2019: My Year in Writing
Like we always do about this time, here’s a round-up of all the stuff I wrote this year.
I’m contractually obligated to note that calendar years are not necessarily illustrative of anything, and that all years are bad for unique and the usual reasons. Writing is a game of evanescent victories, and while I was active this year I often had a hard time selling work what with constant editor turnover and the slow death of the American press, the result being that I didn’t get to write a lot of stuff I wanted to write. What I did write was deeply felt, except for the stuff that wasn’t. As a wise man once said: “Not all of it was gold, but you look back, you shrug, you say, ‘Hey, it’s a body of work.’”
Although I did feel stagnant at times, I’m confident that next year will be worse as far as the whole “being able to write for money” thing goes, and as my own worst critic I am happy about a lot of my by bylines from 2019, which appear in full below! I wrote some ~longform essays~, worked on my interviewing a bit, and got more comfortable writing on deadline.
While writing this year I found myself increasingly cognizant of market demands informing not only whether I could write, but what I could write. Thanks to Pitchfork for indulging me and my bucket list. Thanks to The Outline for consistently soliciting my shit, and for also being one of the last good websites, imo. There’s a lot more to be said on that front, but happily that’s not what this Medium post is for. It’s tough, man. But writing can be a good diversion, at the very least.
Editors: please reach out to me at ptosiello@gmail.com. Onward!
On Resistance Lit™️ (The Outline):
On Karen Dukess’s The Last Book Party (The Washington Post):
On Roc Marciano’s Marcielago (Pitchfork):
On French Montana’s Montana (Pitchfork):
On Steve Anwyll’s Welfare (The Washington Post):
On Chip Cheek’s Cape May (The Kenyon Review):
In conversation with Alexandrea Ravenelle (The Outline):
On the pandering Cuomo brothers (The Outline):
BJ the Chicago Kid, profiled (FLOOD Magazine):
On Dell Fargo’s Mental Health (Washington City Paper):
On Thomas Kohnstamm’s Lake City (Vol. 1 Brooklyn):
On Natasha Young’s Static Flux (Full Stop):
On Juliet Lapidos’s Talent (Washington City Paper):
In conversation with Rick Paulas (Los Angeles Review of Books):
In conversation with Jahbaz Dawson (Passion of the Weiss):
On Ankhlejohn’s A-Cold-World* (Washington City Paper):
On G4 Jag’s The Survivors (Passion of the Weiss):
On Marci Vogel’s Death and Other Holidays (Cleveland Review of Books):
On Jaime Fountaine’s Manhunt (Full Stop):
A guide to Heem Stogied’s discography (Bandcamp Daily):
I contributed to a few best-of-the-year listicles:
On Oso Oso’s basking in the glow and Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated, for FLOOD’s Best Albums of 2019:
On Freddie Gibbs and Madlib’s “Crime Pays,” for FLOOD’s Best Songs of 2019:
On Mach-Hommy’s Tuez-Les Tous and Wap Konn Joj!, for Passion of the Weiss’s Best Albums of 2019:
On Tree’s “The Verdict” and Kevin Gates’s “Walls Talking,” for Passion of the Weiss’s Best Rap Songs of 2019:
I also participated in this BBC poll about the best hip hop songs of all time (I evidently voted for Onyx and Killah Priest):
And this was a really cool piece of press!
I was featured in Literary Hub’s Secrets of the Book Critics interview series:
