2011
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“Getting bin Laden”
Nicholas Schmidle’s article in the New Yorker delves into the details of the night in Abottabad when Osama Bin Laden was killed. The band of 23 Navy SEALs concealed within two Black Hawks, modified to fly undetected into Pakistani territory.…
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“Of course we had no money. Of course we had no love.”
Andrew Sean Greer remembers the night Clinton was elected, living in New York at the end of the Reagan and Bush Republican era, being young and wanting to be a part in gay history in the 90’s. This piece is…
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Travel Fail?
You know that pervasive storyline that says that travel will transform you, change your life, and help you find yourself? What if that does not happen; have you “failed” at travel? This essay considers that question, and takes notice of…
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Writers and their Snack Choices
What kind of caloric encouragement do writers need to get through a day? Snack choices are among the most important quotidian decisions we make, and often we’re consistent with the ones that work best. Our very own Wendy MacNaughton charts…
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Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusement Coming Soon
A brand new festival called Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusement is making its way to Chicago this September, with the aim of reinventing Vaudeville in a contemporary context with some hybrid musical/carnivalesque acts. If it seems like this is a…
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Remember Your Favorite Teacher?
Dave Eggers writes about the teacher that inspired him to write—a relatable meditation on wanting to impress his favorite high school mentor who initially piqued his interest in the literary arts, and how this memory extends to the importance of…
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Writing About Home
“You try having a father who isn’t equal to you in size. It’s not easy. His boots are always bigger. His hands are always bigger. He can reach things I can’t. At fifteen I find my voice is deeper than…
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The Last Poem I Loved: “Figures in a Landscape” by Gail Mazur
Figure, noun, a person’s bodily shape or a person seen indistinctly, especially at a distance. A representation of a human in a drawing or a sculpture, a shape defined by lines, a pattern formed by the movements of groups of…
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Rose Gowen: The Last Book I Loved, A Book of Memories
After I read Péter Nádas’s beautiful novella, “Le nu féminine en mouvement,” in the Winter 2010 issue of The Paris Review, I couldn’t believe it: who is this writer? Why had I never heard of him before? How did he…
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Tragic Literary Ends
Publisher’s Weekly is attempting to deconstruct that fateful link between writers and tragic deaths through the anecdotal ends of some of the literary greats. Tennessee Williams choked on a bottle cap, Sir Francis Bacon got a fatal case of pneumonia…
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Sarah Simpson: The Last Books I Loved, Peace and War and Peace
Knowing that War and Peace is Richard Bausch’s favorite book, it seemed only right—especially considering its title—that I read his latest novel, Peace, on the heels of Count Tolstoy’s tome. Its brevity also appealed to me. After spending six months…