New York Times,
Catapult, and
Epiphany. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction from New York University. Alisson teaches creative writing at her alma mater and at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. She is the founder and editor in chief of
Pigeon Pages, a New York City literary journal and reading series. Alisson was a winner of the inaugural Breakout 8 Award from the Author’s Guild and
Epiphany.
Apr 22, 2021
All that mattered, we told ourselves, was what we saw when we looked in the mirror, what we saw when we looked at each other.
Don’t look in here
, she tells me, saying four words every moderator hopes to hear inside a respondent’s home. This is the moment when a shower curtain is the only thing between me and what she does not want me to see. But like a child told not to look directly into the sun, my looking is inevitable when conducting market research in a “consumer’s natural habitat.”
I inch closer as she pulls back the vinyl sheet, repeatedly telling me not to look, while simultaneously showing me her drain, then the corners of the tub, and then the lining of the trash can. She grabs a hairbrush and lifts it above her head, like an injured bird displaying its wing, for the clients in the hallway who can’t fit in the bathroom.
Jan 21, 2021
The largest archive of footage of myself, ages twenty-three to thirty-years-old, never belonged to me but is owned by brands.
This is Focus Group Archives, a column by Katiy Heath about navigating womanhood and identity within the beauty industry s white corporate gaze.
Days before moving, I deleted my social media accounts. I entered my new apartment with little furniture, no photographs of myself no indication of an identity pre-divorce. Because if I could erase all traces of my married self, then I could carry on acting as though that entire phase of my life never happened. I assumed this was required for my fresh start.