Antonia Crane’a sex-worker memoir, Spent, from Barnacle Books: 

Recruited as a sensual-massage therapist by her friend Kara, Crane finds herself in a compromising situation. The allure of easy money has brought her to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills on Christmas Day for a four-hand massage. The client, a widower with a skin condition who is “covered in tiny scabs,” predictably wants sex and is willing to double the fee. Are they interested? 

With a quick glance from Kara, Crane bolts to the bathroom for condoms, and then they go to work: “I looked into Kara’s blank blue eyes and our tongues met in circles around the latex condom. I tasted the sour plastic of new tires, party balloons, and hospital gloves.”

Ode to Joy in Hobart

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I contributed an essay for Hobart’s annual baseball extravaganza about the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yasiel Puig, and a friend’s illness. It’s called Ode to Joy. 

Carl Crawford lifted a high fly ball way up in the azure sky for a no-doubt-about-it home run, and hung there in the air for long enough to change everything. It was the strangest thing. The volume got so loud that it transcended the audible realm and enlisted other senses. Our bodies shook, but we were absolutely still. Speech wasn’t possible yet we were all in communication with each other. It was grand, it was glorious, and we were all witnesses to something extraordinary.