Voices as Diverse as the Gulf itself.

Founded by Phillip Lopate and Donald Barthelme in 1986, Gulf Coast is a journal of literature, art, and critical art writing, publishing contributors who represent a flow of international cultures, voices, and aesthetics. Through programs and publications, and in collaboration with the University of Houston, Gulf Coast brings consequential art and writing to an engaged audience.

Learn more: see our masthead and executive board information here.

Features

Once Again I Fall Into My Family Grave: Winner of the 2021 Barthelme Prize

Sophia Stid

In my blood, a continent. All the warring countries—almost reconciled. They breathe together as they weave through the marbleized muscle of my heart, taking their communion of oxygen, amen.

Stupid Prayer: On God and Solitude in Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona

The God of this novel is infinite, inside everything, and yet its absence can be felt on every page. This diffuse and elusive God requires a different kind of prayer, one that is collective and connecting, and so, much of the small action of the novel—the hand-holding, cloud-watching, and land-working—carries the weight of prayer.

From the GC Blog

Losing the Plot: On Lauren Berlant's Desire/Love

Christina McCausland

In their entry on love, Berlant writes that we tend to (mistakenly) use the objects our desire attaches to in order to assume an identity— “you know who you ‘are’ only by interpreting…

Feeling Political

Anthony Sutton

For Berlant, part of the problem of politics is that marginalized people have to accommodate the feelings of their majority counterparts in order to successfully exist in public, or…

Berlant’s Phraseology: An Impression

Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué

Lauren Berlant was ripe for imitation. Some young scholars imitated them in their writing in the hopes of being taken more seriously, disgruntled students imitated them as a way of…