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Lyz Lenz

Lyz’s writing has been published in the New York Times Motherlode, Jezebel, Aeon, Pacific Standard, and others. Her book on midwestern churches is forthcoming from Indiana University Press. She has her MFA from Lesley and skulks about on Twitter @lyzl. Lyz is a member of The Rumpus Advisory Board and a full-time staff writer for the Columbia Journalism Review.
  • Lyz Lenz

    Walking the Road Into Mordor

    A Tolkien scholar writes about how he fought off a lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate: I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and put my research skills to work on my defense. Unfortunately, the case law was sparse. The…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Women Dying from Being Women

    Anne Boyer writes about the history of breast cancer for The New Inquiry. There is no disease more calamitous to women’s intellectual history than breast cancer: this is because there is no disease more distinctly calamitous to women. There is…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Journalism vs. Silicon Valley

    What is really at the heart of the debate over The New Republic? The tension between an engineering culture and an editorial culture is …damaging and oversimplified … but definitely real. At the recent Newsgeist conference – a coming-together of…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Weekly Geekery

    Save this as a bookmark. You writer nerds are going to need it. Assange on Orwell and, of course, the Internet. The seven wonders of the modern technological age. Why the Internet is a portal to our own darkness. Working…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Walking With Cheryl Strayed

    Time works strange changes on the world. Some things grow dull, some grow wild, some erode past legibility. After Strayed saved her life, after she told her story, after that story became a best seller, strangers started asking her what…

  • Lyz Lenz

    The Fantastic Joseph Conrad

    In honor of Joseph Conrad’s birthday on December 3, the Paris Review blog posted Conrad’s author’s note to The Shadow Line, which ruminates on marvels and mysteries.

  • Lyz Lenz

    Weekly Geekery

    The intricacies of Spambot sexuality. Refining the language of the online review. Is threatening to cut someone in the comments section protected speech? Sure, I know. You can quit Twitter anytime you want to. The science of sainthood.

  • Lyz Lenz

    Weekly Geekery

    Rewriting Barbie. Unlocking your Internet password. Unlocking your soul. Trolls then and now. Science of your spit. Who runs the web? This is your face on Facebook.

  • Lyz Lenz

    Flynn and Strayed, Together At Last

    Cheryl Strayed and Gillian Flynn discuss ladies and likability in their writing: It never occurred to me, not once, that the book would be read as an inspirational tale. I really have no interest in likability when it comes to…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Of Bacon and Transgression

    On The Butter, Syed Ali Hader writes about his complicated relationship with pork: I thought I would be found out. It was in my hair, my nails, and sweating through my pores. Surely my parents could smell it on me.…

  • Lyz Lenz

    Weekly Geekery

    When we fight about Buzzfeed. Your laptop will soon be more emotionally intelligent than most people. Printing out people. This is your creativity. This is your creativity on the Internet. Telegraphic literature.

  • Lyz Lenz

    O’Connor Memorialized

    Peacocks, poetry, and one of America’s most enduring authors. Upon entering the cathedral for the small induction ceremony, attendees were greeted by two gigantic, sparkling sculptures suspended from the ceiling—they are phoenixes, part of an installation by the Chinese artist…