Several of us on the Editorial Board are big fans of audio books, podcasts and just being read to. Some of us are truly expansive in our listening tastes—anything really, from L’Engle to Levinas to the laundry list, as long as it is well read. Some of us are distracted enough that audio listening is fast becoming a new commonplace of our overall reading experience. We launch this new project, Writers Read, to integrate the expanding auditory space of the written word into the experience of X-TRA.

In 20 years of publishing art writing, X-TRA has been most on point when the quality of insight and writing align with the writer’s interest in an almost alchemical way, to make a piece of writing that is both exemplary and inspired. Authors of great capacity may write many things, but some essays are emblematic of what each writer most aspires to in their writing. Over time, these essays become personal high watermarks. This online series comes out of discussions with writers about these threshold pieces. We launch Writers Read with this offering written, chosen and read by Leslie Dick. 

Leslie Dick reads her text, “Intentional Accidents: Reflections on Sarah Charlesworth’s Stills,” from X-TRA Volume 18, number 3, Spring 2016. To read along, find the article text here.

Leslie Dick is a writer who lives in Los Angele