Innehållsförteckning för Special #3 2022 från O, Quarterly

For most of my adult life, I’ve known that a key to moving closer to self-actualization is being able to sit quietly with my thoughts, to still the noise around me so I can listen more intently to the whispers and instincts that truly guide me. It is out of that stillness that breakthroughs emerge. I’ve had a few aha moments in my time, and often they have helped me access and articulate my dreams and goals, and then to move them forward. And that’s the key. How do we keep refining what our truth and purpose is, and then integrate those learnings into action? For this issue, we wanted to share some expert advice on how to tap into those inner resources—through meditation, intentional connection, and other exercises that…

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LEIGH HABER: Appalachia is a key figure in Demon Copperhead. Why did you set the book there? BARBARA KINGSOLVER: I’m Appalachian, through and through. I grew up in Kentucky and live in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. I’m committed to writing honestly and respectfully about this region that is widely ridiculed or just invisible in mainstream American culture. Appalachia is beautiful and culturally rich, but a long history of exploitation has left us with structural poverty, limited opportunities, and educational deficits that outsiders tend to laugh at. In the latest of these tragedies—the opioid epidemic—pharmaceutical companies deliberately targeted us for their poison pill. Seeing the devastating effects here where I live moved me to look for the bigger picture and write about it. LH: How does Demon Copperhead relate to…

In June, the January 6 Congressional hearings kicked off with a scorching overview of events seemingly orchestrated by ex-president Trump and his loyalists. The first evening was punctuated by stirring testimony from the committee chair, Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi; Republican vicechair Liz Cheney; and Caroline Edwards, a young Capitol police officer whose heroic duty while severely injured was inspired by her grandfather, a Korean War veteran. On subsequent days, poll workers revealed death threats and other forms of intimidation, as did other officials who were only trying to do their duty and uphold the rule of law. The surge of protesters into the Capitol unleashed hours of carnage, chaos, and terror, forcing the evacuation of Congress on the cusp of certifying the 2020 election results. With The Storm Is…

1 / Raising Lazarus BY BETH MACY The lauded author of the bestselling Dopesick, made into last year’s groundbreaking Hulu series, here moves beyond the villainy of the Sackler family, shifting focus to the clinicians, researchers, and activists on the front lines as they wrangle solutions for those in need. Macy’s reporting is authoritative, her narrative skills peerless, as she illuminates grassroots efforts to wean addicts. 2 / Dead-End Memories BY BANANA YOSHIMOTO The acclaimed Japanese author of Kitchen and Moshi Moshi, among other short-story collections, returns with a stunner (finally being published in the U.S.) featuring five women for whom happiness arrives when “you don’t see it coming.” Cases in point: at a picnic; a couple of contented ghosts who don’t know they’re dead; feeling love when you thought…

She broke ground as Marvel’s first deaf superhero in Eternals, but Hollywood has more work to do. The actor has some ideas. On Hollywood’s misperceptions about deaf culture… “When I join a production, oftentimes the mindset is, ‘This woman is deaf. Let’s give her what she needs and what she wants because it’s her issue, it’s her challenge.’ But I’ve been deaf all my life, so it’s not a challenge. The only time my deafness becomes a challenge is when I’m around people who do not know any better. Their ignorance is a challenge, not my deafness. If they shifted that mindset to ‘What do we need to work together?’ I believe that would take a lot of the burden off deaf actors, who are constantly thinking, Wait, am I…

1. Engage your senses. The next time you’re feeling stymied, find a way to smell, taste, or touch something out of the ordinary. (Sure, it sounds crazy, but I once filled a desk drawer with sand so I could stick my feet in it and think of Cancún.) Your senses get caught up in this other experience, sparking all kinds of creative energy. 2. Build something. I’m always buying little model kits of famous landmarks—the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben—because concentrating on putting them together gives me pinpoint focus and clears out a lot of mental cobwebs. 3. Read outside the box. Go buy three magazines you’d never normally pick up. They can be about photography, home decor, woodworking—anything outside your usual realm. Leaf through them and discover what other people…

1 Treat Yourself (and Fido, Too) You don’t have to wait for the holidays to pick up a few of Oprah’s favorite things. Head to shop.oprahdaily.com for a curated selection of picks from the O of O herself (like this pack from Bindle that includes a collapsible water bowl for your pet and a 24-ounce double-walled water bottle for you), meaningful books, and branded Oprah Daily merch. (Bindle Puppy Pack, $70; shop.oprahdaily.com) 2 “The Life You Want” Planner Let Oprah be your guide to making living well a daily practice. Part weekly planner, part intention journal, this powerful tool—bound in a stunning linen with two ribbons to mark your spots—will help you strengthen the 12 focus areas that Oprah believes are essential to creating a joy-filled, purpose-driven life. Topics you’ll dive into…

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In her early 20s, Jasmine Marie was feeling emotionally and physically burned out. “I had recently graduated from a top business school and was working in a very stressful corporate career in global beauty,” recalls Marie. “The culture there, and in the industry in general, was highly stressful. I was going to the doctor all the time, developing mysterious rashes, and my nervous system was out of whack.” Then, one day at the church in Harlem where she volunteered, Marie happened upon a breath work class. Spending that hour just inhaling and exhaling was a powerful tonic. “When I left that day, I felt less claustrophobic,” she says. “My body felt so relieved.” Marie began making breath work a regular practice. “That first experience opened a door that opened a…

Kate Atkinson’s career is a trajectory unto itself. Her debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was a sensation, winning the Whitbread Prize and launching an author whose genius for marrying commercial concepts with literary panache was—and is—second to none. Her Jackson Brodie series probes, with wit and élan, the foibles of a curmudgeonly Edinburgh detective as he goes about his job. (Sometimes a crime trope isn’t just a crime trope.) Her innovations with form and structure set her apart. She’s perhaps best known for her panoramic, beautifully crafted sagas, Life After Life and A God in Ruins. Both novels unfold around one Buckinghamshire family, in particular Ursula and her younger brother, Teddy. Life After Life hammers linear storytelling into a transcendent narrative, utterly original, as Ursula is born…

I need to see,” says Max, peering over the side of the boat. The water rustles. Sun burns down on Baja, on the lagoon, on his little hooded head. We are nine passengers, including Ralph, the grandfatherly guide. Francisco, our Mexican driver, is steering the outboard motor at the back. “Yes, you need to see,” I say, putting my arms around Max’s waist and hoisting him up to the side. He is tall for a two-year-old, heavy, and bulky in the orange life jacket. We peer over the edge, watch the crinkled water rising and falling away. There’s a cold wind and a light fog. The sky is stuffed full of cotton-wool balls. Twenty yards away is another boat, packed like an egg box. We are watching a rock covered…

When I heard rumblings that the show I star in, All Rise, would be moving from CBS to OWN, I began having conversations about becoming an executive producer—and I am so happy to say that this dream became a reality. I wake up to emails, and I go to bed to emails. During the day, I’m watching auditions, hopping on Zoom and conference calls in between scenes, squeezing in interviews for publicity, doing costume fittings, and sometimes filming two episodes in a day. I am busy, but it’s the happiest I have ever been. Very few people can say that they star in and executive produce a television show. As a Black woman, it is not lost on me how uniquely special it is to be able to do both…

The Saturday Night Live star is breaking down stereotypes and forging her own path. OPRAH DAILY: You initially thought you’d become a doctor. How did you end up in comedy? EGO NWODIM: I was raised by my Nigerian single mom, and we’ve heard the stories, like “Your Nigerian parents want you to be a doctor.” I knew I wanted to be an actor. I knew the specialties that existed within the medical field, but I had no idea about the specialties and the path one could take with entertainment as an actor. So even when I said I wanted to be an actor, I was like, “That means drama. I’m going to go learn to do drama.” And that’s what I understood acting to be at the time, despite enjoying…

The CEO of Black Girls RUN! is helping women transform their lives by making distance running an essential component of their self-care practice. I started running in my 20s after I hit my heaviest weight and was dealing with high blood pressure. Running helped me reset my health—and reset my purpose in life. I joined Black Girls RUN! as a run ambassador a few months after. Then I became its PR consultant, and in 2018, I became its owner. Black Girls RUN! is more than a running club—it’s a movement that empowers and encourages women to see themselves in spaces they may not have imagined themselves in before. We help members who may not have the money to offset the costs of running for everything from their first 5K to…

OPRAH: Can I just say how thrilled I am to talk to you today? You’re one of those people I’ve been watching from the sidelines for years. Every time I see you in any reporting situation, I think about what Maya Angelou said to me the very first time she met me. I’d begged her to let me interview her. I said: “Just give me five minutes. Please, ma’am, just give me five minutes.” The interview happened. Four minutes and 58 seconds into our conversation, Maya looked at me and said: “Who are you, girl?” like I was really something. That’s how I feel when I watch you: Who is this woman? So who are you, girl? CLARISSA WARD: I’m speechless, honestly, and it’s really hard to make me speechless.…

Try something for me. Close one eye, then spend a minute looking around. Scope out the room, admire the view, scrutinize objects near and far. Now open the closed eye. Boom! Right? You can see pretty well with one eye, but the stereoscopic image you get with both is richer, deeper, and more beautiful. Guess what? Life works in a remarkably similar way. You can live years, even decades, with an obstructed view of the world—believing things that are false to be true, holding fast to things that don’t really matter—until the day your point of view is so thoroughly rattled that you finally see what’s what. That experience is often referred to as a breakthrough. It’s a shift in your understanding of the world, because the lens through which…

Whatever style you choose, comfort is key. As for the wash, a darker shade will always be a bit more polished, and lighter options are great for casual looks.—ADAM…

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A writer’s writer par excellence, Ian McEwan has long been lauded for his fearless imagination and exquisitely calibrated sentences. He mines current affairs—the here and now, the rear-view mirror, and the just-over-the-horizon—steering readers through crises from the Blitz to 9/11 to the war in Iraq. His most famous work, Atonement (which was made into a feature film starring Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan), plays tricks with readers’ expectations. As with Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries or Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet series, quotidian lives reflect the sweep and drama of history. McEwan has never shied away from explosive topics. His characters grapple with unexpected and often murky ethical choices. He dives into moral quandaries at a moment when most authors play it safe, risking “cancellation” from Twitter mobs, willing to boldly…

LEIGH HABER: Your protagonist, jazz musician Circus Palmer, is a Casanova for the ages. Was he inspired by anyone you know? LAURA WARRELL: I dated a rapper as romantically slippery as Circus. I found myself hooked on him, though he had no intention of getting hooked on me. I wanted to explore that attraction. I made Circus a jazz trumpeter with an awareness around his rascally behavior. I’ve had lots of musicians in my life, so there was lots of material to draw from! LH: I’m a jazz lover, and, wow, was it fun to imagine Circus’s trumpet sounds as I read. Did you always love jazz? LW: If I had it to do over, I’d listen to my mother and practice piano so I could become a pro. I…

An article about literary maestro Joyce Carol Oates begs to begin with her renowned productivity. Between her first novel, published at age 26, and her newest, Babysitter, published 58 years later, Oates has written 60 novels—an average of two per year. The books’ subjects, structures, métiers vary. But they all push, slyly or overtly or both, hot cultural buttons: class, gender, race, Chappaquiddick, sexual assault, Marilyn Monroe, abortion, infidelity, cancer, suicide. What’s most astonishing about her oeuvre, though, isn’t volume. It’s craft. Turn to page one of any JCO novel and be carried away by its imaginative story arc, its right-on-time social critique, its distinctive protagonists. And, oh, the writing. Take Babysitter’s first chapter, “She Asks Herself Why,” reproduced here in its entirety. Because he’d touched her. Just her wrist.…

A Note on Representation from Lee Daniels I was 12 years old when I first saw Lady Sings the Blues. Diana Ross. Billy Dee Williams. Black folks looking fabulous. You could smell the fried chicken jumping off the screen. Just as formative, but in such a different way, was the film Claudine. Diahann Carroll’s Claudine was my mother. Beautiful, elegant, without makeup—or Billie Holiday’s money—but rich in spirit, and also a single mother raising six brats in the inner city. It was probably the first time my mom felt seen by Hollywood. I knew in that moment that if I ever made a film, it would have to be as honest and truthful as Claudine. As a budding filmmaker, I dreamed of a cinematic world where complex Black characters like…

In his dispatch from the front in Ukraine, the Detroit native explains how showing emotion while reporting is opening the world’s eyes to the impact of war. A little after 4:30 a.m. on February 24, I woke to the sounds of explosions in the not-too-far distance from my friend’s flat on the southeast side of Kyiv. Our worst fears had come true: The Russians were invading. My friends and family back home in the States pleaded with me to flee while I still could. Being a Black American journalist who has written very critically about Russia…Putin’s military occupation would not be kind to me—nor has it been to many Ukrainians suffering from the Kremlin’s genocide. I decided to stay. Not only to report on what was happening but to continue…

In the early hours of the 21st day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Taisiia Zyma gripped the edges of her hospital bed in Lviv, her pink gel nails digging into her palms. She is blond and blue-eyed, and her dark, tattooed eyebrows were knit together in concentration and pain. With a black T-shirt and colorful blankets bunched around her, black plastic covering the windows behind her to hide the hospital’s lights, she heaved her way through her final moments of labor. Five nurses and a doctor encouraged her, told her to breathe, to keep pushing another person’s child into the world. More than 300 miles away, in Kyiv, the capital of her country, Russian troops were attacking harder and more ruthlessly each day. They hit a civilian apartment block…

When I sat down with CNN war correspondent Clarissa Ward to discuss her revealing and inspirational memoir, On All Fronts, I confess I had a fangirl moment. As I told her during our interview, I’ve been watching her with astonishment and admiration for years as she lands in hot zones around the world, getting people on the ground to tell her their stories. How does she do it? I’ve wondered many times. In situations most of us would flee from, she hunkers down with those who are facing trauma and heartbreak, who are in life-or-death mode, and somehow manages to open her arms—and her heart—to them, giving them comfort by ensuring their stories are heard. In order to move through life as the best versions of ourselves, striving for wisdom…