October 2016
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Maybe the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can finally get us a flying car? Elsewhere: the Hyperloop is getting closer every day. Disgusting worm sex. Here’s your whimsical architecture tumblr for the day. Don’t worry, Dutch vacuum cleaners will save us all.
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The Rumpus Interview with Lee Clay Johnson
Lee Clay Johnson discusses his novel Nitro Mountain, growing up with bluegrass musician parents, and what people are capable of under the right set of circumstances.
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Facing the Unknowable
For So to Speak, Madeleine Wattenberg interviews writer Anne Valente. In discussing Valente’s latest book, Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down, they touch on magical realism, using multiple points of view to tell a story, and how literature can engage with contemporary…
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The Other John Reed
Writer John Reed is a genre buster. His new book, Free Boat: Collected Lies and Love Poems, is a collection of sonnets about love scenarios mostly gone amok, which he began sharing on Facebook some time back. Gee Henry interviews…
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Running with Ears
Derek Teslik tackles the importance of running for an author—and listening to Joyce audiobooks while doing so—in an essay over at The Millions: So, for this last run, I wanted to up the mental game somehow, maybe simulate the brutality of…
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Jay Z Nominated for Hall of Fame
Jay Z became the first rapper to be nominated to the Songwriters Hall of Fame this weekend, when he was named as a potential 2017 candidate alongside Madonna, Bryan Adams, George Michael, Gloria Estefan, Cat Stevens, Sylvester “Sly Stone” Stewart, Kenneth “Babyface”…
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Fresh Comics #12: Rolling Blackouts
Some books take such a mammoth effort to produce that it’s hard to want to be critical of them. Rolling Blackouts is one of those books. The nearly 300 pages of delicately crafted, watercolored panels make evident that Sarah Glidden is a…
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 4): “Roosters”
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare // with stupid eyes / while from their beaks there rise / the uncontrolled, traditional cries.
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Deplorable Men Need Love Too
She went on to become a Siberian housewife. He went on to call for the executions of ten million Russians. But she thought back on their evenings drinking and dancing. He sang songs to her in his sweet, high voice.…
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Next Letter in the Mail: Idra Novey
We’re getting ready to send out our next Letter in the Mail, and it’s from Idra Novey! Idra writes to us in Penn Station, where she’s waiting for an Amtrak train to Philadelphia for a reading, about all the baffling revelations a day of public…
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Scrabbling Love
While I was in residential treatment, my Scrabble games with my mom slowed down. We both lingered over our turns, taking longer than usual to make the next move. Normally I rush to play my turn, keeping the tab open…
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Inquiring Minds in Saugerties, New York installed a window display with the words “Make America Hate Again,” along with a swastika, to protest Trump. Hilarity Protests ensued. Minnesota has some cozy bookstores. Barnes & Noble wants to build smaller stores with more…