Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Our Casualties
We were living at the Mount Clinton Internally Displaced Refugee camp outside of Roseville the day his death news came in. It struck something throughout the camp of thousands, like an axe cutting through hard wood…
Tony Magistrale: When Viruses Collide: Covid-19 Meets Stephen King’s The Stand
Published in 1978, The Stand, a narrative that centers on a pandemic virus that decimates 99% of the world’s population, has perhaps hit a bit too close to home.
Mike Schneider: Against Walls | John le Carré (1931-2020)
Among reasons we’ll remember le Carré, not least is his 1963 breakthrough novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Set in Cold War Berlin, it’s a classic story of love and espionage centered on the Berlin Wall, both as physical reality and symbol of separation between people — a wall that resonates with 21st-century politics.
Video: After Anyuta
In this modern reimagining of Anton Chekhov’s short story “Anyuta” (1886), a young woman spends the day posing as a life model for both a medical student and a neighboring artist.
Michael Simms: Civilization and Her Discontents
On the morning of the important day, Civilization woke up on the wrong side of bed again, rolled over and fell on the floor.
David Huddle: What is Unknown
When I tell her I’ve fallen for What Is Unknown, my mother’s face brightens. “She’ll be a good girlfriend for you,” my mother says. “Not stuck up like that trashy Well Known.
Michael Simms: André Breton and the Birth of Surrealism
The Poem was worried. He’d heard rumors of Rondels in other lands being infested with illogic, and there was no known cure.
John Lawson: Climax of a Story Never Told
It’s true: he and his blanket have grown old together here in the corner of the Episcopal church parking lot.
Meg Pokrass: The Interruption
I’ll do the liberating for both of us, doll, he says.
Ariel Dorfman: Sending Trump to Hell
For some time now, I’ve wanted to send Donald Trump to Hell. I mean this literally, not as a figure of speech. I want him to inhabit the palpable, sensory Hell that religions have long conjured up with scenes of sulfur, damnation, and screams of perpetual pain from those who once caused grievous harm to their fellow humans.
Sean Connolly: Sacrifice
You can’t educate a secret. Many defy time and live in the throats of birds chortling about the discovery of the universe, once and always hidden beyond sight.
Meg Pokrass: The Original Life of Bob
Bob’s ego sometimes got stuck and its nobody’s business where.
Susanna Lee: Jim Thompson is the perfect novelist for our crazed times
“The Killer Inside Me” is a testament to moral accountability exultantly shredded, and its resonance today is uncanny.
