An Issue for Ordinary Time

• Molly McCully Brown on how sustained attention can turn an unprepossessing view beautiful
• A conversation with George Saunders on afterlives and whether we can change
• KC McGinnis on the glances photojournalists don’t intend to capture
• Robert M Geraci on Michael Takeo Magruder and controlled prairie burns
• Art that troubles worship as spectacle by Marcus Clarke
• Art that collaborates with non-humans by Eileen Ryan
• Fiction in translation from Miral al-Tahawy
• Poems by Lawrence Joseph, Li-Young Lee, and Allison Seay
• Kyle Abbott Smith on making a life after the marines
• An object arrives for Lia Purpura
• And much more

On the cover: Eileen Ryan. Spiritual Microbiome: Notes on Blood and Water (detail), 2024. Installation with sheep’s blood agar and holy water.