in still rooms
“We lived in that house before. Died in it too.”
IN STILL ROOMS
Published via The Operating System—a radical experiment in open-sourced archival documentation, access to & distribution of print / digital resources, & platform for anti-hierarchical peer-to-peer learning / experimentation / collaboration—IN STILL ROOMS is my debut print-document, which came into the world on March 4th, 2020.
A strange hybrid—a short novel structured as an Ancient Greek drama punctuated by poems spoken by the House—the book is ultimately a kindof grief exercise. A close-quarters epic where emotions are events, memories the action. You can order a physical copy via Bookshop dot org, supporting local independent bookstores in the process. In our commitment to accessibility & open sharing of resources / documentation, you may also download a PDF of the book at no cost via our Open Access Community Publications Library. Both these links are below.
kin(d)* words
The Operating System has always understood itself as an explicitly queer project: not only insofar as that it was founded, consistently produces work by, and is staffed by primarily queer creative practitioners, but also in its commitment to queering the normative forms and expectation of that practice. If to queer something is to “take a look at its foundations and question them,” troubling its limits, biases, and boundaries, seeking possibilities for evolution and transformation, then queering is written into the DNA of the Operating System’s mission in every action and project, regardless of the orientation or gender of its maker.
However: while all the publications and projects we support encourage radical divergence and innovation, we are equally dedicated to re-centering the canon through committing parts of our catalog to amplifying those most in danger of erasure. First, this took to the form of our translation and archival oriented Glossarium: Unsilenced Texts series, started in 2016, and in 2018 we made concrete our already active mission to work with creators challenging gender normativity with our KIN(D)* Texts & Projects series. Projects and publications under the KIN(D)* moniker are those developed by creators who are transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, androgynous, third gender, agender, intersex, bigender, hijra, two-spirit, and/or whose gender identity refuses a label.
—Elæ Moss, Founder & Creative Director of The OS/Liminal Lab
"Misted by the East Tennessee mountains, the house at the center of In Still Rooms echoes with the fading words of a family's Greek heritage and the unsteady steps of two siblings trying to edge out into the world. Bereft of their Greek-American matriarch, Eleni and her twin brother Evan must put their own specters to bed and venture into their own possibilities. Their house becomes an intimate amphitheater of memory and discovery. Written in lovingly evocative and poetic prose, and animated by a sharp-edged chorus of Southern ghosts as well as the ultimate voice of the house itself, Constantine Jones's beautiful debut novel gives us a story infused with the power of mythic places past and present, ancient and American."
—David Groff, author of Clay and Theory of Devolution
"Constantine Jones is a prophet for our times. Their writing contains truths, ghosts, gods, love, the unknown, the past, the present, and the future. "But it's alright every now and again," the narrator says, which is a constant theme throughout the book, showcasing that life is neither one thing or the other, but gradient of everything. How do the characters react? This book is a case study in humans and how they act in all times, with grief and love and loss. Families, family identity in America, and how families function and dysfunction is such a crucial part of our everyday lives, and for the lives of Greek Americans and Greek American immigrants. This is a wonderful look into that world, both familial and religious, and examines the roles all family members fall into, and perhaps, out of, fluidly and not so fluidly.
—Joanna C. Valente, author of Marys of the Sea and editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault