PhD student & translator (French-English) studying medieval West Africa, eunuchs, and the Mediterranean. Plus contributing editor at The Auflauf and the Public Domain Reviewhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mjyxosbioc2oHilda Hoy might just be able to change the way you think about multilingualism, migration and motherhood – I had a wonderful time talking with her about her memoir MOTHER TONGUE, just out from @windandbones.com. https://theauflauf.substack.com/p/hilda-hoy-well-i-exist-surely-there21 Apr 2026 12:18 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjyxosbioc2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mjmnq22btc2bWrote about the U.S.'s first experimental film, which is about twice as experimental as you're imagining and was shot in a barn by a group of amateurs: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fall-of-the-house-of-usher/16 Apr 2026 14:48 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjmnq22btc2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mivdownapc2wA wonderful set of reviews: @ajbwells.bsky.social on poems from Palestine's greatest living poet; @return2sanders.bsky.social on unsettling short prose from the Yenish writer; and @biettetimmons.bsky.social on the book we're all supposed to be reading. (Plus our gossip columnist goes lyrical.) https://theauflauf.substack.com/p/april-books-zaqtan-mehr-biedermann07 Apr 2026 08:17 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mivdownapc2whttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mij5nyaeak2eDeath was a big business in nineteenth-century London: between body-snatchers and unscrupulous start-up cemeteries, everybody was hustling the departed for cash. A real pleasure to publish this essay by @theprofrog.bsky.social, adapted from his wonderful new book about the history of the graveyard. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-great-majority/02 Apr 2026 11:57 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mij5nyaeak2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mhy325mmik2aIn 1896, the great German Romantics Goethe and Schiller teamed up for their very first joint project: writing 675 bitchy poems. "These brisk verses, revering the good, will annoy the philistine, / Ridicule bigots, and smite hypocrites, as they deserve." (Philistines were, indeed, annoyed). https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/xenions/26 Mar 2026 16:55 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhy325mmik2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mhy2pqwthc2aMonet apparently got his start doing caricatures – he later said that if he had stuck with it, he would have become a millionaire: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/claude-monet-caricatures/26 Mar 2026 16:49 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhy2pqwthc2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mhsabwvmas2d"In the garden, they play at naming people. What’s your brother’s name? What’s your sister’s name? What’s your name? And what’s my name?" Such a pleasure to publish two short stories, by @katyderbyshire.bsky.social and Roxie Perkins, each about taking care of something that somehow takes over you. https://theauflauf.substack.com/p/short-fiction-by-katy-derbyshire24 Mar 2026 09:13 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhsabwvmas2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mhan4jom6s2b"I like comics because it’s kind of a bastard medium, and I think graphic narrative theater is too. It’s the vision." Ken Krimstein talked to @return2sanders.bsky.social about writing novel about Hannah Arendt – and then seeing it become a play at the Deutsches Theater. https://theauflauf.substack.com/p/ken-krimstein-i-wanted-to-look-at17 Mar 2026 09:14 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhan4jom6s2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mgmlih4kzc2nIn HERLAND, Charlotte Perkins Gilman asks the question: what if every man in a remote Andean society died and the women then discovered how to reproduce by parthenogenesis? Her answer: that would be really great actually. My latest for @publicdomainrev.bsky.social https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/herland/09 Mar 2026 09:52 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgmlih4kzc2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mg5htpkjqs2mAnother great set of books this month: Matthew McDonald's debut poetry collection @ajbwells.bsky.social; Julia Franck's autobiographical novel @return2sanders.bsky.social; and Agri Ismaïl's account of dislocation and late capitalism @brynstole.bsky.social. Plus some EXPLOSIVE new gossip... https://theauflauf.substack.com/p/march-books-mcdonald-franck-ismail03 Mar 2026 09:37 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg5htpkjqs2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/mathildegm.bsky.social/post/3mfmm5z6rns2gWhat's one of the great openings to a story, poem, novel or essay?24 Feb 2026 16:39 +0000at://did:plc:dydj6n2a2evi7qdvmfpnne7m/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfmm5z6rns2g