fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
As I write this I've just finished reading Volume Three of the incredible Saga series of comics by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. From the opening page of Volume One, I've been completely enthralled with Saga and yet I haven't so much as considered writing about the series or, if I did, what I [...]
The Queue is a recurring excuse for me to talk about songs or albums in short form. I'm bending that formula a bit today to discuss The Peer Pleasure Podcast which I've been binging lately. Let’s investigate a few of my favorite episodes. Ep. 147 – Bobby Darling (Gatsbys American Dream) The first episode of [...]
A writer's creative space is sacred, or at least that's the impression that everyone on the internet wants you to have. And, in fairness, they're not necessarily wrong. Every writer I know, along with the graphic designers, musicians and creators of whatever else, has a favorite place to settle in and get to the messy [...]
Like a lot of you, I often turn to music for escape when I'm stressed. I'm less interested in the science of why we do this than I am in the choices we make of what to listen to. Broadly speaking, classical music should offer the most stress release but—even though there are a handful [...]
"Tell me what democracy looks like," said a young black man. His words, amplified through a megaphone, carried across the intersection to where we stood. "This is what democracy looks like," came the response from the crowd that had flooded each of the four corners of our city's small downtown. We wore masks and stood [...]
We are living in a fraught, historic time and right now it feels nearly impossible to think about anything save the unrest that grips the nation and the onslaught of dangers that beset black Americans and other systemically disenfranchised minorities. As a member of the privileged white middle class, I make a less than compelling [...]
"Liz Lemon isn't funny." That's all it said. One text, lobbed like a grenade into a group text without any pretext. It was incendiary. It started a war. We're still sorting through the carnage. To be clear about which side I stand on, let me say this very clearly: Liz Lemon is very, very funny. [...]
We're five months into a global pandemic and the world is (still) on fire. If you listen closely, above the raucous tumult of daily news briefings and abrasively selfish protestors, you can hear the soft whine of every single person on earth collectively screaming through clenched teeth. We all need a break. We all need [...]
Rocannon's World may not be one of the first dozen Ursula K. Le Guin books that I'd recommend but the novel did birth a legacy that, rather appropriately, stretches through time from the story's 1966 publication through the present day. Needing a means of communication that could bridge the time-dilation gap of faster than light [...]
Like every other card carrying millennial, I was disappointed when HAIM delayed their upcoming third album, the aptly titled Women in Music Pt. III, due to concerns arising from COVID-19. Is there nothing that this novel coronavirus cannot ruin? The pain of this delay is made all the greater by the album's absolutely killer first [...]
Songs & Stories 