2011
-

The Night is a God’s Wound
This [collection] is a rare effort to “open the window” for western readers onto the last fifty years of Chinese poetics.
-

Poverty Mapped
While a 2003 report announced progress in the reduction of poverty, a new Brookings report has found that “between 2000 and 2005-09, the population in extremely poor neighborhoods climbed by more than one-third, from 6.6 million to 8.7 million.” The…
-

Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
In case you were wondering, yes there is a “gecko-inspired tank robot” out there, and yes it can scale walls. “Did you know that hard candy is actually a glass?” Wait. What? “The Kitten Covers” are, thankfully, exactly what they…
-

Writing With A Pen
“For me, writing longhand is an utterly personal task where the outer world is closed off, just my thoughts and the movement of my hand across the page to keep me company. The whole process keeps me in touch with…
-

Blogging While Female
In an article at NewStatesman about sexist abuse online, nine bloggers reveal their experience with abusive, mysoginist comments, as well as rape and death threats. Blogger digby added an interesting perspective on the subject, explaining that when people assumed her…
-

On Being Gassed
“Strangely, as I stared at the back of my left hand, scorched and black after a tear gas canister fired by police hit me in the stomach and exploded, I didn’t want it to be news.” Bay Citizen editor, Steve…
-

Novels and Politics
“When even cheese cannot be free of politics, how can literature?” So asks Ruth Franklin in this New Republic piece, which ponders whether novels and politics should mix, finding insight in the work of writers Irmgard Keun and Amos Oz.…
-

DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #89: The Thing That Turns You On
What is it you’re hungry for, dear one, and why?
-

NaNoWriMo Mix
Working on your novel for National Novel Writing Month? Here’s a mixtape “to drive you on, to inspire you, to sustain you, to help you break through writer’s block, and to simply keep you clattering away at the keys.”