Ohio
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Athens, Georgia is home to a new radical bookstore, Bombs Away Books. The anarchist bookshop not only sells books, but is a DIY music venue featuring punk shows. A specialty bookstore dedicated to self-published authors is ready to open in…
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The Rumpus Interview with Les Standiford
Prolific writer and Director of the FIU Creative Writing Program Les Standiford takes a look back at his career in books, including Water to the Angels and Bringing Adam Home, and tells us what’s next.
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The University Press That Doesn’t Exist
As part of austerity measures, the University of Akron eliminated its university press. The director and two staff members were both let go as part of budget-trimming layoffs. The press focused on regionally significant publications that chronicled Ohio history, culture…
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Pedal-Powered Libraries
Huron, Ohio has a new library branch. Unlike the existing libraries, this one is mounted on a tricycle. The innovative library contains a foldout display case mounted between its wheels.
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Dispatches from the Rust Belt
Morning Edition interviews writer and journalist David Giffels about his new book, The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt. Giffels writes about his choice to remain in Akron, Ohio when everyone around him seemed to be leaving,…
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The Last City I Loved: Los Angeles (or How I Traveled the NY-LA Fault Line and Got Home)
I always had the sense that I was American but never more so than when I moved from New York to California over twenty years ago.
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“Heck yes I’m willing to do this, I love peanut butter!”
Have you been searching for a collection of peanut-butter related news to no avail? Look no further: There’s a peanut-butter craving thief on the prowl in Ohio, who comes into a gas station most evenings after midnight and “snatches Reese’s…
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Southern Enlightenment
With healthy doses of Axl Rose and methamphetamines, two new collections, from journalist John Jeremiah Sullivan and crime fiction writer Frank Bill, call forth the power of place and personal history in the Shallow South.
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The Rumpus Interview with Donald Ray Pollock
I tried to put a lot of humor in Knockemstiff because the things that happen in my stories—if there wasn’t any humor, by the time you finished reading the book you’d probably want to kill yourself.”