Our Writers, Our Alcoholics

In nearly every context, being an alcoholic is considered a bad thing. This is not news. But when it comes to creative fields, especially writing,

Back to Reality

When you make your living working with fiction, every now and then you start to crave something “real.” It’s a deeper feeling than one that’s

The Necessity of War Poems

For most of us, war exists in our minds as something far away. We hear things, terrible things, but they’re always secondhand, diluted by geography

Videogames: Art or Not?

Unless you were on your ninth straight hour of bingeing the newest Harry Potter book your parents probably didn’t need to demand that you put

Bad Behavior

Here’s a question the public typically reserves for our pop artists and athletes: how do we expect our writers to behave? My initial answer would

The Post-Racial Myth

“When the president of the most powerful country in the world doesn’t need to care what the facts are, then we can be sure we

The Many Faces of Russia

It’s never been simple for Americans to picture Russia. One second we’re thinking of it warmly as a key ally in the Second World War,

Keep the End Times Rollin’

Here’s a word that’s both specific and open-ended at once: apocalypse. A vast majority of people from all walks of life agree that, at some

2010: A Midwest State of Mind

Quick: where do writers live? Many people when faced with that question envision New York City. The thought conjures images of lofts on the Lower

2002: The Everything Fight

In a presidential election cycle that has been wild and controversial, something really unexpected just happened, and in the window of time before candidates, parties,