Kelsey Ford, Author at Bright Wall/Dark Room

This is the story of Gawain: crashing through in-progress myths that don’t belong to him, brushing against gods. This is the story of Gawain, stumbling through the forest, his soul bared, searching: For himself, sure, but most importantly, for his legend.

In the Mood for Clues

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 99: Desert Island Movies

I’m drawn to Clue and In the Mood for Love, two movies that probably couldn’t be more different, because in both, characters use storytelling to investigate their cratered lives.

Writing Life: On Shirley, Muses, and Depression

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 86: Dealer's Choice

I’d love to know what it’s like to be a writer who doesn’t struggle with anxiety and depression, the sort of writer who doesn’t identify with Shirley, curled beneath her sheets in a blacked-out bedroom.

Chris Pine in KNIVES OUT | art by Brianna Ashby

My House, My Coffee, My Rules

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 79: Best of 2019

Kelsey Ford on murder mysteries, gentleman sleuths, and Rian Johnson's Knives Out.

Imperfect Mortal Beings

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

Mike Mills' Beginners and 20th Century Women are both deeply personal and generous films, acknowledging how impossible it is to ever truly know one’s parent or child.

Chungking Express (1994) | art by Tony Stella

Love You for 10,000 Years

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 69: 1994

In Chungking Express, everything is important—every can of pineapple, every dripping towel, every loop of “California Dreamin’”—mimicking that all-encompassing feeling of infatuation. These small items hold an entire story, the heartbreak and the hope and the waiting.

Annihilation (2018) | Paramount Pictures

When Our Bodies Are Not Our Homes

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 67: Best of 2018

In both The Haunting of Hill House and Annihilation, landscapes are the loci of the characters’ malfunctions. Hill House and Area X, respectively, give their characters a place to focus their energy—and then use that energy, that sense of comfort, to undo them.

A scene from The Skin I Live In | Sony Pictures Classics

Slashed Beauty: On Female Masks in The Skin I Live In, Eyes Without a Face, and Under the Skin

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 53: Head Trips

Women aren’t the stories you think their bodies tell you.

That Which Is and Is Not: On Twin Peaks and Trauma

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 51: David Lynch

As a season, Twin Peaks: The Return contains itself; it answers its own questions and then undoes its entirety.

Of Meat & Mediums: On Raw and Personal Shopper

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 48: The Hero's Journey

In each film, by the end, you feel you know the character’s fears, their monstrous wants and needs—and the ways they fight the snowballing desire within.

A Body is a Heavy Thing

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 45: Studio Ghibli

In Howl’s Moving Castle, bodily curses abound; in this world, you can be betrayed by your body as easily as you can betray it.

A Town by the Sea

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 43: Best of 2016

On Manchester by the Sea and the weight of grief.