such a small, sweet moment. It’s nice to be able to keep those sorts of memories, despite everything.
I’d like to go back. But what good would that do? I’m not sure I could stop any of what happened… even with what I know now.
I don’t sleep much these days. I’m not saying that to gain any kind of sympathy—it’s just a fact. The new normal. Right now, I’m curled up in a stained throw blanket (a rogue PBJ incident) on the couch with my laptop. I know you’ve never been inside our house, but I’m sure you can get the picture. A high-ceilinged Uptown situation. A basic leather couch. A living room that’s best at night since this side of the house can never seem to get enough light. Mostly, I’ve just been staring into the darkness wondering whether the ghost will appear again. Hoping for him to return, honestly. I haven’t seen him since… I guess I never even had the chance to tell you about him, but let’s just pretend you know. I visit the Marie in my imagination often, and she’s definitely versed in all of it. Scrooge got his three ghosts, but maybe l’ll only ever have one?
Often, I find myself awake in the early morning hours imagining your nightly tasks while on shift at the hospital. You’re probably there now, maybe in a pair of those purple scrubs I once spotted in your dresser. I hope it’s a quiet night for you, but I don’t want to jinx it. You’ve taught me that much… Sometimes I think about what it was like when I gave birth to the boys—my one and only hospital stay—and though I know you don’t work labor and delivery, I insert your face for one of the nurses I met just to get a sense of how you might pop in and out of patient rooms, collect vitals, deliver medications. I’ve always imagined you must be very good at your job. I guess I envy you that way—I never had a vocation like you or Mark. Mine is a career I cobbled from my husband’s. Maybe Mark’s right and now’s the time to start over? It’s more an idea than a real possibility, I’m afraid. Our lead developer assures us “all will be well,” and I’ve been telling Mark and myself the same because what else am I supposed to do?
Of course, all is not well… how could it be? After that morning running into you in Kenner, I keep wondering how well you knew him, his family. It must have been through the clinic where you volunteer, right? You kept that part of your life so hidden from me. Maybe for good reason. Still, I imagine you probably know so much more about him than I do. Were you friends? Did you drink beers together? Did you go to his house often, or was that the first time? Would you ever tell me? Probably not.
I haven’t been able to trace him. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough, but his name is so common in Honduras, and I have no idea what town he’s even from. He was truly a stranger. All the men we lost were strangers to me. But with him especially, I can’t help but wonder: how can it be that you can work so hard and do so many things right and, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter? Even that is just a story I invented about him, of course—but I really believe it.
I looked up flights to Tegucigalpa. Around $600 right now, depending on the departure date. I almost bought a ticket—but why? What the hell would I do there?
I won’t go back to his house. I promise. But I’m certainly tempted… even if I know it would be a mistake. Was that his child? His only child? One of two or many? That woman his wife, his girlfriend, fiancée? I have no idea, of course, but based on your reaction, I presume they must have been family…
It’s such a mess— all of it. All that twisted steel, an unmarked burial ground that will take months to demolish. Maybe years. I learned this week that on top of everything else, we missed an inspection. Way to bury the lede, I know… The city inspector never showed. He was “expected to reschedule.” I recognize how things work in this city, in every city in America, but especially ours. Did our developer pay him off? Probably. Will I ever know for sure? Probably not. We have serious lawyers; everything is different.
I’m going to delete this message now. You’ll never read it, and I guess it will be like I never wrote it. I didn’t even tempt myself by inserting your email address into the “To” line. Too dangerous. Knowing me, I might just have hit send.
I’ll get rid of the draft, too, just to be safe.
L
Featured Prosebud | Vanessa Garcia
I first met Vanessa Garcia through our inclusion as playwrights in the WP Theater Lab cohort during its fateful COVID iteration (2018-2020). Vanessa’s capacious, often genre-exploding writing runs the gamut from journalism, children’s television, an award-winning novel, and various plays and theatre projects—including the all-immersive Amparo Experience that took Miami by storm with run after sold out run—and more. As a fellow Cuban-American, Vanessa represents to me the essence of Cubanismo—an exuberance on the page and in life, an arms-outstretched spirit, and a deep devotion to her family legacy and hometown of Miami, as well as a fierce dedication to the greater Latin American community as a diasporan artist. On the morning of January 3, 2026, she posted on Instagram: “I stand with the people of Venezuela—the hope and joy in their voice as a tyrant comes down stands every hair in my body. May God guide the country right now to what’s right…”
Vanessa Garcia is a multidisciplinary writer who has won two Telly Awards and an Emmy nom for her work on Sesame Street. She’s also the author of White Light (International Latino Book Award and one of NPRs best books of the year). Theatrically, she’s the author of the hit The Amparo Experience, and other plays. Her journalism, essays and thought pieces have appeared in The LA Times, The Guardian, Catapult, and numerous other publications. She holds a PhD from the University of California Irvine. www.vanessagarcia.org
(ROSE) What’s something that’s going particularly great with your writing and/or writing process right now?
VG: You know, people talk about the “10,000 hours.” At this point, it feels like 10 million. Meaning, writing is what I’ve done for so long, every day, consistently, without fail. For over three decades basically. All leading to several things: Craft and experience, and all those things that come with practice, yes. But, the thing I am most happy about right now is confidence. I know who I am as a writer. And no one can tell me otherwise. In Spanish, we say “nadie me pinta un cuento,” ironically it translates to “no one can paint me a story.” No one, in other words, can tell me a story about my truth. I tell my story.
(THORN) What’s something that’s especially shitty about your writing and/or writing process right now?
VG: I have very little physical space right now. My house is sort of crowded, we are outgrowing it as a family, I’m desiring an office, I write in cafes much of the time. I feel a little like I don’t have a place to put my research, a physical place to “get organized,” no place for my books. I complain at times that I can’t see the organized systems I want in front of me. But then I remember a conversation I had with Wole Soyinka. He asked me what I needed to write, and I said nothing, I could write from anywhere, and he said good. He had to write from a prison cell. And then I remember that my problem is not a problem at all. I remember my answer, back then, in my twenties, and his answer to my answer, a Nobel laureate. I remember what people have had to write through, and I’m like: yeah, Vanessa, shut up. You have everything you need. Your complaints? Those are called excuses.
(STEM) Name a writer/artist/work that changed your life or sustains you.
VG: Reinaldo Arenas. I discovered him in high school but became closer to his writing in college. Throughout my life, he’s always been there as a kind of pillar. Or, in this case, a stem. His writing is like a sword; it just cuts through everything. Or maybe it’s like a heartbeat, it just pounds through everything. Or, no, maybe it’s a scar, carrying the trace of everything he lived. Having survived the worst of Fidel Castro’s attack on gay men in Cuba. Having survived tyranny, having crossed an ocean for the thing his writing always was: freedom. That’s it, that’s what his writing is, it’s the breaking through, it’s freedom.
(Prosebuds Theme Song Tag: “Here in the Garden” by Megan Bagala, performed by CQ Quintana)
Happy New Year!