in which i don't name names - by Brandon - sweater weather

As I mentioned in my introductory post, Sweater Weather is divided into two kinds of posts: free posts similar to Tuesday’s letter (short, personal pieces, reflections and the like), and paid content like today’s letter, more akin to cultural criticism. I’ll give you advance notice before I implement paid subscriptions. I’m thinking September. I’ll let you know. -- In the second year of my MFA program, I decided that I would give all of my black characters these incredibly ethnic European names. I wanted to create turbulence at the level of the name, to invite the reader to ask themselves if they felt any tension at a black character being named Hartjes, Fyodor, Anke, Goran, or Timo. I wanted to shift the axis of othering, to invert expectations about names and acceptability. Were the names too loud? Did it make people wonder who are these people to be named this? I also just had a lot of fun coming up with absurd names for characters. But it also challenged me as a writer to consider

As I mentioned in my introductory post, Sweater Weather is divided into two kinds of posts: free posts similar to Tuesday’s letter (short, personal pieces, reflections and the like), and paid content like today’s letter, more akin to cultural criticism. I’ll give you advance notice before I implement paid subscriptions. I’m thinking September. I’ll let you know. -- In the second year of my MFA program, I decided that I would give all of my black characters these incredibly ethnic European names. I wanted to create turbulence at the level of the name, to invite the reader to ask themselves if t